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Number of articles: 38
First Article: September 28, 2018
Latest Article: September 10, 2021
Diego Lasarte
Diego Lasarte
To our readers: In the three years we have spent working on the Orient, the two of us have seen many opinions printed in these pages. A crucial aspect of any newspaper, the opinion section showcases the perspectives of students, staff, faculty and community members.
In an email to the college community on Friday, President Clayton Rose announced that the college’s fall re-opening plan will remain mostly unchanged, even as the COVID-19 Delta Variant continues to spread. While stressing that the college will closely monitor the recently rising number of COVID-19 cases nationwide, Rose wrote that he remains encouraged by the high number of vaccinations in Brunswick and throughout Maine.
In a few months, some students will be getting on planes and heading across the Atlantic, foregoing the snowy quad for a spring semester abroad like no other. These students will face the challenges presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outside of the Bowdoin bubble.
In an email sent on Wednesday evening, the Office of Off-Campus Study (OCS) announced that it would allow students to study abroad during the spring semester, with limitations. This decision came after all off-campus study was suspended for the fall semester.
Over 90 percent of students expressed their support for Former Vice President Joe Biden in yesterday’s presidential election, while just five percent expressed their intention to vote for President Donald Trump, according to the Orient’s election survey.
At this week’s faculty meeting on Wednesday, Roland Mendiola, interim director of counseling and wellness services, presented a nationwide survey that showed two-thirds of college students nationwide reported feeling “overwhelming anxiety” as part of their normal college experience.
Students living on campus have agreed to follow the rules outlined in the seven-page Residential Community Agreement, a guide for student life, quarantine protocols and overall health policies. Rules outlined in the Residential Community Agreement governing the conduct of students living on campus are stringent.
A new directive announced by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) on Monday that strips international students studying remotely of their legal immigration status prompted panic and feelings of uncertainty amongst Bowdoin’s international student community.
Janet Lohmann, dean for student affairs, announced updates to the College’s “Personal Leave of Absence” policy on May 21 in an email addressed to all returning students. The changes reflected the College’s concern that a possible remote or semi-remote fall semester would dramatically increase requests for personal leaves of absences, and it aimed to address the logistical issues this rise would present.
The Bowdoin Office of Student Aid has announced that it will waive the summer work expectation component of student financial aid packages as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In an email sent to all students who receive financial aid, Micheal Bartini, director of financial aid, cited an effort to relieve financial pressure in what he called a time with a “unique combination of stresses related to COVID-19.” Bartini clarified that the work expectation would be replaced with an additional grant, and that this change was only applicable to the 2020-2021 academic year.
As students and faculty wrap up their third week of online classes and settle into their new routines, many have stories to tell about their new virtual-classroom reality. Across academic disciplines, everyone is adjusting to the demands of remote learning, from managing family tensions to keeping students engaged thousands of miles away.
Despite some opposition from students and faculty, the College adopted a mandatory credit/no-credit grading system this week for all spring classes, sparking a debate among students and faculty about the merits and mechanics of online learning.
On Friday, the College sent to a message students with health conditions affecting their immune system informing them that there is a higher risk than the general college population in returning campus due to the nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
Bowdoin cancelled College-sponsored travel to four countries, five states and the District of Columbia this week as the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues. As of today, the first day of spring break, the College is not planning to extend the break or considering suspending future classes, according to administrators.
John Rensenbrink was working in the fields of his family’s farm in northern Minnesota when his mother told him that America had dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The year was 1945, and Rensenbrink was 17 years old.
A few weeks before he passed away last January, Henry Zietlow ’22 rowed a marathon all by himself. An ergathon, or erg marathon, entails completing a marathon distance (26.2 miles or 42,000 meters) on an indoor rowing machine called an erg.
On Wednesday, a group of students, faculty and housekeepers, along with local union organizers, delivered a letter to members of the administration critiquing working conditions. The letter was delivered to the Office of the President, the Office of the Treasurer and the Office of Facilities Operations and Maintenance.
As a Senate staffer in the 1970s, U.S. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) witnessed the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. This week, over four decades later, King voted in the impeachment trial of another president—Donald Trump.
As students filled out their Enrollment Form upon their return to Bowdoin, they likely spotted a new question asking them to select what pronouns they wish to share with the Bowdoin community. This was the second phase of the Lived Name Initiative, sponsored by Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Information Technology and the Office of Inclusion and Diversity.
With its record standing at a perfect 17-0 after two resounding wins against rivals Middlebury and Williams last weekend, the Bowdoin women’s basketball team is on the verge of entering the most challenging stretch of its schedule, where it will face six NESCAC opponents starting Saturday.
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.
In an email to the students on Wednesday, Director of Residential and Housing Operations Lisa Rendall announced that the housing lottery process will take place completely online beginning this spring. Rendall also confirmed that the new Harpswell Apartments will be available for the 2020-21 academic year.
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.
Widespread social unrest and political violence in a number of Latin American nations created an unprecedented situation for the Office of Off-Campus Study, which has offered six students studying abroad in Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia the option to alter their abroad experiences to assure their safety.
The College will spend an additional $1.6 million annually to increase wages for benefits-eligible hourly employees beginning July 2022. As President Clayton Rose announced in an email to the campus community on Monday, this will cover both an increase in wages for workers who currently make less than $17 an hour, which will be the College’s new minimum starting wage for hourly benefits-eligible employees, up from the current starting wage of $12.65.
For eight weekends this fall, College House residents will gather in their respective chapter rooms and embark on an hour-long discussion about the implications of class at Bowdoin. Students will share stories, ask questions and reckon with the issues of class on campus.
This summer Joachim Homann, the curator of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA), left the College to join the staff of Harvard Art Museums as the Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings. He was the head curator of the BCMA from 2010 until his departure.
This year, over 30 Bowdoin students received national fellowships or scholarships to pursue professional opportunities around the world. These opportunities range from teaching students in various countries such as Portugal, Israel, South Korea and Mexico to pursuing public service work in Washington, D.C.
Associate Dean of Student Affairs Wilmarie Rodriguez will be resigning from her position at the end of this school year as she looks to complete the last phase of her doctoral program and to spend more time with her family.
In recent months there has been a pattern of stories in the Orient exploring the complexities and limitations of Bowdoin’s endowment and operating budget. To add context to the series of articles and op-eds, the Orient has decided to break down the numbers behind the money that makes Bowdoin run.
In recent months there has been a pattern of stories in the Orient exploring the complexities and limitations of Bowdoin’s endowment and operating budget. To add context to the series of articles and op-eds, the Orient has decided to break down the numbers behind the money that makes Bowdoin run.
On Tuesday, storyteller Roxanne Baker, an educator and activist, told a crowded room in Moulton Union’s Lancaster Lounge a story from her childhood about coming to terms with both her deafness and her Jewish identity. Baker was born in Portland to a hearing family and until she was eight, attempted to get by with reading lips with the help of intense speech therapy.
Every Monday and Thursday for the past few weeks, first-year students have gathered with their floormates in classrooms across campus for a “Real Talk on Race,” a moderated conversation about the experience of being a person of color at Bowdoin.
According to Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster, new Harpswell Apartments are expected to open in the fall of 2020 in conjunction with a new policy that will bar juniors from living off campus and will allow only one-quarter of the senior class to live off-campus.
Rowdy passengers, grueling layovers and long car rides: all of these mark the experiences of students traveling home. As finals week approaches and students anticipate the beginning of winter break, they must also consider plans to return home and address the varying levels of time and complication it takes to do so.
“I get messages every day from people saying like, ‘You helped me come out to my family’ or ‘You’re the first person I came out to.’ I’m giving people the space to have a queer community,” said Lex Horwitz ’19.
Last night, journalist Helen Andrews gave a talk at Bowdoin titled “The New McCarthyism” in which she compared today’s culture of “political correctness” with Joseph McCarthy’s persecution of accused communist sympathizers in the 1950s. Andrews argued that McCarthyism was aimed at “an existential threat” and all accusations were supported by evidence, but said the #MeToo movement has created a similar atmosphere without clearing the same evidentiary hurdle.
On Monday, three days before U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh testified on allegations of sexual misconduct, ten Bowdoin students traveled to Washington D.C. to protest his confirmation. nine of the ten students were arrested outside of the office of Sen.
