The Bowdoin Orient

For some, relocating to Maine and immediately immersing oneself into the heart of a small college while also starting a new career might be daunting. For Julianne Rose, it was yet another exciting shift in a life full of them.

Rose, who is married to President Clayton Rose, has quickly become enamored with her new home.

“It’s been fabulous. This is such a warm and welcoming community,” said Rose in an interview with the Orient. “Everyone here—the students, the staff, the faculty—has made the two of us feel so welcome. So the transition has been remarkably easy. Moving to an entirely new place and starting a whole new life here has been really pretty seamless. I attribute that to the community and the way everyone’s made us feel.”

It was exactly what the Roses expected at Bowdoin College, a place about which they had heard many great things.

“When Clayton was offered that job, we had talked to a lot of people about Bowdoin and knew a lot of people [in Maine], and the decision was just so easy,” said Rose.

“The day Clayton’s appointment was announced publicly, we came up here and there was an assembly at Smith Union to announce it,” she said. “I just thought it was wonderful to meet everybody. But the number of people who were coming up to me, I was really overwhelmed with how wonderful that was. I thought ‘This is going to be great.’”

When President Rose took office at the College on July 1 of last year, it marked a big day for the Rose family in more ways than one; it was also the opening of Julianne’s women’s accessory store, J.Rose, in Wells, Maine.

“About two years ago, I seriously started to think about it,” Rose said of opening her own store. “My business is women’s accessories. I thought combining the aesthetic part of it, which I enjoy, with the business part, which is my background, could be really cool. I thought, ‘If not now, when?’ So I just decided to take the plunge.”

For Rose, setting up the store—which is open seven days a week in the summer and two in the offseason—was both thrilling and arduous. 

“I went through doing my business plan, setting up my LLC and all that kind of stuff, doing the buying, figuring out inventory levels, and it was so much fun. A lot of work but so much fun."

While developing a retail space was a new experience for Rose, working in business was not. She received an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago (where she met Clayton) and worked on Wall Street for several years thereafter.

It was not always her plan to go into business, however. She graduated magna cum laude from Boston College in 1977 with an undergraduate degree in biology, and her first job out of college was as a lab technician.

"I was fortunate enough to get a job with the University of Pennsylvania at the medical school there working with a doctor who was doing research on leukemia, and I worked there for two years,” she said. "I loved working there for the reason that I found out what I didn’t want to do, which was work in a lab.”

Not entirely satisfied with the work she was doing, Rose began taking business classes at Penn’s Wharton School. It didn’t take long from there for her to realize that business school ought to be her next step.

"I had a strong math background,” she said. "It was the appeal of the quantitative side of it, and the University of Chicago is known for being a more quantitative school, so that was a natural fit for me. Transitioning into that was kind of a no-brainer.”

In 1981, both she and Clayton moved to New York to work as bankers on Wall Street. Julianne used both her biology and business educations, working in healthcare finance at Chemical Bank and Citibank. In 1985, they uprooted to London when Clayton took a position there with J.P. Morgan. They lived there for three years, and both of their sons, Garett and Jordan, were born there.

When they returned to the States, they settled in Essex Falls, N.J., where Julianne began a 12-year career in public service. She spent six years on the town’s school board and six more on its town council.

"They’re dealing with how to provide the best education to the children using limited financial resources,” she said of her work on the school board. "I hate to cut it down to that, but that’s so much of what you’re trying to do. You’re working with all sorts of constituents, with teachers and parents.”

When the Roses moved to Brookline, Mass. in 2008 and Clayton began teaching at Harvard Business School, Julianne was recruited for her experience in education to be on the town’s education foundation. Her skills will be similarly welcomed on campus at Bowdoin once she’s decided how she’d best like to use them.

"I certainly have gotten to know Bowdoin better, but as far as what my role will be? I don’t know yet. I really want to give that a little more time,” she said.

While John Swords ’15 and his seven-foot frame have been conspicuously absent from campus since his graduation last spring, his formidable presence has surely raised an eyebrow or two in his new home of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Swords moved to Spain in January to sign with CI Rosalia de Castro, a basketball team in the country’s fourth division. Two games into his international career, he’s averaging seven and a half  points and seven rebounds per game. The Orient caught up with Swords over Skype to hear about his adventures in playing Spanish-style basketball, exploring the local environment and trying to become a published writer.

The Bowdoin Orient: What’s it like playing on a team where you’re the only American?

John Swords: It’s really fun, and it has a lot to do with not taking anything too seriously. I mean, I’m working hard. But on a day-to-day basis I’m asked to play a sport and have people yell around me in a different language. It’s pretty ridiculous.

I took Spanish 101 and 102 at Bowdoin. They’ve served me well, but not as well as if I’d taken more classes—I spent all of high school studying French, which, in retrospect, is not that helpful.

To have an abroad experience where I have teammates is great. It’s why I’ve been playing sports my whole life, because being on a team is great. To be out here in what the Romans considered literally the end of the world—Northwest Spain—but to not feel like I’m totally alone because everyday I get to go hang out with other guys. While I’m the only American, that’s probably for the better. I like that I have to scramble to figure out what’s going on.

BO: What’s the style of basketball like, and how does your play fit in?

JS: The basketball here is so unbelievably scrambled and hectic and run-and-gun compared to what I’m used to. I’ve got a bit of a skewed perspective: Because I’m such a big big man, any team I’ve been on has been all about slowing down and playing settled team offense. But everything here is just run-and-gun. You just bury your head and sprint and hope that you’ll wind up at the basket. People take a lot of what I think are bad shots or make some screwy passes that look like they’d look good on an NBA highlight tape, except they go 15 feet away from the guy they’re supposed to go to.In a lot of ways it reminds me of NESCAC play when it gets scrambled. But these guys definitely know what they’re doing, so even if it feels more scrambled, it’s just a faster game. It’s a 24-second shot clock. You have to move faster and guys take a lot of shots. There’s not the same appreciation for help defense here—or at least I haven’t found it yet. And the biggest adjustment for me is I’m not a foot-and-a-half taller than everyone I’m playing against now. I’m not used to getting pushed off the block but I am here sometimes, so that’s an interesting thing to try to adjust to.

BO: Are there any skills you’re looking to add to your game?

JS: Yeah, they want me to shoot more. I’ve never had a coach that said “Hey, you got the ball? Shoot it!” My whole career, especially at Bowdoin, we had guys who would shoot for me. So my job was to lock down low, wrestle the other guy and work in the paint. I’m still supposed to do that here, but I need to have that plus an ability to shoot from mid-range because some of these guys put up a lot more of a fight inside.

BO: Do you have a lot of free time? If so, how do you spend it?

JS: I have a lot free time, which was kind of the plan when I came over here. I decided at the end of last year that I had such a good time playing at Bowdoin that it would be really fun to see if I could do it again over here, but that was only one of several reasons for wanting to come. Probably the strongest one is just wanting to be abroad because I didn’t go abroad when I was at Bowdoin. Another reason is I wanted to try my luck at being a writer before I try my hand at whatever comes next. I have the time, I have an interesting setting and I have a few stories. They eat a lot of octopus here, and I’m going to go and try to find the guys who hunt it. Apparently they put on snorkel gear, go into underwater caves and hunt octopuses with long poles. I feel like that would be a good story to write about.

On top of that, I spent a lot of time at Bowdoin with the Outing Club, so I just try to get on top of things around here. I go out into the city and look for a peak off in the distance and start walking to it until I get on top.

BO: Are there any standout anecdotes from your time in Spain?

JS: I cannot express enough how confused I am about how late the Spanish stay up. They don’t really start their day until 11:00 and they definitely don’t stop their day until at least 11:30. When it’s a night to go out on the town, these university kids party until 8:00 in the morning. I tagged along with my teammates once and I looked at my watch like “What are we doing, guys? It’s 5:30 a.m.” I stayed up late while I was in college doing work or socializing, but never that late. I think 1:00 is a very respectable hour to call it quits on the weekend. Here, they’re like “You’re going to bed at 5:00? Why are you being a spoilsport?”

This interview has been edited for brevity.

Head Coach of Men’s Ice Hockey Terry Meagher will step down from his position after the 2015-2016 season, the College announced Tuesday. The upcoming campaign will be Meagher’s 33rd at the helm of one of Bowdoin’s most storied athletic programs.

Meagher first broke the news to the team in a meeting early Tuesday morning.

“You could tell that he had been thinking about it for a while,” said Chris Fenwick ’16. “He mentioned that he hasn’t had a lot of sleep lately. He threw it right at us—he cuts right to the chase.”

“He had some really powerful things to say, reflecting on the first team he coached at Bowdoin and then the group of young men in the room yesterday,” said Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan.

“When I was offered the program and took over, I looked at the quality of individuals, the skillset level, the commitment and enthusiasm. More importantly, just as citizens and people, I could see why Bowdoin Hockey had success,” Meagher said in an interview with the Orient.

“Fast-forward 33 years and the group in that room was no different. It’s wonderful that my last year coaching at Bowdoin will be with a group like them.”

For Meagher, the decision to step down after this season was the result of a careful thought process that had been ongoing for several seasons.

“You start to take a comprehensive view of where the program is—where the skillset is, where your life’s at at that point, a lot of different things—and ultimately it just felt right,” he said. “A goal is to turn the program over in as good of shape as you can leave it.”

“As with anyone in the later stages of their career, you start to have some conversations about when may be the right time to move on,” said Ryan. “Terry and I have had those conversations off and on for a number of years, and it just seemed like the time was right for him to step down and to be able to take advantage of some of the other things going on in his life, such as spending time with his family. Certainly he has done his part to put our program in a great position moving forward.”

While whoever succeeds Meagher as head coach will have large shoes to fill, he himself replaced a legend, taking over for his mentor Sidney Watson in 1983 after Watson’s 24-year tenure. Refusing to be overshadowed, Meagher carved out one of the greatest coaching resumes in all of college hockey. His 529 career wins rank him sixth all-time in the D-III ranks. He has two NESCAC titles to his name as well as two championships in the ECAC—the conference that hosted the Polar Bears prior to the inception of the NESCAC. His teams have made six NCAA Tournament appearances and he won the American Hockey Coaches Association National Coach of the Year honor in both 1986 and 1989.

“He’s a very rare hockey mind. He sees the game very well—he was a very successful player,” said team captain Matt Rubinoff ’16, alluding to Meagher’s illustrious playing career at Boston University. “He brings out the most in his players and he expects the most. He runs a very competitive team, and he builds it on character and grit. Whether or not he really has the talent to do so, he builds a successful team.”

When asked about his success as coach, Meagher was quick to give credit to those he’s worked with over the years.

“All the assistant coaches over the years have been incredibly talented, recently in particular Coach [Jamie] Dumont,” said Meagher. “Both on the ice and in recruiting, he’s played a significant role in getting the program to where we feel ready to turn it over.”

“The sports medicine staff goes under the radar, especially with the number of students we have… Student managers and faculty liaisons were always very important in developing teams and ensuring that students have a really good experience. And then there’s the athletic services, which is equipment and support. They’ve been wonderful,” he added.

Looking back on his over-three decade tenure as head coach, Meagher commented on some of the things that he believes make D-III hockey special.

“The great things about (D-III) having that strong educational component is I think coaches are more willing to try different concepts and ideas,” he said. “The coaching and teaching techniques are really diverse at our level. We were on the cutting edge of that, and now you see it at Division I and in the NHL. The game used to be so linear, now it has an advanced geometry.”

He also reflected on changes in collegiate athletics at-large, including the proliferation of women’s sports.

“It’s been incredibly rewarding in athletics to see the growth of women’s sports,” he added. “It was frustrating in the early going, because we wanted to be where we are currently a long time ago, but it’s great to be where we are now.”

After the season, the athletic department will form a committee to launch a national search for Meagher’s replacement. The committee will likely consist of Ryan, head coaches of other sports teams, members of the hockey team and other members of campus. According to Ryan, he hopes to name the team’s next coach before Commencement.

“We’ll want to identify a candidate who understands and values the approach to athletics in Division III within the NESCAC, which places a great emphasis on the academic experience of students and also the role athletics can play in developing important life skills, such as communication, leadership and problem-solving,” said Ryan. “Then there are the technical aspects, as well—identifying a candidate who has the technical knowledge and leadership abilities to lead a group of 30 young men throughout the course of their experience here on campus.”

“Personally I think it should be someone who knows the school well—or at least knows the history of it—and knows the NESCAC,” said Rubinoff.

While cautious of giving advice to a yet-to-be-named future Bowdoin coach, Meagher did have one lighthearted suggestion for his successor.

“If I had one piece of advice for the next coach, it would be buy some waterfront property that appreciates, because if history repeats itself you’ll be here for a while,” he said.

With a young core, this year’s squad hopes to establish team chemistry in Meagher’s last year that it will be able to carry forward.

“As seniors, it doesn’t affect us as much because we’ll have him for our final year,” said Fenwick. “It’s going to be a big adjustment for the underclassmen. Coach Meagher has been very supportive of players and always built strong programs that have done really well.”

Nonetheless, the upperclassmen will play an important role in facilitating the team’s transition to a new era.

“It does change how we as seniors are approaching the season,” said Rubinoff. “Near the end and into the spring, our job will be to ease the guys into whatever’s next. We’ll support them going forward. Knowing the history of the program, it will be in fine hands.”

When the team begins their practices on Sunday, their focus will have shifted to exclusively on-ice matters.

“Come November 1, talk about Coach’s last year is going to be put on hold,” said Fenwick. “We’re going to carry on our business, and there will be time to celebrate when the season’s over.”

“Our league’s always very competitive,” he added. “Coach always tells us that our first goal is to finish the season with a spot in the conference tournament, and anything can happen from there. That goal hasn’t changed.”

On May 7, the College will hold a ceremony to honor Meagher and his countless contributions to the institution, both on the ice and off.

“If there’s a legacy I’m most proud of, it’s that I was able to follow Coach Watson, who had been here for 24 years, and I was allowed to have the majority of my career at Bowdoin,” said Meagher. “I don’t know if that’s a legacy, but that should receive a little bit of attention. For that to happen at Bowdoin speaks volumes of the institution. It means it’s a great place to live, to raise a family, to coach and teach. It means that the support is there and the tradition is there.”

“I think Terry’s legacy will be that of a coach who excelled at both attracting and supporting high-achieving students to campus while also being incredibly competitive in our conference and on a national level,” said Ryan. “When you can put those two things together, it leads to a special experience for those students in the program and also for those in our campus community.”

Last year, the field hockey team went 9-1 in the NESCAC, 19-3 overall, and were one win away from repeating as national champions. The squad featured four All-NESCAC players, the NESCAC Player of the Year and two National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFCHA) All-Americans.

It should say something about the strength of Head Coach Nicky Pearson's program, then, that expectations are even higher for this season.

Despite losing several starters, including Third Team All-American Colleen Finnerty and two-year starting goalkeeper Hannah Gartner, the Polar Bears entered the 2015 campaign ranked No. 1 in the NFCHA Division III preseason poll.

The ranking likely surprised no one. The squad returns 56 of its 76 goals scored from last season (74 percent), a remarkable 32 of which of which belonged to First-Team All American and NESCAC Player of the Year Rachel Kennedy '16. She'll co-captain the team with fellow First Team All-Conference selection Kim Kahnweiler '16, who will anchor the defense. Also returning are forward Kimmy Ganong '17, whose 11 goals were second-most on the team, and Second Team All-Conference midfielder Mettler Growney '17. All told, the team returns seven of 11 starters from last year's squad.

 In addition to captains Kennedy and Kahnweiler, the team will look to defenders Kelsey Mullaney and Alexa Baumgartner and forward Liz Znamierowski for senior leadership.“That’s one thing Nicky likes to emphasize, having the senior class lead and everyone looking up to them," said Kennedy. "Each of us have different strengths, and different players will go to us for different things."

“We have a senior class where everyone wants to be a leader. In terms of creating a good team dynamic, when you have a class that all gets along, everyone can be looked up to," said Kahnweiler.

Znamierowski will be asked to step up, as she'll replace the graduated Adrienne O'Donnell on Bowdoin's high-powered front line. On the other end of the field, Clara Belitz '17 appears to be the frontrunner to replace Gartner in goal, while Liz Rill '17 and talented first year Grace Linnan will compete for playing time in the same role.

The team spent the preseason working hard on fundamentals to ensure that strong team chemistry carries over to action on the field.

“It’s different coming back when you have spots to fill, so getting players in those positions and feeling comfortable and building team chemistry across the field," said Kennedy. "That’s one of our goals this season, to work with each other and off each other.

“One thing [Coach Pearson] says at the beginning of every season is ‘This is your only chance to play with this team,’" said Kahnweiler. "So we spend a lot of time building chemistry and working on basic skills—we do a lot of passing, stick skills, and make sure to mix up who we’re working with in practice."

Mastery of such fundamentals is essential to Bowdoin's success, as Pearson's teams are known to dissect opposing defenses with quick movement and precise passing.

“We’re known for speed, we’re known for moving the ball," said Kahnweiler. "We call it one-touch hockey, get it and give it. We try to not take people one on one.

“We like to play a high-paced style. We focus a lot on our spacing and supporting the ball carrier, and we try to master and execute basic skills," said Pearson.

The Polar Bears will indeed need to be sharp every week if they want to successfully navigate the minefield that is a NESCAC regular season schedule. Perpetual rival Middlebury—who defeated the Bears in last year's NESCAC Championship Game—return 10 of their 11 top goal scorers and were ranked No. 3 in the NFHCA preseason poll. Perennial 'CAC contenders Tufts, Amherst and Trinity also placed in the poll, ranking ninth, 11th and 15th, respectively. Bowdoin will also face No. 10 Wellesley in a midseason out-of-conference matchup.Predictably, the team has adopted a "one game at a time" mentality.

“Our biggest rivals are usually Middlebury and Tufts, but we do a pretty good job of staying focused on the next game ahead," said Kennedy. "You can’t look too far into the future."“We would love to go undefeated. We’d love to have a perfect season," said Kahnweiler. "And it’s great to have that common goal, but that goes back into one game at a time. In order to meet that goal, you have to win today’s game."

The team got off to a good start on Wednesday night, dismantling the University of New England on the road in its season opener. Znamierowski scored the Polar Bears' first goal of the season, and Kennedy and Baumgartner each added one of their own for a 3-1 Bowdoin win. Belitz started in goal and made two saves.

Pearson's Bowdoin teams have won four of the last eight D-III National Championships, and veterans on this year's team have experienced both winning and losing in national title games. If the team has any flaws, inexperience is not one of them.

“Having experience playing in that game—whether we’ve won it or lost it—the players then are aware of what it takes to get there. There are going be a lot of things on that journey that will be in your favor, and sometimes you have bad luck," said Pearson.

"I think that experience is valuable, but we never talk about it, to be honest with you. I start a new job every August, and this is a group that will be better than last year’s team in some areas, and in others we may not be as good. I don’t like to compare teams—this is what we have this year. We’re going to play to the strengths of this group and enjoy and embrace the process."“We all know at this point how much it takes to get there. It wasn’t by chance, it was because we worked hard," said Kahnweiler. "Some people might assume we’ll get there again, but there isn’t that assumption on the team. We all know it takes a lot.”

Clayton Rose certainly looked the part on Wednesday, July 1, his first day as the College’s 15th president, sporting a pink, polar bear-dotted tie and a black “B”-emblazoned wallet. His first act as president, too, was that of a seasoned campus leader: He brought in Frosty’s donuts for everyone in his office.

With those Bowdoin bona fides established, President Rose began his term with an explicit newcomer’s approach.

“The broad theme for a while is going to be listening and meeting as many people as I can. I sent a note out to the faculty this morning saying that I’d very much like to meet with each one of them individually over the course of the coming months...to learn about their aspirations for the College and their thoughts on the challenges ahead,” he said in a sit-down interview with the Orient late Wednesday morning. “I’m going to do the same with students, staff and alumni as well.”

It’s a continuation of the work Rose began after being named Barry Mills’ successor in late January, when he began splitting time between Brunswick and his role as professor at Harvard Business School.

“The benefit is that I’m physically here now,” he said. “I’m not contending with a job somewhere else where I have responsibilities, and trying to balance those two.”

Rose and his wife of 32 years, Julianne, are currently living in a southern Maine home they’ve owned for several years. They will move to the former Mills residence of 79 Federal Street in Brunswick later this month after minor renovations are finished.

Rose said his and his wife’s enthusiasm for their move to Maine was matched by their two sons, Garett and Jordan, who live in Washington, D.C. and New York City, respectively.

“They were incredibly excited and pumped up about it,” he said.

In an April interview with the Orient, Rose declined to offer his positions on campus issues, saying he would wait until he was in office before going on the record. He delivered on that promise Wednesday, calling human-induced climate change “one of the greatest issues we face as a world” before echoing the Board of Trustees’ (and Barry Mills’) position that the College ought not to divest from fossil fuels.

“I’ve done a lot of reading about where we come from and what our policies are as well as what other schools have done, and I have read or heard nothing to change my view that we should not divest,” he said. “So, we will continue that policy going forward. I’m happy to talk to anybody that wants to talk about this, and we’ll always strive to keep an open mind."

Rose also commented on the issue of political correctness, which came to the forefront at Bowdoin in April when a survey conducted by Associate Professor of Government Michael Franz indicated that 68% of respondents believed political correctness was a problem at Bowdoin.

“A liberal arts college has a particular responsibility among all institutions in America to create an open, honest, thoughtful, respectful dialogue across all kinds of points of view,” he said.

“Every member of the community…needs to encourage that kind of discussion and be willing to have their own ideas and thoughts—even those that are deeply held—challenged in a thoughtful and respectful way. This can be to reinforce and strengthen them, but perhaps occasionally to see there might be another way of thinking about that issue. And also to understand how other thoughtful people can have a different point of view and understand why that might be, so that we get away from the phenomenon in American society of talking heads, where everyone is polarized and no one is listening to everyone else. This is part of creating graduates who are able to engage in a serious way in civil society.”

Reflecting on an eclectic career that has included several senior management positions at J.P. Morgan as well as teaching undergraduates at Penn and graduate students at Harvard, Rose spoke at length of his solidarity with Bowdoin’s values.

“One of the reason I was so excited about the possibility of assuming this position when the search was announced and I was thinking about putting my name in the ring was that it matches up with things I hold very deeply in several dimensions,” he said. “The first is—and this is kind of a hackneyed phrase, but I really mean it—I’m a true believer in the value of the liberal arts.”

Rose said that his appreciation for a liberal arts education began when he was an undergraduate himself.

“It is certainly true that I didn’t attend a small liberal arts college, but I had a profoundly important liberal arts education at the University of Chicago,” he said. “Unlike many research universities, the college there was a small piece of the larger research university, where there was dedication on the part of senior faculty to delivering a real liberal arts experience in many of the ways that we see here at Bowdoin, although Bowdoin is distinct and has it’s own way of doing things. But that experience changed my life.”

After 20 years at J.P. Morgan, Rose began contemplating a career change when the bank merged with Chase in 2000.

“I very much enjoyed the work in finance. I wasn’t disaffected by it at all. I was able to do some really interesting remarkable things. The firm, at the time, was a place that fit with my values: collegiality, intellectual honesty and respect,” he said. “That’s not really the world of finance we see today, but that was the firm in those days. When we sold the firm, things changed. The culture and the values were sufficiently different that I decided to leave. It was just time for me to move on. It was a place that, at its core, wasn’t the right fit for me."

Rose said a great reverence for academics and scholars played a large role in his decision to pursue joining their ranks, and he enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

“For me, it was about a challenge in a world that I had deep respect for and was deeply curious about. I wanted to see whether I had the intellectual capability to operate in that world, which is very different from the world I’d operated in before,” he said.

Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 2007, Rose received a position on the faculty at Harvard Business School.

“One thing that’s interesting about Harvard Business School is that there is a premium placed on teaching that is unlike most other graduate programs,” he said. “Senior faculty take their teaching responsibilities very seriously. That was very appealing to me, because I love teaching and I value what great teaching can do."

Rose believes the perspective he gained from his experience teaching in higher education will be invaluable in his role as president at Bowdoin.

“Being on a faculty in the job I had, understanding how faculty view their responsibility to the whole institution, to their students, to their scholarship, will help me immensely,” he said. “Faculty are the heart of any educational institution. Having been of a faculty and understanding how a faculty thinks of the world, while the issues are going to be different here than they were at Harvard, I am hopeful [my experience] will allow me to work with my colleagues on the faculty on an effective way."

His business experience may also work to his benefit. While Rose announced in February that he would be stepping down from the Board of Directors at Bank of America, he remains a director at XL Group, a global insurance company, and at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a non-profit research organization that is the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research. Rose believes his HHMI role will be especially valuable to his work at Bowdoin.

“I don’t get involved in decisions about where money gets allocated, so there isn’t a specific conflict of interest there,” he said. “But what I’m able to do is understand—at a high altitude and layperson’s level—issues of where science may be going, where challenges may be in raising money, where opportunities may exist for particular scientific endeavors, and also to talk to scientists who are working on the bench about their work and what challenges they face intellectually, organizationally and financially in getting done what they need to get done."

As summer goes on and the more hectic days of the academic year approach, Rose said he and his wife plan to enjoy the Maine outdoors by biking, hiking, kayaking and, his favorite, fly fishing.

“I’m mindful of the hard work ahead, but excited by it,” he said. ““I am really excited to be here. I’ve had a lot of interesting jobs in a career that I’ve been lucky to have. This is the best job that I will ever have.”

Joulia Likhanskaia '17 made Bowdoin tennis history last weekend, becoming the first Polar Bear to advance to the finals match in singles at the NCAA Championships, hosted this year in Mason, Ohio. Additionally, Likhanskaia joined teammate Tiffany Cheng '16 as the first Bowdoin women's doubles team to win a match in the NCAA Tournament by advancing to the competition's quarterfinals.

Singles players and doubles teams are selected for the championships each year based on a number of factors, including win-loss records and strength of schedule. After the 32 individuals and 16 pairs are chosen, the NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Committee seeds the tournaments.

Though Likhanskaia was not awarded one of the tournament's top eight seeds (the only seeds indicated in the bracket), she was by no means considered an underdog going in.

“Seeds don’t mean a lot," said Hobie Holbach, Head Coach of Bowdoin Women's Tennis. "I don’t put a lot of stock in them because our region is by far the strongest and usually they just balance it out. The girl who was seeded No. 2, [Joulia] has two wins over. I didn’t care [about seeds] and neither did she."

Likhanskaia won each of her first three matches in two sets, including a 6-4, 6-2 quarterfinal victory over Amherst's Sue Ghosh on Friday. However, these early-round matches presented a mental challenge that later-round competition did not, according to Likhanskaia.

“The first match is definitely one of the hardest because you have to get past being nervous. I thought I did a good job of doing that," she said. "From then on, I gained more confidence throughout the tournament."

She faced trouble in the semifinals on Friday afternoon, however, against Juli Raventos of Williams. After winning the first set 6-3, she dropped the second 6-1 before falling into a 3-0 hole to start the decisive third set.

“I had to stay mentally tough, and [Coach Holbach] was saying ‘Play your game. Be aggressive,’" said Likhanskaia. "I didn’t want to fade in the third set, and I kept thinking that I had put in so much work to get that far, so I didn’t want to let it all go."

Likhanskaia managed to claw back within 5-4 before taking the final three games of the set to win the match and advance to the championship match the next day against Eudice Chong of Wesleyan.

Chong, the tournament's No. 1 seed, had not lost a match all season. In fact, she had only dropped a single set—a 6-4 defeat to Likhanskaia in Claremont, Calif. in early March.

“I was one of the only people to play a really close match with her," said Likhanskaia. "I had nothing to lose."

The final was a nail-biter. After Likhanskaia and Chong each took a set 6-4, Likhanskaia opened a 5-4 lead in the third set before the Wesleyan first year won three straight games to take home the national title.

Holbach credited Likhanskaia's multifaceted game in aiding her tournament run.

“She can do just about anything with the ball," he said. "She doesn’t have one style. She’s very adaptable to different types of players. She can play very aggressively or she can play steady. She can hit powerfully and she can play finesse. She’s a whole-court player."

"To go five matches, you need a little luck and some breaks and you gotta play well, so those things came together."

As a doubles team, Likhanskaia and Cheng entered the tournament knowing they had a chance to be the first to leave a Polar Bear-sized paw print on the championship bracket.

“We really just wanted to get through the first round, because Coach told us that no one in team history had ever won a round at Nationals. So that was our goal going in," said Cheng. "But once we got there and saw the competition, we were pretty confident in ourselves that we could get further, especially with how Joulia was playing in singles. That confidence carried over to doubles."

The pair got the landmark win on Thursday, beating Ariana Iranpour and Megan Tang of the University of Chicago 6-3, 6-1. According to Holbach, Likhanskaia and Cheng leveraged their individual strengths to play well as a team.

“Joulia’s the one at the net who picks off a lot of balls, and Tiffany sets her up. Tiffany’s sort of the point guard of the team," he said.

The duo looked poised to advance even further in Friday's quarterfinal match, as they took the first set and held a 5-2 lead in the second against Patricia Kirkland and Sonja Meighan of Washington & Lee. Their opponents had other ideas, however, storming back to win the set 7-5 before winning the final set 6-4 to advance.

"Our confidence carried over from the first match, the strategy was there, we had the game plan, but I think the nerves just started to kick in," said Cheng. “Altogether we played a great match."

Likhanskaia and Cheng believe their successes are just the start for the entire Bowdoin women's tennis team, which saw its season end in a close defeat to Middlebury at a regional final hosted in Brunswick.

“It shows that we have to keep going. We’re right there every year," said Cheng. "Teams that we’ve beaten in the regular season made it to Nationals."

"Our program keeps improving every year, so hopefully we’ll go even farther next year, including with the whole team," said Likhanskaia.

Bowdoin announced JB Wells as its 29th head football coach Wednesday morning. Wells joins the Polar Bears by way of Endicott College, where he was the first coach in program history and accrued a 75-48 record over his 12 seasons with the Gulls.

The announcement came directly after a 7 a.m. meeting in Kresge Auditorium where Wells introduced himself to the entire team.

Wells knows the NESCAC well, as he graduated from Trinity College in 1991 and started for three years as an offensive lineman for the Bantams. He also held assistant coaching positions at both Trinity and Bates during the ’90’s.

“This was really less of a football decision and more of a career decision,” said Wells. “I played in the conference, and the NESCAC means a lot to me. I’ve always seen myself as returning to the NESCAC in one of the positions, I just didn’t know where it was gonna be.”

For Wells, the decision to leave the Endicott program, which he built from the ground up, was not an easy one.

“I can’t thank Endicott enough for the opportunity I was given as a 31 year-old, unproven head coach,” he said. “They handed me a blank canvas and all the art supplies I needed to paint a picture and put my vision on that canvas. To see it come to life and see it succeed in the way that it did was remarkable. It was hard to leave.”

After Dave Caputi stepped down this fall after 15 years as head coach, Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan sat down with the team and established a set of desired characteristics for its next coach. He then narrowed the applicants down to those which he presented to the selection committee. 

The selection committee was headed up by Ryan. Also on the committee were team captains Parker Mundt ’16, Brendan Lawler ’16 and Dan Barone ’16, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Jim Caton, Assistant Dean of Admissions Zakaree Harris, Assistant Director of Employment and Staffing Meredith Haralson, Associate Head Athletic Trainer Megan Thompson, Head Coach of Field Hockey Nicky Pearson, Head Coach of Baseball Mike Connelly and Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History Brian Purnell, who is the faculty liaison to the football team.

“Before we could even look at it, Tim Ryan sifted through upwards of 100 applicants,” said Mundt. “It came down to the final 12 or 15 guys who he thought were appropriate.”

Mundt said it was not difficult to decide on the top four candidates. 

“In their cover letters, it was really quite obvious,” he continued. “Even just the language some of the guys were using, it was pretty clear that they were not fitting our standards. It was a really quick process.”

After narrowing it down to four, the committee closely evaluated the remaining candidates. Lawler, Barone and Mundt conducted phone interviews.

“A couple of the other phone interviews I had were 20 minutes long, very meat and potatoes, question and answer,” said Mundt. "And that’s not what I was looking for at all."

“My interview with [Coach Wells] was different, and I knew it was different,” said Mundt. “We had a conversation for an hour and a half, which was exactly what I wanted. I got a really good feel for what he’s about, and he got a feel for what we’re about here.”

But while Wells is still yet to move any of his possessions from his Beverley office to his Brunswick one, he has already turned his thoughts toward his new roster. He plans to leave Bowdoin’s base 4-2-5 defense relatively intact, including coverages and blitz schemes similar to those he employed while with the Gulls.

The offense, though, will have a new look next year. Tyler Grant ‘17 is the attack’s best returning weapon, having led the NESCAC with 893 rushing yards last season.  He also had over 75 more carries than any other back in the league despite standing only 5’10” and weighing  just 158 pounds.

“I’ve always been in favor of having a two-headed monster, two guys that can shoulder the load,” Wells said. “It makes them both better. So the scheme on running the football will be different. They ran a zone scheme and I’m more of a gap scheme kind of a guy. I love the traditional power play. I’m an offensive line guy, and it kind of speaks to my soul as a football player.”

“I’ve also had a lot of success in my career throwing the football. I look at guys like Seamus Power [‘16] and Danny Barone that stood out to me on film. I’d like to see us be a little more vertical in our passing game. We have to throw for more than one passing touchdown in the season.”

Wells takes over a Polar Bear squad that finished 2-6 last year and has an all-time record of 392-502-44. And while he plans to bring cultural changes to the program, a full overhaul is not to be expected.

“I heard one of the players allude to us making a turnaround,” he said. “Well, a turnaround says that you’re going in the wrong direction. I don’t think that Bowdoin’s going in the wrong direction, I think that we just need to get a little more in line, a little bit more focused and get everybody—everybody—headed in the right direction.”

According to Wells, heading in the right direction means an intense focus on oneself.

 “One of my idiosyncrasies is that I will never mention an opponent by name,” he said. “They’re just ‘that team over there in Lewiston,’ or whatever. I don’t talk about those guys, because the focus should always be on us. Your opponents are just a sounding board for how good you can be.”

As the football team moves into this new era, all involved are focused on the future.

“There’s no magic wand you can wave as a college football coach coming into a program that’s historically been a 3-5, 2-6 team,” said Mundt. “We’re expecting to win this year, but it’s something where you’ll want to come back and see success later. I know they’re going to be winning five, six, seven or eight games a year. If you can set your guys up for success and in five years come and watch them win games, that’s awesome.”

“At the end of the day, it was ‘Can you be successful?’” said Wells. “And I wouldn’t be sitting in this seat if I didn’t think that we could. I left the program that I built from scratch and I was only going to do that if I could be at a special place.”

On October 6, several Bowdoin students ran in the 22nd annual Maine Marathon. Approximately 1,000 runners participated in Maine’s premier marathon, and about 2,000 more ran in the accompanying half marathon.

“I picked out this particular marathon in the spring and have been training since May,” said Ben Pallant ’16, who was competing in his first marathon.

Like others from Bowdoin, Pallant didn’t stick to a particularly strict training routine preparing for the race, but put in many hours over the summer.

March 28, 2014 5:12 p.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the average GPA of all students in 2005 was 3.25. The correct statistic is 3.23. 

President Barry Mills delivered a report on athletics at a faculty meeting on February 4, providing a rare look at the College’s efforts to recruit athletes and opening a discussion about their collective performance in the classroom.

According to Professor of Latin and Greek Barbara Boyd, at one of the fall faculty meetings earlier in the year, Professor of Religion Jorunn Buckley voiced her concern with “a number of students that she said were underprepared for the academic work at Bowdoin, and noticed that some of them were athletes.”

Several members of the faculty began actively discussing the issue during the meeting, and Mills returned at the February 4 meeting with information to answer some of their concerns, citing the difference in cumulative grade point average between athletes and non-athletes at Bowdoin as the “smallest or next to smallest of any school in the NESCAC.” 

The collective GPA of female athletes is slightly higher than that of the general female population, while male athletes are just a shade below the male average. According to a Bowdoin Academic Affairs web page, at the end of the fall 2005 semester the cumulative GPA of student athletes, including members of club teams, was 3.22, almost indentical to the all-student cumulative GPA of 3.23. The College has not updated these statistics since 2005.

“It’s absolutely a point of pride within our campus community and the athletic department,” said Tim Ryan, althetic director, about the negligible GPA difference between athletes and the student body at large. “It’s a testament to the work our coaches do to bring highly talented students to campus who are dedicated to their academic interests.

Multiple professors on campus pointed out that they were not concerned with athletes in general, but rather a select few who seemed to be underperforming academically.

“Basically [Mills’] message was that, on average, the GPA of athletes is on par with the rest of the College. Averages can be misleading,” said biology and biochemistry professor Bruce Kohorn. “It would be better to look at the individual GPAs of individual athletes and perhaps those of specific teams.”

Each admissions cycle, Bowdoin is limited, like all other NESCAC schools, to 77 athletic recruits—students who gain admission aided by the fact they play sports. Bowdoin has a self-imposed, flexible cap of admitting around 120 student athletes in each first-year class. This means a total of 43 athletes are admitted solely on the basis of their academic achievements. No other NESCAC school has a similar limitation.

President Mills instituted the cap of 120 when he came to Bowdoin in 2001.

“I believed that we could have competitive and excellent teams, and at the same time, given our small size, it would leave enough space to admit people with other interests,” he said.

Ryan echoed Mills’ interest in bringing a diverse student body to Bowdoin each year. 

“One of our goals at Bowdoin is to have a community that’s comprised of people with many different interests,” said Ryan. “We work with the parameters that are in place for us regarding athletes and we’re pleased with the success that we’ve been able to have both in the classroom and on the playing field.”

After Mills’ February faculty meeting remarks, faculty members launched into a larger discussion about the relationship between college athletics and academics. 

“One of the issues that came up was students missing classes on Fridays due to away games,” said Boyd. The administration “talked about how that had all been worked out and there wasn’t supposed to be any missing of classes. But then some faculty members said ‘Actually, no,’” there had been incidents of it.

While unanimously agreeing that there is value in participating in athletics, some professors said they felt that athletes at Bowdoin are pressured to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to their sports. 

“There are some very bright people who don’t have the time or energy to reach their potential in the classroom,” said Kohorn.

“If teammates are saying ‘Oh, don’t take that class because of practice,’ then that’s really detrimental to the academic program of the institution,” said Boyd.

Student-athletes, too, acknowledged the strain that practices, games and other team functions can put on their studies.

“Every single time between classes in-season, even if it’s just 45 minutes, I have to be doing something,” said Kelsey Mullaney ’16, a member of the field hockey team, in an interview with the Orient. “If I don’t, then I’m going to be up late. Procrastination isn’t an option.”

“Two hours a day at practice translates to a 2-hour practice, a half-hour dinner with the team, minimum, and a half-hour of cleaning up and getting ready to do work,” said Ezra Duplissie-Cyr ’15, a member of the men’s club rugby team. “Before you know it, it’s eight o’clock and half of your day is gone.”

Duplissie-Cyr opted not to play a varsity sport at Bowdoin because of the additional time commitment. 

“I’ve heard [varsity athletes] complain about getting back from a game at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night,” he said.

Despite this, many athletes reported athletics having a positive effect on their academics.

“It creates a schedule for me,” said Spencer Vespole ’13, who plays water polo in the fall and coaches the women’s water polo team in the spring. “Outside of the season I don’t really know what to do between 4:30 and 6:30. I’ll fall asleep.”

“As a junior, I’ve gotten used to the fact that I’m pretty much always in season,” said Griffin Cardew ’14, a member of both the football and lacrosse teams. “I feel like I work best when I’m in season because I tend to procrastinate [otherwise]. It forces me to be organized and have a schedule. When I have an hour or 45 minutes to get work done, that’s when I have to do it.”

According to Mullaney, being a member of a sports team has improved her academic experience as a first year in multiple ways. Because field hockey is a fall sport, she said she developed her study habits during her busiest time of the year. 

“It would be much harder starting with lots of free time and then going into a sport,” she said.

However, several athletes confirmed the concern that Boyd had—that student athletes often choose classes around their sports commitments, as a way to more prudently manage their future schedules. 

“There were classes in the afternoon that I couldn’t take [because of practice], which sucks because they aren’t offered in the spring,” added Mullaney. “That’s really frustrating.”

“There have been a couple of night classes in the past that I would’ve been interested in taking, but I didn’t just because I would’ve missed practice,” said Cardew. “So to a certain extent it’s affected it, but I wouldn’t make any complaints about it.”

According to Professor of Economics Jonathan Goldstein, athletes at Bowdoin have little incentive to dedicate time to schoolwork at the expense of their athletic careers. 

“At Bowdoin, 85 percent of grades are As and Bs,” he said. “What that says is that the opportunity cost of shirking academic responsibilities to pursue extracurricular activities is very small.”

However, not all professors on campus said they agree that student-athletes should always have to be students first. 

“The people who disparage spending a lot of time on athletics are thinking from a perspective that it’s a wasted endeavor,” said Assistant Professor of Economics Erik Nelson. “Presumably, you would think you’re a better person for devoting more time to your mind than your body, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. People who are worried about athletes and the amount of time they spend with the sport think that there’s some kind of wrongful imbalance. I don’t know why, necessarily.”

“Students are adults by the time they’re in college,” added Nelson. “It’s up to them to decide how they want to allocate their time and the risk they run by dedicating a lot of time to a particular activity.”

Even though the College’s student athletes have limited time to spare for schoolwork, academics are a major concern for the Athletic Department.

“When we go through the hiring process of coaches, we talk about the importance of the academic performance of our students,” said Ryan. “We hope to attract people who are philosophically aligned with the idea that students are here to be students first.”

Whether they like it or not, coaches at Bowdoin must look to recruit players who will meet the approval of the Office of Admissions.

“Regardless of how good a player someone is, the school’s not going to accept them if they don’t think they’re qualified,” said Tim Gilbride, the head coach of men’s basketball.

As for non-recruits, the definition of “qualified” at Bowdoin is fluid when compared to other peer institutions. 

“There’s nothing formulaic [for us],” said Head Football Coach Dave Caputi. “Ivy League schools have something called the Academic Index. The highest score you can get is 240 points. Good essay, bad essay, glowing teacher recommendations, lukewarm teacher recommendations: none of that factors into it in the Ivy League formula. Bowdoin’s is not a quantitative evaluation; it’s a qualitative evaluation.” 

“Standards have changed over time as the school looks for different things, students from different areas, or whatever the case may be,” said Gilbride. “Every year someone from admissions will talk to Tim Ryan and say ‘Here are the parameters.’ Sometimes they’ll actually sit down with us coaches as a group and say, ‘Here are cases of kids who’ve been admitted or not admitted, and here’s why.’”

Once given a clear picture of what to look for in recruits’ academic profiles, coaches work hard to project which of their target players stand a good chance of admittance. 

As a result of the non-formulaic approach in admissions, Bowdoin coaches  must pay particular attention to their athletes’ non-athletic performance. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Scott Mieklejohn, declined to comment for this story.

“We save all the information of kids we’ve admitted in the past and say to ourselves ‘How did Admissions read this kid?’ So we’ll do some pretty lengthy analysis for future reference,” said Caputi.

“Some guys are borderline, academically,” said Gilbride. “Your initial information might be testing scores and GPA in a recruiting sheet. Then we’ll ask for more information: What’s he taking for courses? Is he taking AP classes? What courses are on the schedule next year? If that stuff’s very strong, then we can think that it might work out.”

Like all Bowdoin students, athletes have the opportunity to utilize many academic resources. Coaches make sure to let their players know what is available on campus.

“I talk to my players pretty regularly, especially the first years,” said Gilbride. “Sometimes people aren’t aware of the resources available to them. Occasionally, if they come in and struggle academically they’ll be embarrassed, because they’ve always been so successful as a student [prior to college]. I tell them to meet with the professor or join a study group. It’s advice I’d give to any first-year students.”

Coaches are also concerned about keeping close tabs on their players’ grades.

“All freshmen and anyone who got below a 3.0 in the previous semester go to a study hall once a week for an hour,” Cardew said of the lacrosse team.

Most recruits succeed in the classroom once at Bowdoin, and many excel. Eighty-four Polar Bears were named to the NESCAC All-Academic Team this past fall, and 77 were named for the winter season.  

“I think that’s a measure of the job the admissions office does,” said Coach Caputi. “It’s a measure of the standards we have and us trying to find kids who are a good match.”

The men’s basketball team is in the midst of a 3-game slide as it prepares for its final two regular season games this weekend. Last Friday the Polar Bears fell to No. 6 Middlebury by a score of 72-61. The Panthers controlled the game throughout, building a 43-30 lead at halftime. Bowdoin narrowed the lead to just seven with 13 minutes left, but a shrewd timeout by Middlebury Head Coach Jeff Brown halted the Polar Bears’ momentum. Panther sophomore forward Hunter Merryman sank a critical 3-pointer on Middlebury’s subsequent possession and the lead never shrank below 10 thereafter. While the Polar Bears played with Middlebury neck-and-neck throughout the second half, Head Coach Tim Gilbride said he knows that the Polar Bears need a complete 40 minutes of good basketball to best a team of that caliber.

In December, it took a 10-1 scoring run in the final four minutes for the men’s basketball team to beat Colby. In last weekend’s rematch, the Polar Bears wasted no time in whipping the Mules in a solid 63-49 victory. Led by 18 points and 10 rebounds from the resurgent Andrew Madlinger ’14, the Bowdoin men never trailed in their triumph in Waterville last Saturday. Sizzling shooting guard Matt Mathias ’14 chipped in 13 points while point guard Bryan Hurley ’15 added 12 points and eight assists. Colby’s match-up zone, a hybrid defense designed to pressure the opposition’s ball-handler, gave Bowdoin trouble in December. But after a month of training over Winter Break, the Polar Bears were better prepared for this season’s second face-off with their rivals.

The men’s basketball team opened the season 1-1 at the Eastern Connecticut Tip-Off Tournament on the weekend of November 16.

In the past decade, only one field hockey player had been named the NESCAC Player of the Week in back-to-back weeks.

After an 0-2 start against perennial NESCAC powers Middlebury and Amherst, the football team was in need of a serious spark to get their first win. Junior running back Zach Donnarumma was able to provide just that last Saturday.