When women were first admitted to the College in 1971, they enthusiastically pushed their way into all aspects of campus life, especially the athletic arena.
As former Athletic Director Ed Coombs said in an Orient article from 1979, “I don’t think we or any of these schools [that went co-ed] anticipated the type of sports these women would want to play.
The women’s basketball team secured its 25th consecutive win with a 96-75 defeat of Connecticut College in the NESCAC quarterfinals last Saturday. Now the team will face No. 5-seed Middlebury. The game promises to be a tight matchup given that the Polar Bears’ closest game of the season was their four-point win over the Panthers on February 1.
Last night, African American Society (AfAm), Latin American Student Organization (LASO) and Asian Student Alliance (ASA) joined together to put on the third annual Valentine’s Day Blind Date Dinner.
The central goal of the program was to bring as many people together—breaking outside of their own Bowdoin bubbles—as possible, said Louis Mendez ’19, president of LASO.
Last weekend, the Bowdoin volleyball team traveled down to Wellesley, Mass. to compete in the NCAA Division III Volleyball Championships. The Polar Bears took down Worcester State (23-11) and Johns Hopkins (22-8) to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where they fell to regional hosts Babson (26-9) and ended their season with a program-best 29-2 record.
The volleyball team took home its third NESCAC title in program history last weekend, extending its win streak to 17.
Even though they gave up the second set to Amherst in the championship match, the Polar Bears came back to dominate the court as they have all season and put away the win in four sets.
The NESCAC Volleyball Championship will be coming to Bowdoin this weekend for the first time since 2015. With a current record of 24-1, the team has put forward its best regular season ever and looks to continue that success in the postseason this year.
On Monday evening, a group of about 50 student-athletes came together with coaches, staff and peers for the tenth annual Winning Together: Allies in Athletics event. The program was organized by the Athletic Department and the Center for Sexuality, Women and Gender (SWAG) and looks to address the challenges facing LGBTQ athletes at Bowdoin.
The grand finale of the suite of events celebrating the opening of the Roux Center will be a concert by indie pop band MisterWives in Morrell Gymnasium tonight. As an email from President Clayton Rose noted, the concert was suggested by David and Barbara Roux as a fun way to close out the week’s celebrations.
Legendary soccer and swimming coach Charlie Butt passed away last Friday at the age of 93. Butt dedicated decades of his life to serving the Bowdoin Athletic Department—coaching men’s swimming for 39 years, women’s swimming for the first 24 years of the program’s existence and men’s soccer for 23 years, leading all three teams to numerous titles, records and dominant seasons.
At Monday’s faculty meeting, faculty and staff discussed a plan to alter the schedule of both the academic and extracurricular day by adding 10 minutes between classes. While the detailed schedule has yet to be finalized, this specific change will be implemented for the fall 2018 semester.
Even in the chaos of the storm, many students didn’t feel much of a reprieve from their typical day-to-day academic pressures. Tables in Thorne throughout the day could be seen covered in laptops and notebooks as students tried to keep up with their coursework. A photographic look at how Bowdoin reacted to the worst power outage Maine has seen in decades.
“Take Back the Night” took place on the steps of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art Museum Tuesday evening, bringing together community members to discuss and reflect on sexual assault on Bowdoin’s campus and in the nation through a candlelit walk from the Museum to 30 College Street.
Last weekend, the Meddiebempsters’ 80th reunion brought together current and former Meddies representing eras of Bowdoin’s history stretching as far back as the 1950s.
With such an extensive history on display, cultural shifts over the years were clearly apparent, in everything from the diversity of the group to the music they performed.
Last week, the Athletic Department and the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity teamed up to put on “Winning Together: Allies in Athletics,” an event to discuss topics of sexual orientation and gender identity on athletic teams at Bowdoin.
Three new female STEM professors, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sarah Harmon, Assistant Professor of Biology Patricia Jones and Assistant Professor of Mathematics Naomi Tanabe, have joined Bowdoin faculty this year and are eager to engage with the liberal arts community.
Since 2003, the Bowdoin women’s rugby team has led the way as the oldest collegiate varsity women’s rugby program in the nation and as a consistently strong contender in the league, meanwhile never losing touch with its club roots and embracing the inclusive nature of the sport.
Going for Gold. Over the summer, Bowdoin women’s basketball player Ally Silfen ’17 and field hockey player Sarah Jane Weill ’18 traveled to Jerusalem for the 20th Maccabiah Games—an international Jewish and Israeli multi-sport event held in Israel every four years.
This summer, kids of all ages attended sports camps and clinics on Bowdoin’s campus. Most of the camps serve recruiting method for athletes to Bowdoin programs and to prepare them for collegiate athletics.
While these camps and clinics are run by Bowdoin coaches and use Bowdoin facilities, they are not affiliated with the College.
During her time at Bowdoin, Dee Spagnuolo ’96 was a three-sport athlete who played field hockey, ice hockey and softball all four years. A dominant force on the field, ice and diamond, Spagnuolo still holds the Bowdoin women’s ice hockey record for most career penalty minutes and most penalty minutes in a season.
Tournament time.
The women’s tennis team (13-4, 5-3 NESCAC) is seeded fifth heading into the first round of NESCAC playoffs this weekend where it will face No. 2 Wesleyan (11-3, 5-3 NESCAC). The Polar Bears hope to build off their recent success—an 8-1 win over Babson (10-8) and a 9-0 shutout over MIT (12-8) last weekend—as they go up against a strong Cardinal squad.
Smooth sailing.
The sailing team competed in two regattas last weekend. Finishing seventh out of 18 teams, the windless Admiral’s Cup significantly limited racing. At the Women’s New England Championship, the Polar Bears battled it out with Harvard, ultimately winning a tiebreaker against the Crimson to secure the final qualifying spot for Women’s Nationals.
Until last summer, Jake* lived his life as a woman. As a member of the Class of 2017, he had been a starter for the Bowdoin women’s ice hockey team for three years.
“Originally the way I thought about it was if I could be born again, I would want to be born a man, like no questions about it.
Turning the tide.
The baseball team (11-12, 3-3 NESCAC) is currently on a five-game win streak after sweeping its weekend series against Trinity (13-12, 3-6 NESCAC) and beating Thomas (3-25) 11-4 on Monday. Brandon Lopez ’20 was named NESCAC Pitcher of the Week this week after tossing a full game against Trinity last Friday.
Straight shutouts.
The women’s tennis team is currently 10-2, 4-1 NESCAC after a 9-0 win over Connecticut College (6-5, 0-3 NESCAC) on Sunday. Despite injuries that have weakened the team’s roster, the Polar Bears have won three of their last four games—all dominant 9-0 shutouts—and are currently ranked fourth in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division III poll.
Over the weekend, the Senior Woman Administrators of the 11 member institutions of the NESCAC put on the eighth Coaching Symposium for Women, bringing together female student-athletes from across New England.
While the event doesn’t happen on a regular basis, Bowdoin’s Senior Woman Administrator and Head Field Hockey Coach Nicky Pearson has been a part of organizing the symposium and furthering its goals of opening the door for women interested in coaching for many years.
Cool as ice.
Kerri St. Denis ’19, goalie for the women’s ice hockey team, was named a New England Hockey Writers All-Star after an outstanding first season with the Polar Bears. With six shutouts on the season and a .954 save percentage that ranks second in the league, St.
Jumping for joy: Brian Greenberg ’18 represented the men’s indoor track and field team at the NCAA Division III Championship on March 11. Entering the competition seeded eighth in the triple jump, Greenberg jumped 14.36 meters to earn a sixth-place finish and All-American honors, making him Bowdoin’s first male All-American in the triple jump.
Track attack: Women’s and men’s indoor track and field competed at Open New England championships last weekend, putting forward a number of top-10 performances in a highly competitive pool of athletes. The women’s distance medley relay team continued their strong season, placing fourth with a time of 12:00.50, and Joseph Staudt ’19 broke his own Bowdoin record in the 60-meter hurdles again (8.21), placing fifth overall.