The Bowdoin Orient

After a lengthy debate over a proposed amendment, the faculty failed to vote on the new proposed distribution requirements at its meeting Monday. Time only allowed for the approval of a controversial amendment before a sufficient number of faculty members opted to postpone further debate.

According to Bowdoin's financial aid website, the College has been need-blind for the past ten years. However, Bowdoin has been offering 100 stipends worth $3,000 to accepted students on the basis of "talent" rather than financial need for the last two years.

Next Wednesday voters will determine whether or not "size matters" when they cast their ballots for the Bowdoin Congressional race. In the meantime, both candidates, Jim Weeks '04 and Lenz Balan '04, are jockeying for position in the final days before the election.

As the academic year comes to a close, administrators, faculty, staff, and students met for the third collective debate to think about diversity in the College's future. The debate addressed the following questions: How do you imagine diversity in five years? Would you like our sense of difference to change, expand or narrow in any way? Do you envision more people like yourself or truly different from yourself at Bowdoin in the coming years?

Over the course of the last month, the Admissions Office has been busy recruiting the Class of 2008. While the composition of the class has not yet been finalized, the College admitted 1,130 applicants from 47 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and 27 other countries.

How much have you learned from students, faculty, and staff significantly different from yourself at Bowdoin? When and where did this learning happen, if at all? How large a part has this played in your life? On Monday, members of the Bowdoin community gathered in Thorne Hall to discuss these and other questions regarding the educational value placed on diversity by the College.

This Ivies Weekend will be the last for 40 College Street as current Bowdoin students know it. The College recently announced that is has bought the residence, though details of the purchase were not readily available at press time.

Many colleges have started taking action to increase not only cultural and ethnic diversity but economic diversity as well. According to The New York Times, over the past few years the number of students from low-income and middle-class families attending universities and colleges has decreased, suggesting that while racial diversity may be increasing, economic diversity is not.

The College community learned that Bowdoin has been giving merit-based scholarships for the last two years when President Barry Mills was recently pressed about the issue on BCN.

There is a terrible tradition associated with final columns in which writers feel a 750-word shock-and-awe campaign of self righteous blathering about their accumulated Wisdom of the Pines is appreciated by readers.

Here I sit on a Wednesday afternoon, with a Corona in hand in honor of Cinco de Mayo and senioritis, hoping I will figure out what to write about rather quickly so I can get back to trying to get Lenz elected. I feel a little pressure, you know, this being my last column and all.

Walking to the gym this afternoon, just as an experiment, I counted how many people said "hi." Out of the seven people I passed, three made eye contact and two smiled; but not one said hi.

We were disappointed to read last week's editorial, "Rethinking a requirement," which rejects the proposed distribution requirement of "Exploring Social Differences."

A tree died in Brunswick this weekend, after repeated collisions with an intelligent axe. Probable conclusion: tree's fault, or everyone living at Brunswick Apartments.

The proposed changes in distribution requirements, which will be voted on by the faculty next week though won't affect any current Bowdoin students, contain a number of improvements over the current system. The addition of an arts requirement and a more narrowly-tailored quantitative requirement are especially welcome.

Because it is fashionable to critique traditions as remnants of ages past or the unhealthy preservation of outdated social constructs, few are willing to give the devil his due regarding the benefits of a healthy respect for it.

If you're reading this-or anything, for that matter, but given the audience I can safely confine the conversation to this-then you are most certainly living in a hole in the ground. It's Ivies. There is no reading during Ivies.

Today. Partly cloudy. Highs in the upper 60s. West winds around 10 mph. Becoming northwest 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon.

Dear Dr. Jeff: I've been having trouble concentrating on my work for a while. I tried a friend's Ritalin to study for a midterm, and it worked great. I wonder if I have ADD?-J.L.

The benefits of mentoring programs for elementary, middle, and high school students throughout the country and here in Maine are invaluable. Studies in the past 10 years prove that young people who participate in a mentoring program have higher educational aspirations and achievement, are more likely to say no to drugs and alcohol, and form better relationships with adults and peers.

In late August, 1891, Austin Cary '87 and Dennis Cole '88 continued their trek back to the mouth of the Grand River in Labrador. Having lost their supplies, they used the bits of meat to "help fill the gap, now becoming quite long, between square meals."

Through scattered letters distributed amongst the stage and audience and an unconventional take on Edna St. Vincent Millay's life, Jasmine Cronin '04 enlightened the Wish Theater audience on Sunday afternoon as to the exact nature of "Vincent's" poetry.

Last night's performances kicked off Masque and Gown's annual One Acts festival. The student written plays will show again tonight at 8:00 and tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 in Pickard Theater's Memorial Hall.

Virginia-based, Grammy-winning folk and country artist Mary Chapin Carpenter released her new album, Between Here and Gone, last week. The CD is the seasoned artist's tenth, and the first to showcase new work since Time*Sex*Love in 2001.

For the second time this academic year, Pickard Theater was filled with the sound of blended voices and instruments as the Bowdoin Chorus tackled Mozart's Requiem Mass on Sunday afternoon.

Touching the Void is no Stallone-ized outdoor action movie. It is a story legendary in the mountaineering world, about two cocky young Brits climbing the perilous west face of Siula Grande, a 6,000-meter peak in remote Peru. Their journey to the top, while incredible, is only the beginning.

To wind up the year, the Film Society still has a few surprises up its sleeve, guaranteed to satisfy all movie lovers and get everyone in the summer spirit. This weekend, we will be presenting the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988).

The Bowdoin Women's Track Team, spurred by strong individual performances, finished tenth at the New England Division III Championships. Fifteen members of the team headed down to Springfield over the weekend for the event and racked up 36 points while competing against 28 teams.

The Bowdoin Men's Tennis Team wrapped up its season last weekend with mixed results at the first round of the NCAA tournament. On Saturday the team faced Tufts. A meeting with Tufts earlier in the season had resulted in a Bears loss, but the team was set on revenge.

The Bowdoin Men's Rugby Team has been busy the last few weeks. Last week the team traveled down to Portland to play three games at the Maine Collegiate Tournament. Over Ivies Weekend, the boys took the pitch again in the first of two inter-squad games this spring.

There is one great thing about being a Red Sox fan: hearing all of the buzz around New England when they are doing well. When things are not going the way the Sox would like, these same fans who cheer them on can be heard turning on every member of the team like rabid Dobermans.

The race for the Stanley Cup got a little smaller on Tuesday night as the conference semifinals came to a close. Thanks to 28 saves from goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, the San Jose Sharks ended the Colorado Avalanche's season.