In the early hours of a typical Friday morning, the Orient staff emails PDF files of the paper to a Brunswick printer. A few hours later, printed newspapers appear in buildings across campus. In between, the intricate art of newspaper printing unfolds just a few miles from Bowdoin. Dick Lancaster, sales manager at Alliance Press, has been in the newspaper-printing business for nearly 30 years. His company was already printing weekly editions of the Orient when he joined in the mid-1980s.

The physical printing process relies on both old and new technology. Once the Orient sends completed designs to Alliance Press, pre-press employees check that the files are sized and formatted properly. 

“No RGB images. [We use] CMYK,” Lancaster said. “[Then] they’ll paginate it and put it in the correct order for sixteen pages.”

Order is especially important because the printing press is configured to only print certain pages in color. All images that appear in the Orient are combinations of just a few colors of ink. “You have four different inkwells. You have yellow, magenta, black and cyan,” Lancaster said. ”You [put] your colors all on [pages] one, eight, nine and 16. If you wanted more color, it would go on two, seven, 10 and 15.” 

Once the employees have ensured that the paper is in proper order, they use a special printer to burn the design directly onto metal plates. They then bend the plates to fit into the printing press.

When it’s finally time to print the paper, an operator switches the printing press on. Sheets of newsprint pass through the machine, picking up ink as they come into contact with the metal plates. The machine then cuts and folds the sheets so that they come out the other end looking like typical newspapers. 

Alliance Press has multiple printing presses, so they can print up to three publications simultaneously. The quickest of these presses prints 15,000 papers per hour. For a publication like the Orient, which prints roughly 1,600 copies, the process is relatively short. “Once we’re up and running, it probably takes 15, 20 minutes, to print the [Orient],” Lancaster said. 

The Orient typically prints at around 8 a.m. Since pressroom employees work in three shifts, the printing facilities are well-populated no matter the time of day.

While printing presses themselves haven’t changed much since Lancaster first entered the printing business, the advent of computers has substantially affected the industry. Before email existed, the Orient staff would paste words and images onto physical boards, which they would deliver to the press room. Printing employees would then take pictures of the boards and use their negatives to develop the metal plates. 

“You’d go into the dark room. You’d put the boards on the camera. You’d shoot the camera,” Lancaster said. “The negatives would be burned on the plates.”

While technology has made the printing process more convenient, it has also impacted the nature of Lancaster’s job. 

”Everything pretty much comes to us in InDesign PDF files now,” he said. “As a salesman, I would be driving five to six hundred miles a week, going to different locations, picking up boards and bringing them back to print. I don’t go anywhere anymore.”

But despite technological advancements, the physical printing process isn’t perfect. Lancaster noted that in printing the Orient, Alliance Press will typically waste 300 to 500 copies because sheets weren’t aligned properly. He added that the staff recycles these wasted copies.“Everything we do here, we recycle,” he said. “All of our newsprint is post-consumer recycled newsprint.”

Lancaster said that printing the Orient has typically been a fairly smooth process. He did note, however, that the Occident, the satirical version of the Orient published the last week of each year, once caused problems. 

“It was a little over the top, and a couple of employees were offended by it,” he said. “[But] that was a long time ago.” 

For Lancaster, printing the Orient helps him stay connected to Bowdoin, where he occasionally works as a bartender for campus events. His grandfather—for whom Lancaster Lounge is named—was a member of the Bowdoin class of 1927, and his mother also worked at the College. 

Alliance Press headquarters are located in Brunswick, only a few miles from Bowdoin’s campus. Despite the small-town location, the company not only prints the Orient but also many other publications, including the Times Record, the Bangor Daily News and student newspapers from the University of Maine-Orono, the University of Southern Maine and Colby.

While Lancaster isn’t usually mentioned in the headlines that his company prints, he nonetheless takes pride in the work.

“This is kind of like meat and potatoes. This is the bottom line basic newsprint color printing,” he said. “We have a really good niche here in the state of Maine.”

Last night Ladd House hosted a panel and small-group discussion entitled, “Why do the College Houses Feel so White?” Topics of discussion ranged from how music and dancing at College House parties affect the whiteness of the spaces to what it feels like as a student of color applying to a house.

Organized by President of Reed House Diana Furukawa ’18 and Programming Director of Reed House Victoria Lowrie ’18, the panel was moderated by Assistant Director of Residential Life Mariana Centeno and featured Hayley Nicholas ’17, Sarah Lim ’18, Hannah Cooke ’18, Justin Weathers ’18, Osakhare Omoregie ’18, Maya Reyes ’16 and Paola Maymi ’18. The event was attended by about 40 students.

While each panelist had different experiences and understandings of why and how College Houses are predominantly white spaces, the majority of the panel agreed the music and dancing culture at College Houses reinforce the feeling of whiteness that pervades the houses.

Reyes suggested songs that are the main culprits for her, particularly “Mr. Brightside” and “Stacy’s Mom.”

“There’s no denying ‘Stacy’s Mom’ is a white, suburban song,” she said. “It’s a fun song, but now as a senior every time I hear that song I think ‘that wasn’t my life experience.’ So just knowing now that every time it plays in a College House it’s just a reminder that this is the culture I’m in, and I can’t forget that.”

Centeno noted that statistically, the racial composition of College Houses is about the same as the rest of the college. Maymi spoke to this point.

“For me the College House system hasn’t felt that white because I went to middle school and high school in Tampa, Florida at a school that was 95 percent white, which felt much whiter than Bowdoin,” she said.

Maymi added that she felt the most uncomfortable with her race when applying to a College House as part of a block.

“Maybe this wasn’t my friends’ intention[s], but I felt like I was always being singled out as someone who would make the block better because I’m Puerto Rican,” she said. “And that felt uncomfortable to me because I didn’t want to be living with people who saw me as just someone that would help them get in [to a house].”

However, in light of increased attention being paid to diversity on campus, the application process seems to be changing. Centeno has seen a shift in the focus of programming suggestions for College Houses.

“A lot of the programs [first years are] bringing up are programs speaking about diversity,” she said. “That’s a trend that I haven’t seen before in reading applications.”

These programs—along with events like last night’s panel—could help usher in a shift in the role College Houses serve on campus.

Correction (September 25 at 9:30 a.m.): Each student will receive their own unique link to vote via email; voting will not take place at bowdoin.edu/vote.

When President Barry Mills departs from the College in July after 14 years, he will leave behind a legacy of increased access to Bowdoin and a more diverse student body, something he accomplished through a dramatic expansion of the College’s financial aid program.

During his first year as president in 2001, the College awarded $13,870,759 (adjusted for inflation) in need-based financial aid to 627 students, according to the College’s Common Data Set. This year, Bowdoin provided $29,739,519 in institutional aid to 803 students, meaning that at the end of Mills’ tenure, the College both offers a larger average grant and provides grants to more students. Mills said that those rising numbers reflect his longstanding belief that financial aid is essential to the future of the College. 

“It’s been at the heart and soul of my commitment to the College since the day I came,” said Mills.

Indeed, as early as his October 27, 2001 inaugural address, Mills had identified expanding access and supporting students with need as one of the biggest challenges Bowdoin faced.

“Our continued commitment to a strong financial aid program will ensure that students from rural Maine, and students from poor neighborhoods in New York City and Los Angeles, and even some not-so-wealthy students from Rhode Island will be able to come here to learn,” he said that day. 

Mills himself was once one of those not-so-wealthy students from Rhode Island. His father had not finished the 10th grade, yet with the help of financial aid, Mills matriculated at Bowdoin and graduated in 1972. As he sees it, expanding access to Bowdoin is an integral part of the College’s commitment to the common good. 

“If you want to think about the common good—the idea that you are creating opportunity for a student who wouldn’t have it otherwise is hugely important to me,” he said.

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Scott Meiklejohn said that the College’s financial aid program has become one of its strongest selling points.

“I think his view of Bowdoin and what Bowdoin means as a college, why Bowdoin exists, is to provide opportunity, and so at the level of inspiration, that message is really important for us to be able to communicate,” he said.

Mills’ commitment to financial aid is not just a message for the Office of Admissions, however. It has a real impact on how Admissions operates.

“I’ve just been in northern California for a week, and there’s not one student I met there—including a group of students at a 100 percent first-generation school in East Palo Alto—there’s not one student I met where I have to express any reservation about their opportunity to come here, because Barry and others have ensured that we have the resources to hold the door open,” Meiklejohn said.

Mills has been able to oversee a dramatic expansion of financial aid largely because of his success as a fundraiser and the strong performances of Bowdoin’s endowment over the last decade.

“We were able to succeed partly because people recognized that what we were doing was important for the students, important for the future for the school,” Mills said, “and we were able to succeed because we were able to raise the money to do it and because the endowment grew.”

Mills said that donors came to recognize the importance of financial aid because it was a priority—something that he reminded them about repeatedly. He joked that he spoke about aid so often that he sounded “like a broken record.” Broken record or not, his was a tune that got stuck in donor’s heads.

“When I came I was told financial aid money is very hard to raise,” he said. “Interestingly I found financial aid money is the easiest money to raise, and in many cases I’ve had donors who we’ve asked to do other things who would have preferred to give money to financial aid.”

Fundraising successes allowed Mills to increase his goals for financial aid. When his presidency began, he spoke about the irresponsibility of abandoning the College’s need-blind admissions policy. Seven years later, he had a far more ambitious goal in mind: adopting a policy of meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need without loans.

Bowdoin announced its no-loans initiative in January 2008. At the time, it was one of the only colleges with an endowment of less than one billion dollars to commit to no loans. Mills had worked with members of the Board of Trustees to help them understand why it was the right choice for the College.

Meiklejohn said that Mills had led the push for the no-loans policy.

“At a time when the college had the resources to expand its financial aid support and to go no-loan and to throw even more energy and commitment to low-income, first-generation students, Barry was the right person to galvanize the community around that and push Bowdoin even further ahead,” he said.

The policy has made financial aid available to middle class families, many of whom struggle to afford college as its cost keeps rising. According to Meiklejohn, there are currently 433 students from households with incomes over $90,000 who receive financial aid—about half of all aid recipients. Mills said that there are families on the higher end of the economic spectrum—even those at the bottom of the one percent—who have difficulty paying for college and deserve support.

As the country went into a deep recession in late 2008, the expensive no-loans initiative was adding to the College’s financial stress, but Mills felt that it was a policy worth maintaining.

“I’m proud to say we maintained the no loans. We didn’t lay anybody off; everybody kept their jobs,” he said. “The College got through that period with a lot of shared sacrifice where faculty and staff agreed to freeze salaries for a couple of years in order to allows us to maintain our commitments both to our employees and to the students.”

The no-loans policy has helped the College become a more diverse place, not only in terms of its socioeconomic composition, but also in terms of its geographic and racial composition.

According to the College’s Common Data Set, there were 50 black students, 50 Hispanic students and 1,295 white students enrolled during the 2001-2002 academic year. This year, 229 students identify as Hispanic, 88 as black, 1,147 as white, and 117 as non-Hispanic members of two or more races.

The College has also drawn more and more students from outside of New England, a trend that started before Mills’ tenure but has accelerated in recent years.

“The goal always was to make the school look like America—that meant racial diversity; that meant economic diversity; that meant diversity of view—and we succeeded in doing that to a point,” Mills said. “There’s always more work to be done.”

Mills said that these forms of diversity are important to the College’s mission to prepare its students to be leaders. He and Meiklejohn both said that after graduating, students will have to navigate a world where people have different viewpoints and backgrounds, and that a diverse student body is excellent preparation for that world.

“Creating a community that is more cosmopolitan, more diverse in the broadest sense, was essential, I think, to the future of the College,” Mills said. “We recognized that in order to bring people from different parts of the United States to the College, including racial diversity, we needed to put more money behind financial aid.”

Throughout the school year, students flock to campus venues to hear their favorite a cappella groups perform. Whether the event is the large holiday concert in Pickard or a more intimate, laidback gathering in Ladd House, the performances are well attended almost without exception. However, there is a lot more to the world of a cappella than belting out your favorite Macklemore song in the chapel. There are logistics involved: organizing auditions, obtaining recording funds and the ongoing effort to dispel the prevalent notion of tense rivalries between groups.

The A Cappella Council, spearheaded by Noah Gavil ’14, works to facilitate communication between the six groups to ensure that these logistics run as smoothly as possible. Although the groups perform together three times a year, their contact is otherwise fairly limited, and the Council has recently been working to change that.

“This year, for the first time that I remember, we had a big meeting between all the other groups to work through some of the kinks,” said Kevin Miao ’14 of the Longfellows. “In the past, it was much more fragmented and there wasn’t much communication.”

One of the most important aspects of this communication occurs during audition period. At the beginning of the year, each group goes around to the first year bricks to do “dorm sings,” making sure not to overlap too closely with anyone else. Interested students then sign up for auditions later in the week.

“People kind of do their own thing with auditions, but it’s mostly a variation of the same thing,” said Gavil, who added that after the first wave of auditions, leaders from each group consult to create a schedule for callbacks. This way, if someone gets a callback from two groups, they can attend both.

“There’s a big draft through all the groups where we talk about who wants whom,” said Erica Nangeroni ’14 of the coed group BOKA. “If we have someone we really can’t make a decision on we say, ‘Hey, you got into a couple groups; you have a few minutes to decide which one you want to be in.’ It’s a little high pressure.”

As a side note, Nangeroni added, “We tend to have more girls audition than guys. The general trend is that boys are pulled a little bit more towards all-male groups and girls are pulled more towards coed group.”

“There have been occasions where someone has been in two groups, but it is somewhat discouraged,” said Gavil. “They are always in one group first and then if they want to be in another group, they can audition in later years.”

The lack of overlap in groups could feed the idea of their being rivalries amongst them, but Gavil, a member of Ursus Verses, maintains that this is not the case.

“It’s all artificial to me—it’s sort of funny,” he said. “I think any rivalries are not real rivalries—they’re not like Seahawks and 49ers—and I think what is cool is that all the groups definitely have their own vibe, and their sort of type of repertoire and type of presentation.”

Meddiebempster Michael Yang ’14 agreed, highlighting the difference in presentation between the two all-male groups. Where the Meddiebempsters (Meddies) are more “barbershop and tongue-in-cheek,” according to Yang, the Longfellows have a slightly more modern style in terms of song choice, arrangement and choreography.

“We sing completely different things,” said Miao. “The kinds of kids who are attracted to the Longfellows aren’t necessarily attracted to what the Meddies bring to the table and [vice versa].”However, just because such rivalries do not exist does not mean that they never did.

“I know that my freshman year, some of the Meddie/Longfellow seniors—I don’t even know who—just personally didn’t like each other, and that grew into a group thing,” said Yang.

“We have been trying to get rid of the perception of rivalries. I’ve loved a lot of Longfellows…As long as both groups are good, then that is a great thing,” he added.

Nangeroni expressed similar sentiments.

“When I was younger, there were more rigid rivalries so to speak,” she said. “I think there was just a little bit more contention when I was an underclassman, and I can’t really say why.”

She added that Thursday night’s Bursurka­­—a joint concert with BOKA and Ursus Verses—is a good way to dissolve the notion of rivalries.

“I think the [idea] stems from the fact that there are two male groups, two female groups and two co-ed groups, and automatically people think that all of them are going to be butting heads,” she said. “Bursurka is a good opportunity for us to show the campus that the coed groups are here to work together and we’re just here to have fun with each other.”

“There’s always a friendly rivalry,” said Margaret Lindeman ’15 of Ursus Verses, “but I think it more comes from the fact that every group wants to make really good music. So we’re always pushing ourselves to perform better and be as good as we can be, not by putting other groups down, but by doing the best that we can.”

One aspect of the a cappella community that has always been strong is alumni relations, particularly with the Meddies and Longfellows, who hold frequent reunions.

“We have really tight alumni connections,” said Yang. “I know alums from ’06-’07 pretty well even though I never went to school with them, because they visited here sometimes. I’ve been added to the email thread list of recent alumni from 2001 on, and there’s a Facebook group too.”

Although the alumnae networks in the all-female groups may not be quite as established, the leaders say that their alumnae remain an important part of their identity. Over Spring Break, Miscellania did a weeklong tour of New England and New York, where they were able to touch base with several alumnae.

“We’ve done relatively informal reunions in the past, but I think it would be great to do a bigger, official reunion, too,” said Paige Gribb ’14 of Miscellania. “We’ll have our 45th anniversary in 2017, so that will definitely be cause for celebration.”

Above all else, the singers all seem to agree that a cappella has been a defining part of their Bowdoin experience, and many of them hope to continue singing after graduation.

“[A cappella] has helped me with my personal confidence in terms of singing,” said Nangeroni. “It’s honed my leadership skills but also my public speaking skills. After college, I know that I want to keep singing. I don’t know when or where, but I know that I need some sort of outlet, because it’s been a great way to just relieve stress and I enjoy it so much.”

Founded 2001  *  co-ed 

BEHIND THE NAME: Ursus means bear in Latin, and verse is a musical term for a line of words

Founded 1972  *  ALL WOMEN

BEHIND THE NAME: Created the year women were first admitted to Bowdoin; wanted the name to match the Meddiebempsters; looked in a dictionary and chose Miscellania

MUSICAL STYLE: Range of classical choral music and current pop

MOST POPULAR SONGS: Depends on the audience, but currently “Royals” by Lorde

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: ValJam with the Longfellows and Meddielania with the Meddiebempsters

CLAIM TO FAME: They were on Maine Public Broadcasting Network with the Meddiebempsters a couple of years ago.

RECORDINGS: Several CDs are out, most recently Little Black Dress, and another in the works for this year or next 

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Black dresses

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “Scarborough Fair” by Simon and Garfunkel

Founded 2004  *  ALL men

BEHIND THE NAME: Named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, class of 1825

MUSICAL STYLE: Pop, contemporary a cappella and traditional American choral pieces

MOST POPULAR SONGS: “Hey Juliet” by LMNT

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: ValJam with Miscellania

CLAIM TO FAME: Semi-finals at the International Championships of Collegiate A Cappella 3 years ago; made the Top 30 on the show Sing Off two seasons ago; sang the national anthem at a Celtics games 

RECORDINGS: A new EP is on the way, and they have previously recorded three CDs. 

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Black suits

Founded 1994  *  co-ed

BEHIND THE NAME: It stood for Bowdoin’s Only Co-ed A Cappella, but the Best of College A Cappella CD acronym caused confusion, so the C was changed to a K

MUSICAL STYLE: Pop, with a little bit of indie

MOST POPULAR SONGS: A mashup of  “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Bieber and “Wide Awake”  by Katy Perry

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: Bursurka with Ursus Versus

CLAIM TO FAME: Low-key concerts for friends in college houses

RECORDINGS: The last CD was recorded 3 years ago, and another one is due this spring

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Jewel tones

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “No Scrubs” by TLC

Founded 2007  *  ALL WOMEN

BEHIND THE NAME: Randy Nichols said that the group was pretty in crime so they decided to incorporate it into the group’s name.

MUSICAL STYLE: Mostly folk with some higher energy music.

MOST POPULAR SONGS: A mashup of “Girl On Fire” by Alicia Keys and “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem ft. Rihanna

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: PrezJam with the Meddiebempsters

CLAIM TO FAME: They perform in many elderly homes in Brunswick and for the Portland Review.

RECORDINGS: One currently out, with another coming next year.

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Seasonal. They wear sweaters and try to coordinate.

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE: “Elastic Heart” by Sia

Founded 1937  *  ALL men

BEHIND THE NAME: The original story is that someone was blindfolded while throwing darts at a map of Maine, and one dart struck Lake Meddybemps.

MUSICAL STYLE: Founded on barbershop, but they also do jazz arrangements and modern pop songs

MOST POPULAR SONGS: “Mood Indigo” by Duke Ellington and “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby” by Les Applegate

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: PrezJam with Bellamafia, and their annual tour

CLAIM TO FAME: They’ve sung at the White House, in Korea and in California

RECORDINGS: Decades of CDs, including Christmas with the Meddies

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Khakis, white shirts, blue blazers, and Bowdoin polar bear ties

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot

Video courtesy of Chris Cameron '15.