The Bowdoin Orient

Every year when snow starts to melt and finals loom ahead, the cans of PBR, backward trucker hats and ironic t-shirts begin to emerge. Whether Ivies is indoors or out, Bowdoin students rally for the campus-wide event. However, some on campus do not participate in the weekend of revelry. Spring athletes, in the midst of their seasons, spend their time practicing and competing, while chem-free students seek out other alternatives to the traditional, booze-filled events. 

Bowdoin’s track and field teams competed in the NESCAC championship meet last Saturday during Ivies weekend, as they do every year.

“NESCACs is a big deal to all the sports teams,” Chris Genco ’15 said. “While the rest of the school is getting excited for Ivies, we can get just as excited for NESCACs. It takes a special kind of person to know that they’ll miss out on a huge campus wide event, but I think the team does a good job of being fully present and competes at the best of their ability.”

For the members of the track team, it is made clear from the beginning of the season that they will not be able to participate in Ivies.

“Ivies is a great state of mind for campus, but we realize that we won’t get to participate in the Saturday concert and can’t drink leading up to it,” added Genco.

Mettler Growney ’17 of the women’s lacrosse team shared similar feelings as Genco about the spring festival.

“It’s hard when everyone on campus is talking about Ivies, the concert and their plans when you have a huge playoff game right in the middle of that,” she said. “The lacrosse team did a really good job putting Ivies out of it and focusing on lacrosse, playing and winning the game, and then going to attend Ivies and having fun.”

Carolina Deifelt Streese ’16, a resident of Howell House, organized a number of chem free events during Ivies weekend. Howell sponsored a trip to Popham Beach and a movie on Friday, and a breakfast food Super Snack on Saturday night. 

“Howell tries to have events during Ivies for people who don’t necessarily want to go and drink, but still want to go and do things and participate in the weekend,” she said. 

Some chem free students do attend the typical Ivies events. 

“I make an effort to attend the events,” said Grace McKenzie-Smith ’17. “I went to the Thursday night concert and Brunswick Quad this year and last year I went to both of those things and also made it to the big concert. This year I didn’t like the bands playing.”

However, McKenzie-Smith said that it can be hard as a chem free student during the Ivies weekend.

“For myself and other people who are chem-free and just feel uncomfortable around people who are drunk, it’s very isolating,” she said. 

Members of the women’s lacrosse team, who played at home Saturday morning, went to Brunswick Quad on Friday to be with friends though they did not drink. They were also able to attend the concert on Saturday once they’d won their game.  

“In my eyes, that didn’t change anything,” said Growney. “I had so much fun. My friends who did drink said they had so much fun with me. It didn’t stop the lacrosse girls from being themselves and having fun even though we had practice right after.”

Although many cannot participate in the traditional Ivies, there are other Student Activities sponsored events throughout the year for Bowdoin students to participate in such as Spring Gala, Junior-Senior Ball and concerts and shows such as the Upright Citizens Brigade Touring Company. 

McKenzie-Smith said that she generally enjoys Spring Gala more than Ivies. 

“I feel like the focus is much less on drinking,” she said “Ivies, I have no choice. I have to be surrounded by alcohol.”

Hy Khong and Nicole Wetsman contributed to this report.

Paul Joyce wears many hats on Bowdoin’s campus. He works for the Office of Safety and Security, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) and drives boats for the Department of Earth and Oceanographic Science (EOS).

Joyce is a retired marine patrol warden for the state of Maine, and has been working at the College since 2011. 

Born in Brookline, Mass., Joyce has lived and worked all over the coast of Maine, from the Canadian border to Downeast. He graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston. After graduation, he went to work for the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in Maine.

“I didn’t have the patience to sit in the lab,” Joyce said. “I had to move and be outside.” 

As a supervisor in the DMR, Joyce was in charge of a 47-foot boat—set up like a lobster boat—with a team of six. Their biggest task was oversight of fishing off the coast of Maine.“Fishing itself is so highly regulated that in order to comply with all the rules, you have to have some sort of regulatory body, although we look for voluntary compliance,” Joyce said.

The DMR is also tasked with handling issues of pollution and public safety. They are responsible for all of Maine’s waters, which are quite extensive due to the miles of coastline and numerous bays and islands that extend the state’s water boundaries.

Following retirement, he came to Bowdoin through his connections to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, formerly a major in the state police, and David Mercier, who runs the boat for Associate Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science Emeritus Edward Laine. These days, Joyce does security at the BCMA on weekends, drives boats for classes and teaches van certification classes on campus.

“It’s a fun job, being retired,” Joyce said. “The campus is busy, very vibrant with students. It makes for a very interesting day or evening.” 

“I’m always shifting gears. It’s really good. Working with the coastal studies [classes] is probably the part I enjoy the most,” said Joyce. “I get to see the latest and greatest with the sciences that they’re coming out with in schools and hear some of the lectures.” 

Outside of Bowdoin, Joyce leads recreational tidewater fishing groups on his own boat. He has permission from the state for all kinds of guiding except whitewater rafting.

In addition to his nautical interests, Joyce gardens extensively at his home. In his raised-bed garden he grows cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini and sunflowers.

“If you can eat it, I’ll grow it. And if you can grow it in Maine, I’ll eat it,” he said.Joyce has two children—a son studying illustration and concept art in Sweden and a daughter graduating from the UC Davis School of Law in four weeks.

With all of his work, guiding, gardening and keeping in touch with his family, he hardly has a minute to rest.

“Retirement is busy,” he said with a laugh. 

Every year, Bowdoin students set off on service-based Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trips, and this year was no exception. Students this year traveled to different service organizations in Maine, Florida, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Guatemala, working on a number of issues ranging from poverty to education to gender equality and equality for the LGBTIQ community.  

In order to prepare for these trips, participants attend seminars planned and taught by their trip leaders.

“The leaders are responsible for creating eight-week seminars that help participants prepare for entering into the community,” said Andrew Lardie, Associate Director for Service and Leadership at the McKeen Center. “They learn both about the history of the community they’re going to and the issue itself, which might be local or a broader, historical, more national focus.”

Leaders have varying degrees of scholarly expectations of their groups, and often draw from their academic backgrounds while creating the seminar curriculum. Going on an ASB allows students, both leaders and participants, to engage with issues they’ve studied in the classroom.Caroline Montag ’17 a gender and women’s studies major, went on the new trip to San Francisco created by Alice Wang ’15 and Karl Reinhardt ’15 to work with issues of gender and sexuality. Part of what compelled her to participate was the chance to see what she studied at Bowdoin in a different context.

“I wanted to study these topics in a place totally different from Bowdoin, in a big city with a lot of interesting queer and women’s history,” Montag said.

“Seeing things in a much more hands-on, direct historical lens was really interesting. We even went on a queer history tour of the city. Taking what I’ve already learned about the gay and women’s liberation movements and putting it into the direct historical lens of where it happened was really great,” she added.

On this trip students worked with organizations such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, where they helped prepare clean needle kits for heroin addicts as part of the organization’s needle exchange program, which strives to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Sam Mayne ’16 also had the opportunity to see what he studied in anthropology classes during his trip to Pleasant Point, Maine where ASB participants worked with the Passamaquoddy tribe. Mayne has taken some anthropology courses specifically about native peoples, and this helped him go into his experience without any preconceived notions.

“It doesn’t relate quite how you might expect it to,” Mayne said. “When you’re actually there, you’re not constantly thinking about the fact that the people are natives. They’re just people,” he added.

Mayne went on the Passamaquoddy trip last year, and hopes to go again next year and would even like to return at the beginning of the summer to run a weeklong literacy challenge to encourage students to read.

Although the ASB application process typically gives preference to new applicants, the Pleasant Point trip gives past participants priority. The trip is free of charge. President Mills’s office supports it as part of the Wabanaki-Bates-Bowdoin-Colby Collaboration. In order to foster a deeper connection with the Wabanaki, the McKeen Center tries to send familiar faces like Mayne on orientation and ASB trips.

“It’s challenging because of the distance, and it isn’t convenient to go there often, so what does it look like to build a relationship with people who you only see twice a year?” Lardie said. 

With Mills departing at the end of the year, President-elect Clayton Rose must make the decision regarding the continuation of Bowdoin’s participation in the collaboration and determine the fate of the program. 

Lardie, the trip leaders, Security Officer JT Tyler and trip advisor Roy Partridge have all discussed ways in which they can sustain a connection with the Wabanaki throughout the year.

ASB trips aim to work as a springboard from which Bowdoin students can continue engagement with the material presented during the week.

Above all, Lardie is impressed by the level of student initiative that he sees in ASB trips. Students propose trips in the spring and plan all aspects of them with minimal supervision from Lardie and the assistance of two student McKeen Center ASB Fellows. Looking forward, he hopes to see proposals for trips that deal with different issues, like environmental justice, domestic violence and public health.

Over winter break, Stephen Ligtenberg ’15, Lizzie Kenny ’16, Andrew Pryhuber ’15 and Daniel Zeller ’15 traveled to Quebec’s Chic-Choc Mountains on a cross-country ski trip with funding from the Beyond the Pines grant though the Bowdoin Outing Club. 

In order to apply for grant funding, students create an itinerary and trip proposal and are then interviewed by a committee of students and alumni, many of whom were previous grant recipients.

“Beyond the Pines allows students to go on trips they probably wouldn’t be able to go on otherwise,” Kenny said. “It allows you to take what you learned, push it, and do a trip to test your abilities.”

She and her trip companions spent ten days skiing through the Chic-Choc Mountains. To add an extra challenge, they towed all their gear with them in sleds.

“I wanted to do an extended backcountry trip where we couldn’t resupply, had to carry everything with us, and had no support,” Ligtenberg said.

In many cases, they were breaking trail, which was made more difficult by their sleds, heavy with gear.

“I don’t think we realized how ungroomed some of the trails would be and how difficult it would be towing our gear,” Kenny said.

On a warmer day, they were supposed to cross a lake but noticed water on top of the ice. Though they had to turn around and modify their plan, they ultimately came up with a different route to bypass that part and catch up again.

The group stayed in a series of huts which lined the route that Pryhuber had planned, but they had to camp outside on a few occasions. All of the trip members had completed the Advanced Winter Leadership Seminar (AWLS) offered by the Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC), so they were familiar with what this entailed.

“When we camped we dug holes in the snow about the size of a grave and then put the sleeping bag in there,” Ligtenberg said. “When you’re winter camping, you dig down for your shelter. You want the place you sleep to be roughly body shaped, big enough so you’re not touching snow, but small enough that it still provides wind protection.”

“It was definitely cold, but it was nice that we didn’t have to do it the whole time. You have to keep track of staying dry and not rolling against the wall and getting snow on your sleeping bag,” Kenny said.

While doing an extended backcountry trip presented its challenges, it was ultimately a positive experience.

“It was really rewarding to see everyone else in the park had a shuttle service bringing their stuff from hut to hut while we were dragging all our stuff with us,” Kenny said.

The Beyond the Pines grant stipulates that students have to bring what they learned on their trip back to Bowdoin in some capacity. Since returning, the group has helped design the curriculum for this year’s session of AWLS. Over spring break, the BOC will also be running a very similar trip to the one the group created so that other BOC members can enjoy the experience. 

Kenny, the only junior on the trip, plans on leading more winter trips both this semester and next year so that people can continue to get outside and enjoy the snow.

Experimenting with the Linux operating system and restoring a 1966 Vespa may be foreign concepts to some, but for Audiovisual/Computing Specialist Andrew Biedrzycki, this is business as usual.

Biedrzycki came to Bowdoin as an intern during his time at Southern Maine Community College to complete the curriculum for his computer technology major. He later applied to his current position in Information Technology (IT), which he has held for seven years.

“Audiovisual isn’t really where my strength was, but coming into the position you learn on your feet,” Biedrzycki said.

When he’s not working at Bowdoin, Biedrzycki enjoys tinkering with Linux, an operating system with an open source code that encourages a community to build around it.

 In addition to his technological pursuits, he’s restoring a 1966 Vespa with his brother and organizing a scooter rally for this summer.

“Currently two of my brothers, a friend, and I are planning the second annual Ski’s Shrimp Run. A bunch of scooters get together and we take a cruise up to Richmond and enjoy the day. My brother has always been into scooters and and motors, so my dad always joked about starting a scooter gang, and it evolved into this fun thing we did last year and are doing again this year,” he said.

Although they expected the event to be small, about 75 people showed up, including people from Nova Scotia and out of state.

Biedrzycki grew up in Topsham, and both he and his other family members still live there. He and his wife were married in Bowdoin’s Cram Alumni Barn and are currently expecting a child.As part of his work for IT at Bowdoin, Biedrzycki works on classroom projection, AV technology, and preparing events with microphones and projection.

“Every day is a little bit different and a challenge. They keep us busy,” Biedrzycki said.“Some days I’ll be setting up meetings talking about infrastructure, or I’ll be setting up microphones for President Mills for his ‘Life After Bowdoin’ talks. This Wednesday night I helped assist with the French flash mob in Thorne,” he said.

Some of his most memorable moments at Bowdoin are setting up for events. Through assisting in event setup and preparation, he’s seen and met people like Poet Laureate Richard Blanco and the creator of PostSecret Frank Warre.

Another enjoyable aspect of the job is getting to set up and staff events during Commencement and Reunion Weekend.

“During reunion there’s a lot of different events that take place, and they try to keep people busy all weekend long,” Biedrzycki said.

AV sets up everything from slideshows and old movies in the pub to Dance Dance Revolution for kids to organized dinners for the different classes—which often feature alumni speakers.

“It’s interesting because you get to see people come back and enjoy the place and be nostalgic for when they were here. You can hear some of their stories, and it’s a really great time,” he said.Biedrzycki said he enjoys working at Bowdoin.

“Bowdoin’s always been a thing. Growing up, you know it’s there but don’t really go there. Once I started working here and seeing how beautiful the campus is, I’ve seen how it’s a really great place to work,” Biedrzycki said. “Everyday is different. I couldn’t imagine going to an office and doing paperwork all the time. There’s so much here to keep you interested.”

L.L. Bean is more than a purveyor of Bean Boots and flannels for some Bowdoin students—it’s a place to shoot clay targets and practice using firearms.

Andrew Haeger ’16, Will Goodenough ’16 and Eric Chien ’14 founded the Rod and Gun Club as a division of the Outing Club last fall.

The club faced some difficulties in its beginnings because the Student Organizations Oversight Committee thought hunting might be a liability issue for the College, anticipating that the College’s Risk Management Department could be uncomfortable with students operating such a club on their own.

“They wanted to make sure we weren’t going around waving guns in the air, which wasn’t the point,” Haeger said.

The Rod and Gun Club now falls under the umbrella of the Outing Club. This way, leaders are required to complete Wilderness First Responder and First-Aid training. Director of the Outing Club Mike Woodruff helps oversee the club’s operations to assuage concerns about safety.

“I think hunting, fishing and shooting are all traditional outdoor activities in Maine, and they’re not something that have been happening recently at Bowdoin,” Woodruff said. “In terms of the College, the concern is always student safety. That’s why the idea of having hunter safety and bow hunter and archery safety courses is important so that when people do these activities they have the knowledge and skills to do them safely.”

These safety courses are each nine hours, spread out over a few days and are taught by officials from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Though he is not a member of the Rod and Gun Club, senior John Lefeber is taking the firearms safety class to get his firearms license for hunting.

“I’ve bow hunted for the past year and want to get my firearms license too, so this is the next logical step,” Lefeber said. “I’ve been pretty outdoorsy and active my entire life, but up until last year I hadn’t done any hunting. I’d only done fishing, and it was something I had been interested in.”

Abigail Mahoney ’16, who is currently enrolled in the firearm safety course, is a member of the club and hopes to go on trips planned for the future.

“I like guns, and I like hunting. I hunt a lot with my family and also do biathlons and I would like to hunt in Maine,” Mahoney said.

Other students without previous experience learn how to shoot by practicing at shooting ranges like the one at L.L. Bean. 

“It’s great if students can gain these skills because hunting and fishing are lifetime sports and they’re not necessarily activities people have been exposed to growing up,” Woodruff said.

The club has already organized a few trips, but they have encountered some difficulties along the way. Hunting seasons are regulated by the state, and most regulated times occur in the fall except for spring turkey hunting. Fishing, however, is not as time-sensitive.

“Fishing is a little more versatile, but a lot of water freezes over in the winter,” Haeger said.While some students enjoy hunting, Haeger acknowledged a certain stigma surrounding those who do engage in that activity.

“There are a lot of people who are anti-hunting but in reality, it’s good for the environment because it provides tools for the environment in cases of overpopulation,” Haeger said.

He pointed to the case of deer in Mass., which pose a danger to drivers. Hunters can kill their own food while keeping these populations in check.

“We’re not out there to kill; we’re out there to celebrate what we harvest,” he added.

Who wouldn’t want $28,000 to travel the world for a year? Or spend nine months teaching English in Croatia? Now that the applications have been sent in, seniors are awaiting the results of their applications for many national, postgraduate fellowships.

Last year 27 students applied for Fulbright funding and 11 won the prestigious grant. The College was ranked a Top Producing Institution for the U.S. Student Fulbright award by The Chronicle for Higher Education last October. Cindy Stocks, director of student fellowships and research, spoke highly of Bowdoin’s record competing for these fellowships.

“Bowdoin can go toe to toe with just about any other school,” Stocks said.

Bowdoin College Security, a team of over 20, is a diverse group, that includes Shaun Hogan, a self-proclaimed Legomaniac who is proficient in building his own custom computers and plays soccer and the drums. 

Hogan, is now in his 13th month with the Bowdoin College Office of Safety and Security and hails from a background filled with stories.

Originally from North Haven, Conn., Hogan grew up with his younger brother Chris and two step-siblings who recently graduated from college.

When most Bowdoin students think of a gap year, their minds go towards volunteering, working, or traveling for a year. But probably not serving in the armed forces.

Joonmo Ku ’12 left Bowdoin after the fall semester of his sophomore year to serve in the Republic of Korea Army. As a South Korean citizen, Ku was required to spend either two years in the service as an enlisted soldier or three years as an officer.

“I wanted to save time and do the two-year stint, and I did it halfway through sophomore year because I thought it would be better to go through all the training when I was younger,” Ku said.

This is the first article in a new series that profiles staff members.

If you’re a Bowdoin student, Connie Chicoine has probably said your name, and she’s probably done it with a smile.

Chicoine is one of the weekend OneCard swipers at Thorne Dining Hall. After answering an Internet job position, Chicoine interviewed for a salad prep position, but was asked about her interest in the swiper position. She accepted the job and has been working at Thorne for over three years.

“Do you know Fat Amy?” “Does one person go ‘doo doo doo’ and the other ‘ca ca ca?’” Telling my campers this summer that I was in an a cappella group at Bowdoin was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made as a camp counselor, all lies about being Harry Potter’s nephew and a Norwegian goat farmer aside. I have none other than “Pitch Perfect” to thank for my problem, or as people now would say and I cringe at the sound of it, “aca-drama.”

For campers and Bowdoin students alike, this movie has allowed outsiders to get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of collegiate a cappella. 

My sister somehow convinced me to watch “Pitch Perfect” one night this summer, and being a member of Ursus Verses, I thought it would be a good idea to see what all the commotion was about. 

While the McKeen Center for the Common Good is most known for its weekly volunteer programs, interactions with the community also happen within a formal academic framework.

Bowdoin’s Community-Based Learning program started in 2001 when students and professors expressed interest in connecting classrooms to communities.

“There was this movement in the 1990s of increasing interest in colleges and universities in service learning, and the idea that students could connect what they were learning in the classroom to community needs,” said Janice Jaffe, associate director of courses and research at the McKeen Center. 

The RoboCup Standard Platform League U.S. Open kicks off today in the Watson Arena.  Bowdoin’s team, the Northern Bites, has spent the past year completely re-writing its code over the past year in the hope of improving performance, and this weekend’s competition will test their efforts.

After last year’s World Cup in Mexico City, The Northern Bites decided to rewrite the entire code for the movements of their robots. This entailed rewriting over 250,000 lines of code.

Team captain Lizzie Mamantov ’13 spearheaded the initiative to renovate the code.

Ten percent of Bowdoin students hold an international passport or come to the College from out of the country.

But Bowdoin’s international population can’t be reduced to an admissions statistic, and many of these students find a vibrant community in Bowdoin’s International Club (I-Club).

Most international students belong to the I-Club.  A large portion of the Club’s membership is made up of students from China, but Cambodia, South Korea, and Brazil are also represented. American students are also welcome to join, as the club encourages a cross-cultural forum in which these students can engage.    

Vegetables aren’t the only things sourced from the Bowdoin Organic Garden.  This spring, maple syrup collected from the College’s maple trees will also be available.

Yesterday, Cawthon and garden members held a demonstration on the Dudley Coe Quad, offering samples of maple syrup similar to that which they will produce for the dining halls. The syrup they provided for tasting wasn’t from Bowdoin trees, but was from local sources. 

Students, professors and community members passing by the tent on the Coe Quad enjoyed tasting samples of the different types of syrup. The group offered a medium grade—which has a darker color,—and a lighter medium color, which is closer to Grade A maple syrup.

The Hawthorne-Longfellow Library houses over one million books and reading materials that students can check out, but the most precious items—such as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s medal of honor, James Bowdoin’s library, and a handprint from Abraham Lincoln—lie behind two glass doors on the third floor. 

The George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, supervised by Director Richard Lindemann, protects Bowdoin’s historical treasures.

Lindemann found his passion as a graduate student in the history program at the University of Virginia, where he trained as a medievalist. Despite his taste for this that epoch, he turned his attention to library work.

Tuesday senior nights began at Player’s, currently known as Pedro O’Hara’s. Fraternities, namely the hockey fraternity Beta Theta Phi, congregated at Player’s while Joshua’s was still then in its early days. T.J. Siatras, owner of Joshua’s, said, “We opened up, and we almost immediately became the other college bar.”

With a dining service ranked among the best in the country, a town with numerous popular restaurants and our very own campus food truck, food is important to students. While good eats abound, Bowdoin’s dietician, Dr. Anne-Marie Davee, reminds students to think about the nutrition behind the nourishment.

As environmental sustainability continues to gain cultural traction, the Bowdon Food Co-Op is capitalizing on that trend by preparing healthy, local, and organic meals every week.