The Bowdoin Orient

At the faculty meeting on Monday, the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee (CEP) announced its decision to add minors in Chinese and Japanese languages. This decision will apply to graduates of the Class of 2012.

A college degree has never been more expensive. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, college tuition has increased more than 439 percent since 1982 and 5 percent since last year.

According to the Bowdoin administration and the Office of Safety and Security, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library (H-L Library) will continue its policy to not restrict Internet access, though the public computers in H-L Library have been used to view pornographic materials.

Bowdoin's Young Alumni Leadership Program (YALP) is changing both its name and its approach this year in a move designed to ensure that all of its members are as dedicated as possible to strengthening their relationship with Bowdoin after they graduate.

After 21 seasons of leading the men's lacrosse team, Head Coach Tom McCabe officially announced his departure from the Department of Athletics on Monday. McCabe will stay through the spring season, and plans to join the Peace Corps with his wife next year.

Though more than 140 students from eight different colleges attended the New England Small College Queer Summit last weekend, it was an intimate affair: The theme of this year's conference was "The 'Sex' in Sexuality."

The Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) meeting on Wednesday featured a discussion of chem-free housing at Bowdoin, and the allotment of $2,000 for multicultural programming.

It seems that every year students grumble about the need for a longer Thanksgiving break, bemoaning the limited rest and relaxation the few days off allow. It appears that the administration has been listening, because a proposal to extend Thanksgiving break to a full week appeared on the agenda at Monday's faculty meeting.

Ostensibly, the Bowdoin campus is sexually liberated. Matters of sex are discussed freely with first years at orientation, conversations and lectures about sex are frequent during the semester, and perhaps most importantly, bowls of condoms sit in the hallways and stairwells of most Bowdoin dormitories.

According to the hazing policy posted on the Bowdoin website, the College defines hazing as any initiation activity that "1) physically or psychologically humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers—regardless of a person's willingness to participate; 2) results in the disruption of the educational process or the impairment of academic performance; or 3) violates College policy or state law."

As a partial result of the men's hockey hazing incident, interest in hazing has spiked within administrative circles on campus, reflecting an equivalent concern among students.

Good beer doesn't come in cans. I've heard that adage since I came to Bowdoin over three years ago, and until this week, I hadn't had much reason to doubt it.

I think it's time to say a word or two about the restaurant that seems to be the most popular among Bowdoin students.

If you were to hazard a guess, what percentage of all grades distributed at Bowdoin are Bs or As? Or put it this way: Just how prevalent is grade inflation? Well, that depends on when you attended Bowdoin. Twenty years ago, the average GPA at the school was 3.06, around 46 percent of all grades given out were in the B range, and 32 percent were in the A range. A decade later, in the 2001-2002 academic year, the average GPA of the student body was a lusty 3.30, just a hair below a B-plus average. By then, just over 87 percent of grades were either As or Bs. Plus and minus modifiers weren't introduced until 2003, to great student indignation. At the time, students fretted that professors' use of modifiers would result in generally lower marks, but grade inflation plodded on undisturbed by this development. By 2007, 49 percent of all the grades doled out were in the A range, and only 8 percent were a C or lower. Hello, Lake Wobegon!

The WBOR fall concert took a last-minute turn on Friday after the cancellation of its first professional act, Kreayshawn. Earlier Friday evening, the singer tweeted, "As you know I have bronchitis and won't be able to perform for the beautiful young Bowdoin College peoples tonight #sorry."

For six student filmmakers, fulfilling the criteria for the 48-Hour Film Festival required inspiration, improvisation and maybe even a little lens solution.

Film stock is mean. It's an angry, unforgiving, analog medium that requires constant light, attention and pampering or it will ruin you. But this 100-year-old plus format also captures the most aesthetically-pleasing image imaginable when compared to digital, videotape and other motion picture media.

Celebrated for having built his fanbase with social networking sites and music blogs, 19-year-old Mac Miller has been gaining steam as of late and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Though he's been making music since 2007, it wasn't until the 2010 release of "K.I.D.S. (Kickin' Incredibly Dope S--t)" that Mac gained widespread attention.

Senior Laura Kerry brings experience and sophistication to her three-year-old radio show, "The Village Green Preservation Society." Named after one of Kerry's favorite albums by the Kinks, the show features an eclectic mix of classic, contemporary and folk rock, as well as a healthy dose of electronic music.

Back by popular demand, I give you this year's first installment of Legends & Letdowns.

The football team's chances at winning a Colby-Bates-Bowdoin (CBB) title disappeared last Saturday with a 24-2 loss to Bates. After averaging nearly 18 points per game in the first half of the season, the Polar Bears' offense has scored only 14 total points in the three games since then.

The sailing team continued a successful fall campaign last weekend, competing in four important regattas in preparation for the fall championships this upcoming weekend.