The Bowdoin Orient

 James Jelin ’16 has never wanted to go into politics. Yet, he took a leave of absence this semester, postponing a semester abroad in Germany to work full-time as the York County Field Organizer for Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.

“I actively did not want to go into politics because I didn’t think I was going to come across a candidate like Shenna,” said Jelin.

For Jelin, the position offered the opportunity to be involved in national politics and filled a void he had felt on campus.

“I was interning with her over the summer and I was having a really good experience,” said Jelin. “I feel like I’ve been looking for an opportunity to really be able to create positive change. I’d been exploring opportunities on campus, but nothing quite seemed like the thing that I was really so passionate about.”

As an intern, Jelin worked in Bellows’ Portland office while living on campus. His responsibilities included making calls, tracking event turnout and looking up events in the area where the Bellows campaign needed to have a presence.

With summer winding down, Jelin started to consider a full-time job instead of going abroad to Germany in the fall.

The campaign’s field director Debbie Atwood offered Jelin the job, and he chose to accept it. Bowdoin was also supportive of Jelin’s decision to take a leave of absence and postpone his study abroad plans.In an interview with the Orient last fall, Dean of First Year Students Janet Lohmann emphasized the College’s support for students who take a leave of absence.

“Students who spend time away are served well,” she said. “They grow in wonderful ways. When they come back here, they’re ready to get the best of what Bowdoin has to offer.”

In order to take a leave of absence to pursue nonacademic interests, a student must acquire their dean’s approval, continue to consult with his academic advisor and be in good academic and social standing with the College.

“It was so much easier than I thought it would be,” said Jelin. “I wasn’t going to be there [Bowdoin] this semester because of Germany. So it just sort of became about what I was going to be doing instead.”

Although now he will graduate in the fall of 2016, Jelin says that he feels that his work for Bellows is worthwhile, especially because it will allow him to address what he finds problematic in the political system. 

“What I’m doing in this job is fighting for working class representation in our government, and I can’t think of something more inspirational than that,” he said.

The biggest difference between his internship and his position as the York County Field Organizer is an increase in time and responsibility. Jelin currently works every day and up to 80 hours per week. 

As a field organizer, he is in charge of voter contact for the campaign in his region. This includes delegating field assignments, training and managing volunteers, organizing events and making calls.

“It’s a huge responsibility to be managing this because there are people all across the county who are really passionate about Shenna Bellows and it is my responsibility to make sure that they get into the office—and that I’m there to train them,” said Jelin.

At this point in the campaign, however, he is most focused on making persuasion calls.

“That’s how we reach voters. That’s how we get people to change their minds. You have one-on-one conversations with them and it works,” said Jelin. “It’s really exciting to learn how to really have a conversation with somebody in a way that they will listen.”

Jelin also feels that his semester off has made him better appreciate his time at Bowdoin. 

“It’s made me realize what Bowdoin is for, why it is important to get an education at a place like Bowdoin,” he said. “I think more people should take breaks. And I feel like a mid-school break has been so much more useful than a gap year.”

“So now I’ve had some of it [Bowdoin], and I know what that experience is, and now I’ve left and I’ve had a taste of what the real world is and what I want to do,” he added. “And now I can come back to Bowdoin and focus on the things that are going to equip me to be even better at that when I go out into the real world.”

As the November 4 election grows closer, Jelin is excited to rally more support during the final leg of the campaign.

“It’s so clear to me that this is what I needed to do,” said Jelin. “A lot of people don’t know what to do so they’re not going to do anything, but that is why Shenna Bellows is so important. With a grassroots campaign, it is important that we get the support now.”

Jelin plans to return to Bowdoin this spring, fulfill his plans to study in Germany next fall, and graduate in the fall of 2016.

“Frankly, when I get back on campus, I don’t know what I’ll do next because it’s a lot less obvious,” said Jelin. “But the next time I see a problem and I have an opportunity to be a part of the solution, I intend to take it.”

Steve Roggenbuck, a 26-year-old rising Internet bard with nearly 15,000 Twitter followers, shared his work on campus last week. 

Many of us have thought at one time, “My professor is wrong.” And some of us have felt the urge to abandon college and pursue something we are more passionate about. But few of us ever act on these moments. Steve Roggenbuck, a rising poet best known for his viral YouTube videos, did exactly that. 

After completing a degree in English at Central Michigan University, Roggenbuck began courses at Columbia College Chicago for his Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Poetry. However, when his professors discouraged his more playful poetry—inspired by beat writers and Walt Whitman—he eventually dropped out. 

In the spirit of Date-apalooza, the Bowdoin Orient and the Alliance for Sexual Assault Prevent (ASAP) present: “It’s a date!” This two-time feature details the hilarious, awkward and romantic experience of two Bowdoin students who agree to be set up on a blind dinner date. These Bowdoin students might not find true love, but they might just find out that dating isn’t nearly as terrifying as it seems. 

This week, Emma Patterson ’16 and Tom Peabody ’14 got to know each over dinner at Frontier. 

What would be your date’s spirit animal?

Have you ever seen a "shrunken head"? Did you know James Bowdoin’s set of dueling pistols are still on campus? And what about the Tiffany and Co. bracelet Joshua Chamberlain gave his wife in honor of his victories in battle? 

Better yet, what do all of these objects have in common with one another?

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is reintroducing campus to these pieces and more like them from the depths of 20,000 works of art in its collections with the new exhibition, “The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections.” The show opens on November 7 and will run through June 8, 2014. 

Would you rather do a naked lap around the Quad or go to class naked? For a select few on campus, the latter is the easy choice. 

Every year, the visual arts department hires Bowdoin students and members of the Brunswick community, both male and female, as nude models for the Drawing I and Drawing II classes. 

“The tradition of using a model in drawing classes goes back hundreds of years and has been a part of every art class that I’ve ever taken or taught,” said Adjunct Lecturer Jessica Gandolf, who teaches Drawing I.

In their first months as Co-Directors of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Anne and Frank Goodyear settled into their new positions—and made strides to bring the museum into the digital age.

The couple moved to Brunswick last May after more than a decade in D.C. at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. And though the Bowdoin Museum of Art may be a smaller scale operation, the Goodyears feel at home. 

“There are actually a lot of similarities between Bowdoin and the Smithsonian,” said Anne Goodyear. “I think the quest to produce and disseminate knowledge is one of the things that is very similar about the two institutions and this understanding that culture is protected to serve a higher good and that intellectual mission is extremely important to us.”

With more than 100 student-run organizations on campus, Bowdoin’s small debate team often goes unnoticed. 

“The biggest challenge is getting enough interest from the school. We’re not a very well publicized team,” said Yabing Liu ’15, president. “I think it grows from the nature of debate. Other clubs have their own events on campus and that is a form of publicity for them. But for us, we have to go to tournaments.”  

Since the team’s last major revival in 2001, it has oscillated between non-existence and a struggle for growth. Current membership is between eight to ten students; the club meets once a week for an hour and a half. 

Bowdoin’s partner policy changed six years ago to better accommodate the needs of married professors—and it has had a positive effect on the faculty. Students have probably reasoned that Yi Jin Gorske and Benjamin Gorske of the Chemistry Department are married, yet others, such as Government Professor Laura Henry and Biology Professor Vladimir Douhovnikoff, are less easily identified as a couple. 

“Last semester we slowly over time realized that we had the same ten students, which is really an unusual thing, but a lot of fun,” said Henry. “A lot of times they didn’t even know we were married.” 

Before dual-career couples have the opportunity to teach the same students, they have to confront what is known as the “two-body problem.” While applicable to other professions, this term is mainly used in academia to express the difficulty that spouses, partners and other couples encounter when searching for jobs at the same or neighboring institutions.

Arhea Marshall ’15 received her first 35-millimeter camera when she was 11 years old. She had just moved to New York City from San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago, and saw photography as one of her new hobbies.    

“When I was 11, I really liked going to the playground and taking shots of smiling people,” said Marshall. However, “it didn’t really become a passion until towards the end of my high school career.”

During her junior year in high school, Marshall participated in the Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics—a youth program organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—to encourage academic and cultural achievement across the United States. Participants attended workshops for three months and submitted their final projects at regional and national competitions. 

For most students, it is enough to go to class, do work, and try to spend time with clubs and friends. Zara Bowden ’13 manages to fit a whole lot more into her day-to-day life. Bowden is a biochemistry major and sociology minor who kayaks, hikes, skis, meditates, and devotes time to her artistic passion, photography. 

Bowden received her first digital camera in middle school and remembers taking it everywhere with her. 

“It kind of just evolved,” said Bowden. “I almost didn’t realize it was happening, but suddenly I just realized how much I enjoy photography and wanted to pursue it.” 

Most students have heard of the Craft Center and may have some inkling of its popular pottery classes. But few have actually made their way to the simple, white building tucked between Thorne Dining Hall and the Office of Admissions, an anomaly of South campus.

According to Director Bonnie Pardue, the Craft Center opened its doors in 1999 with a $15,000 donation from the father of a Bowdoin student, who wanted a space on campus for students to be creative and relax.

“It gives the college students a place to unwind and not have the academics in the forefront,” said Bonnie Faulkner, one of the five local artists who teach at the Center. “It can be a social place where they can be creative together and have fun.”

By 1940, Life Magazine took notice of the growing Bowdoin tradition and published a three-page pictorial on the 1939 festivities. Life wrote, “But they knew that all the Northeast offered no gayer, jollier college parties than the annual winter house parties at Bowdoin.”

The Grammy Award-winning, world-renowned Ying Quartet concluded its five-day residency at Bowdoin with a sold out performance in Studzinski Recital Hall last Monday evening. The quartet performed four pieces before an auditorium packed with students and Brunswick residents, beginning with Robert Schumann’s “Quartet in A Major, Opus 41, No. 3.” “It is a very beautiful piece, inspired, we think, directly by his happiness at being newly married,” said Phillip Ying, violist and spokesman for the group.

This Saturday, Latin American Student Organization (LASO) will be hosting its annual Valentine’s Auction in Jack Magee’s Pub from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. If you still need a date for next weekend, this is your chance. More than 20 Bowdoin students will be participating in the auction. In past years, “dates” have been sold for anything from $20 to $300—and LASO requests cash only, please.

Only a few miles off campus, Isaac Ardis ’11 is doing what every Bowdoin student aspires to do after graduation—pursuing what he loves. Since graduation, a lot has changed for the burgeoning artist. After working briefly for a consulting firm in Munich, Ardis decided to return to Maine and focus on painting. He began painting during the winter of his senior year when, scrambling to find holiday gifts for his parents, he rediscovered his artistic side. Ardis gave his mother and original painting, and she gifted him a box of oil pastels and a notebook in return.

Whether alone in their rooms, lounging with friends, or just procrastinating on the Internet, many at the College spend their free time online-shopping.