The Bowdoin Orient

As Thanksgiving Break came to a close last Sunday, the new Bearings was put to its first test with the release of spring courses. The online academic management system has a history of quickly reaching its user capacity during periods of high traffic, causing the system to crash. This year's redesign allowed Bearings to better accommodate the rush of students. Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis mentioned that, while the updated Bearings was not perfect, it performed better than it has in the past.

Last Wednesday, Information Technology (IT) put the finishing touches on a new online storage system that will enable students, faculty and staff to save and backup large amounts of data on the College's server. According to Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis, IT's decision to increase its storage capacity was born out of necessity. "If we didn't make the change, we would either have to tell everybody to empty their trash and remove all the information they have collected over the last year or have the whole system crash," said Davis.

This year, Rainbow Seven is ensuring that Date Week caters to the full spectrum of sexual orientations. Rainbow Seven, sponsored by Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA) in conjunction with the Alliance of Sexual Assault Prevention, is a new endeavor to help members of the Bowdoin queer community meet each other.

With only a week left before the anticipated release of Early Decision I (ED I) offers, the Office of Student Aid has begun evaluating financial aid requests for the incoming Class of 2015. For almost two decades, Bowdoin has adhered to a need-blind admissions practice. In January 2008, the College restructured its financial aid practices by replacing all loans with grants. Currently, the College is in the early stages of complying with the Higher Education Opportunity Act. The act includes a measure that aims to realistically inform prospective students of what their college costs might amount to.

The Early Decision (ED) committee will convene today to begin the admission process for the first members of the Class of 2015. "We are pleased about the 11 percent increase in ED I applications," wrote Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Scott Meiklejohn in an e-mail to the Orient.

Wednesday's meeting of Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) was focused on a student proposal advocating that the admissions office actively recruit veterans currently enrolled in community colleges. Nick Daniels '12, Amanda Gartside '12 and George Aumoithe '11 all spoke in favor of recruiting students through the Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program (Yellow Ribbon Program). The program was established in 2008 to support returning veterans in their pursuit of higher education at private colleges and universities.

The end of fall semester is a crossroads at Bowdoin. Before Thanksgiving Break, students pore over the catalogue and scour the Internet on sites like RateMyProfessors and BSG's Bowdoin College Course Reviews in an attempt to choose classes for the next semester. The limitations of these resources often leave us with no choice but to rely on the advice of that friend of a friend who took Bio 109 last year, or accept the few, extremist opinions we can find on the Internet.

East Coast liberal arts colleges are often ridiculed for their disconnect from the opinions and experiences of mainstream American society. For the most part, this critique—which certainly contains Bowdoin College in its crosshairs—is a fair one that many students and faculty at the College should pay attention to. Simply put, the quality of life that we enjoy at Bowdoin is unparalleled virtually anywhere else in the world. The consequences of this luxury are varied.

. On the state level, our small campus is split between two representatives in the Maine State House. On the local level, our campus is even more sliced and diced. It is simply wrong that all Bowdoin students cannot vote in the same local elections. With the recent completion of the 2010 census—and statewide redistricting just around the corner—we have a rare opportunity to fix this problem.

Barry Mills was in the pool, treading water, trying to pass the Bowdoin swim test. There was no end in sight; Charlie Butt, the College's swim coach at the time, had forgotten Mills was there.

Politics and fashion have an inextricable connection; both are fueled by a desire to evoke a response, a reaction. Fashion choices and political views become a part of who we are, empowering us to, as Gandhi said, "be the change [we] wish to see in the world."

What song do you like to sing at the top of your lungs? It’s actually a lyric from the Broadway play “Rent”: “Let’s Go Oooooouuuuttttt Tonight!”

The Mosaic Trio, a female band that will perform at Bowdoin next Monday, defies the traditional definition of successful girl groups like the Spice Girls or the Dixie Chicks.

Next Monday, students usually found in practice rooms will be under the spotlight, singing to an audience rather than a soundproof wall.

Watching the previews before the beginning of "Love and Other Drugs," I came to the realization that many romantic films take surprisingly simple situations and stretch them into full-length features.

Classical music will reverberate throughout Gibson Hall next Wednesday when six students perform piano pieces they've spent an intensive semester on.

McKenna Teague '12 did not even know it was over. After firing the final penalty stroke past the Messiah keeper in the NCAA D-III Championship title game, she turned around, gave a quick fist-pump, and slowly began to jog back to her team.

Since the start of the season, the men's soccer team has been set on a trip to San Antonio, Texas, the site of the Final Four of the NCAA championship.

The women's basketball team has started the season with an impressive 3-1 record, most recently defeating the University of Southern Maine (USM) Huskies 63-51.

Away from home this weekend, the men’s hockey team will look to maintain its level of play against Skidmore and Castleton State.

Less than two weeks ago, the field hockey team won its third NCAA championship in four years. It is the only Bowdoin team to have ever won the championship, let alone three, but the one-of-a-kind team operates on a run-of-the-mill budget.

The swimming and diving teams will return to Cambridge today, where they will compete in the two-day MIT Invitational against Tufts, Colby, NYU, MIT and Wheaton.

The start of Bowdoin's squash season yielded mixed results at Dartmouth two weeks ago with the men's team splitting a pair of matches and the women dropping two.