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Number of articles: 34
First Article: March 4, 2017
Latest Article: April 8, 2021
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
Alyce McFadden
To the Editor: As former editors-in-chief of the Orient, we want to commend and voice our support for Kate Lusignan ’21 and Nina McKay ’21, who have begun considering changing the name of the paper we oversaw last year.
The College will extend tenure decisions by one year and has created an adapted, informal questionnaire to temporarily replace the formal Bowdoin Course Questionnaires (BCQs) to account for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic’s disruption of professors’ teaching and scholarship.
President Clayton Rose has voluntarily reduced his salary “well in excess of 20 percent,” as of April 1. The move, announced in the April 29 virtual town hall with students and subsequent email to the College community on April 30, comes in the face of financial losses the College has incurred as a consequence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and switch to remote learning.
As the last students vacated campus on March 18, Laboratory Instructor in Chemistry Ren Bernier was scouring an empty Druckenmiller Hall for gloves, face shields and cotton swabs. The personal protective equipment (PPE) that Bernier and other instructors, technicians and professors gathered from labs across campus will be donated to MaineHealth, a Portland-based medical supplier, to augment depleted supplies of critical protective equipment in hospitals throughout Maine.
To our readers: This has never happened before. Even in the great crises of the 20th century—two world wars, student movements in the 60s and the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918—Bowdoin’s campus has never been vacated in the way it has been in the last few weeks.
James “Jes” Staley ’79 P’11, a member of Bowdoin’s Board of Trustees and the CEO of Barclays, is under investigation by British authorities for his relationship with the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to a statement released Thursday morning by the bank.
On Thursday evening, the College launched the public phase of the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in Bowdoin’s history. The College hopes to raise $500 million by June 2024 and achieve 85 percent participation from its alumni network.
Students and community members packed into the Pickering Room on February 1 for coffee, cookies and a chance to ask questions of Democratic Senate candidate and Speaker of the Maine State House Sara Gideon. Of all the candidates running in the Democratic primary, Gideon is probably the most connected to Bowdoin: she lives in Freeport and is the aunt of two current Bowdoin students.
Members of the housekeeping staff have begun the process of unionization with the help of organizers from the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA). Union representatives declined to comment on the number of housekeepers supporting the initiative, but efforts to collect enough signed union authorization cards appear to have come to a standstill.
Arthur Brooks first visited Bowdoin College not as a prospective student or a visiting fellow but as a French Horn instructor for the Bowdoin International Music Festival. He was 22 at the time, and was working as a professional musician after dropping out of college at 19.
During a faculty meeting on Monday, President Clayton Rose denied that any organization or group external to the College participated in the appointment of former American Enterprise Institute (AEI) president Arthur Brooks as the inaugural Joseph McKeen Visiting Fellow.
The odds are not in Betsy Sweet’s favor—but, as she told on-campus town hall attendees on Sunday, that’s a critical part of her bid for the Maine Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. “I’m all about structural change; I’m about thinking outside the box,” she said.
The College will pay its workers a minimum wage of $17 beginning on July 1, 2022, President Clayton Rose announced in an email to the Bowdoin community Monday morning. The announcement comes a year and a half after a 2018 Orient investigation revealed workers’ struggles to make ends meet that ignited an ongoing fight for a living wage for Bowdoin employees.
Last Tuesday, newly-appointed Dean of Students Kristina Bethea Odejimi led a morning spin class while the regular instructor was on vacation. Why? Because there was a problem to be solved, because Odejimi really likes to cycle and because the class gave her the chance to do what she enjoys most: meet the individuals who make up the community she has been hired to serve, while getting in a tough workout.
Lucas Johnson ’22 Hey everyone! My name is Lucas, and I hope the beginning of the year is going well for you all. This year, we have the opportunity to make progress on the numerous issues our campus is facing, from increasing the mental health resources available to students, to strengthening our relations with the Town of Brunswick, to decreasing our carbon footprint by expanding our renewable energy portfolio.
James “Jes” Staley ’79 P ’11, a member of the Board of Trustees and the CEO of Barclays, visited sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein at his private island in 2015, and during his incarceration in Palm Beach, Florida in 2008, according to Bloomberg.
Editor’s Note, 6/26/19, 7:44 p.m.: Bank of America announced on Wednesday afternoon that it would cease lending to private prison corporations. President Clayton Rose issued a statement in support of this decision on Wednesday evening. On Monday morning, President Clayton Rose became the first subject of an online campaign to protest Bank of America, the only major bank still financing private prison corporations that operate migrant detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Alyce: I watched the fire from across the river, just close enough to see firemen weaving through the filigreed belfries. As I stood in the smoke among the assembled crowd of tearful Parisians, someone started singing the “Hail Mary”—“Je vous Salue Marie” in French.
Bowdoin College sits on stolen land. The area campus occupies today was once part of the Wabanaki Confederacy and was integral to the cultural identity and survival of a network of indigenous tribes. When Europeans colonists arrived, they embarked on a program of erasure and cultural genocide that continues today.
Rain drips outside, and the warm wood interior of the Roux Center for the Environment has a kind of hearth-like warmth. It’s Thursday morning, the day of the building’s dedication. I’m not here for class or for office hours, just to sit in the space and to look.
The men’s Ultimate Frisbee team has been placed on probation in response to an email accidentally sent to first-year members. The email contained language that was hostile towards new members. On Tuesday, September 4, the first-year Frisbee members received an email inviting them to attend a social gathering the following Thursday evening.
Amid concern about increased Brunswick Police Department (BPD) activity, Ivies Weekend will proceed as normal, although Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols advises students to exercise caution and discretion during the weekend to avoid encounters with BPD officers.
We asked six first years to tell us what they wish they knew before starting at Bowdoin. These are their responses.
Eight months ago I checked into Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, changed into a hospital gown and mustard-colored socks and plummeted into the depths of general anesthesia to the sound of Paul Simon’s first solo album.
On October 17 Professor Nathaniel Wheelwright published “the Naturalist’s Notebook,” with co-author Bernd Heinrich, an esteemed natural history writer. This Wednesday evening, Wheelwright spoke about the book at Curtis Memorial Library. He explained his inspiration to write the 200-page book, which is part nature guide, part five-year calendar journal for use by the reader.
This month is the College’s first annual OUTtober, a month of programming by Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA) celebrating various sexuality and gender identities. In the past, BQSA has organized events during the week of National Coming Out Day on October 11 and has hosted a month of programming in February, known as “Februqueery.” OUTtober will replace “Februqueery” as BQSA’s month-long series of events, although BQSA will continue to recognize Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31.
By hosting speakers from a queer disabled writer to a black transgender reverend, Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA) hopes that the first annual “OUTtober” will reflect and engage with a wider range of Bowdoin’s LGBTQ community.
For painter and animator Matt Bollinger, art is all about self-expression. Even the pieces that seem outside the realm of possibility are in some way reflective of his experiences. This is especially true of “Apartment 6F,” the animation Bollinger showed at his talk on campus last Monday, which portrays an alternate reality; a neighbor invites the artist to a housewarming party where he is drugged for use as a sacrifice in a satanic ritual.
Summers on Maine’s Midcoast justify the state’s Vacationland reputation. This year, seniors Julianna Burke and Maya Morduch-Toubman took advantage of Bowdoin’s summer fellowships to engage more deeply with the region’s communities through art, storytelling and photography.
Brunswick residents trickled into the Curtis Memorial Library’s Morrell Meeting Room on Tuesday evening, taking their seats in a circle of chairs for a facilitated discussion about racism and bias as part of the library’s “One Book, One Community” program.
Each spring, the College offers a Faculty Scholarship of $3,000 to 100 students who have been admitted to Bowdoin through Regular Decision. The scholarship is contingent on their acceptance of Bowdoin’s admittance and can be used to fund any “enrichment activities,” such as research or internships, during the students’ Bowdoin careers.
When former Robert K. Beckwith Professor of Music Emeritus Elliott Schwartz hired Director of the Concert Band John Morneau in 1988, he commenced 30 years of friendship and contemporary composition with the Bowdoin College Concert Band.
The Office of Admissions accepted 13.4 percent of applicants to the class of 2021, marking the lowest acceptance rate on record. On March 17, 719 high school students received Regular Decision acceptance letters. The College received a total of 7,251 applications, a seven percent increase from last year.
Indie pop/alternative band Smallpools will perform on Thursday, April 27 as part of this year’s Ivies weekend, and electronic artist Vanic will open for headlining rapper A$AP Ferg on Saturday, April 29. The Entertainment Board (eBoard) released a video announcing the lineup last Friday.
