The Bowdoin Orient

When a student's phone rings in the middle of Spanish class, President Barry Mills usually is not on the other line. But for Kyle Dempsey '11 on Monday, he was. Mills was calling to inform Dempsey he had been named a 2010 Truman Scholar, the first Bowdoin student to be awarded the honor since 2003. The award was not the only Bowdoin success over the past several weeks; Sarah Ebel '10 and Skye Lawrence '10 both received Watson fellowships at the beginning of Spring Break.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday will herald the arrival of a unique Best Buy annex in the College Store on Maine Street, the product of a collaboration between the College and a seven-month-old entrepreneurial incubation group within the Best Buy Company.

While many at Bowdoin are focused on the new federal health care bill, the Office of Financial Aid is excited about a virtually unpublicized attachment to the legislation that eliminates bank-based loans for college students. The Student Aid Bill, presented by the Department of Education, will simplify the loan process for Bowdoin students and parents.

Naval Air Station Brunswick (NASB) will become known as "Brunswick Landing: Maine's Center for Innovation" upon closing in May 2011, the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA) announced Tuesday.

During this academic year, how often did you drink hard alcohol? Have sex that you later regretted? Eat breakfast? These questions appeared among 106 others on the 2010 Student Health & Wellness Survey, which is currently underway.

According to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, three trustees on Bowdoin's Board are partners at investment firms that manage portions of the College's endowment. The article, which investigated the prevalence of business relationships between trustees and their colleges, found that of the 618 private colleges researched, one-fourth of them "have financial ties with trustee-affiliated companies."

For many current Bowdoin students, this year's census will be the first they fill out for themselves. Next Wednesday, Residential Life proctors and Residential Advisors (RAs) will distribute the 2010 Census to students living in college housing. The College is participating with the Census on Campus program, and through the Office of Residential Life, is working toward its goal of total participation from students living on campus.

For many Bowdoin students—particularly older and wiser upperclassmen—warm weather and spring on campus can only mean one thing: Ivies Weekend. It's just around the corner, and with it will come the most energetic showing of campus spirit at the College all year, from the robust attendance on the (hopefully) sun-soaked Quad for Saturday's Spring Concert to the mass exoduses to Harpswell and Pine Street on Friday and Saturday nights. These outdoor events, open to all, are the ones that leave us smiling through the grind of finals and graduation goodbyes.

Any celebratory moments for the Congressional Democratic leadership following the passage of the historic health care bill on March 21 were quickly staunched as death threats and harassing phone calls began pouring into the offices of senators and members of Congress who had voted for the bill.

On March 23, while we were busy sitting at home relishing our Spring Break boredom, President Barack Obama signed the widely publicized and controversial health care reform bill into law. Many feel that this new law is America's most monumental social achievement in decades, earning President Obama a spot in the history books.

During Spring Break I stopped in a café for a drink, and, being one of the only customers in the establishment, I struck up a conversation with the barista. We wandered through topics, eventually arriving at that perennial favorite: politics. The barista shook his head, and proceeded to lament to me that so many Americans lack the intelligence to understand anything about politics, and that American politics will remain obtuse unless the population magically gets smart enough to actually understand the world.

Now that our politicians have finally taken care of that little thing called health care reform, perhaps it's time they try to solve a different problem. The issue I'm referring to is none other than the money-driven, archaic and, quite frankly, boring way college football decides its national champion.

In the March 5 op-ed, "Space travel will only help accelerate global warming," Cameron Weller's argument that space travel will accelerate global warming is an irrational and ill-conceived criticism of the privatized space industry. Yes, technically space travel does accelerate global warming, but so does just about everything else we do on a daily basis, including walking to class or picking up a copy of the Orient. So the question of carbon emissions is not one of absolutes, but rather one of degrees.

Following months of debate, the faculty voted 45 to 29 to add pluses and minuses to Bowdoin's grading system, beginning in the 2002-2003 academic year. According to a January 25, 2002 Orient article, changes to the system of grading had not occurred since 1954, when Bowdoin adopted a plus/minus system in place of an "ABCDF" system. In 1967, Bowdoin revised the system again, and instituted a grading scale with the distinctions of High Honors, Honors, Pass, or Fail.

Over the decade, Bowdoin students, staff and faculty have committed a significant amount of time and resources to expanding the diversity—based on race, sexuality, gender and economic status—of the campus community.

Since March of 1997, when the Board of Trustees approved recommendations of the Trustee Commission on Residential Life to phase out fraternities at Bowdoin in favor of the more "inclusive" College Houses, the College House System has steadily evolved and matured. In an Orient article from October of 2007, a decade after the College House System replaced fraternities, students and administrators commented on the role of houses at Bowdoin.

In search of community service and learning, almost 100 Bowdoin students spent their Spring Break across the United States and in Guatemala participating in this year's Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program. The diverse trips ranged from working with migrant workers in Florida to volunteering in schools in New Jersey.

Date: April 11, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Place: The field behind Watson Arena. Basking in the sun on a window seat in my Sculpture II class at Fort Andross, I sat mindlessly folding paper strips in a star-shaped pattern. It had been a tedious learning process, but I was finally able to complete the origami sequence with my eyes closed. Just as I was dozing off into a daydream, my enthusiastic Cuban-American professor, Nestor Gil, woke me with his booming voice projecting over the classroom as if it were a Broadway stage. He was announcing his latest project—a kite-flying event. With the help of the Brunswick community, Gil will fly 59 Cuban-pattern kites made of wood, paper, tape, wire and string with cloth tails in the skies above Bowdoin's athletic fields.

Following a year-long search for a sculpture and architecture professor, the visual arts department announced yesterday that artist Alicia Eggert will join the visual arts faculty next semester as an assistant professor.

Starting in Washington, D.C. and making their way down to South Carolina, the Bowdoin College Meddiebempsters charmed audiences as they toured the South this past Spring Break. In the recent past, the group has toured in the Mid-Atlantic, New England and Southern California.

The past comes alive this afternoon with a performance by Music's Quill, a duo specializing in Renaissance music.

One visit to Bowdoin just wasn't enough for Zimbabwean musician Musekiwa Chingodza. Chingodza will return to campus for a musical performance on Wednesday, April 7.

Lecturer in Art John Bisbee, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Meggan Gould and A. LeRoy Greason Professor of Art Mark Wethli were recognized as three of "Maine's Most Collectable Artists" by Maine Home + Design magazine.

"So much of being an artist is based on doing it yourself," said Deke Weaver '85 looking back on the trajectory of his career as a multi-media performance artist and college art professor.

When shopping for alcohol, I often find myself beset by indecision, and stare at my options in the beer aisle for far too long. No doubt most of us have been in this situation before, and some may know the cure: the mix pack. Offered by a large number of breweries, mix packs allow the consumer to sample multiple styles of beer in one 12 pack. While many stores are happy to let customers create their own six packs, if you want 12 beers it will generally be cheaper to buy a pre-prepared 12.

Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" tanked in theaters weeks ago, so why am I talking about it now?

SAGE SANTANGELO '12 AND CHELSEA YOUNG '12

The game was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning when Kara Nilan '11 stepped up to the plate against NESCAC opponent Middlebury College. Co-captain Lauren Coven '10 was on second base in the final game of the Bowdoin softball team's spring trip to Clermont, Florida, when Nilan hit a walk-off single to end the contest.

After an up-and-down start to the season, the men's lacrosse team will face perhaps its toughest test yet, taking on undefeated Connecticut College this Saturday at Bowdoin.

After a successful spring training trip to the Mid-Atlantic, the women's rugby team is hoping to draw new recruits at this Saturday's Rookie Clinic.

The women's tennis team started out its 2010 spring season with a successful Spring Break trip to California. Playing in seven matches overall, the Polar Bears went 5-2, falling to eighth nationally-ranked Pomona-Pitzer and to highly-ranked D-II team Azusa Pacific.

Fresh from a training trip to Florida over Spring Break, the men's track team is ready to make the trek to Middlebury for its first regular season meet. The team feels confident heading into its short outdoor season. With only two regular season meets before the Maine State Championship meet, the men need to take advantage of every opportunity to better their performances.

Over Spring Break, several members of the Bowdoin women's track team competed in a preseason invitational in Florida against D-I competition.