Go to content, skip over navigation

Sections

More Pages

Go to content, skip over visible header bar
Home News Features Arts & Entertainment Sports OpinionAbout Contact Advertise

Note about Unsupported Devices:

You seem to be browsing on a screen size, browser, or device that this website cannot support. Some things might look and act a little weird.

Jessica Piper

Orient Staff — Class of 2019

Number of articles: 74

First Article: March 4, 2017

Latest Article: May 3, 2019

See previous content

Multiple bias incidents tar conclusion of spring semester

Last weekend, a Muslim student received threatening phone calls from a blocked number, and two Asian students had their identities mocked in two separate incidents. These incidents were likely perpetrated by Bowdoin students. In addition, late Tuesday night, the N-word and other racial epithets were hurled at a black student from a driver and a passenger in a passing car, neither of whom are affiliated with the College.

Read more

What John Kasich did (and didn’t) say at Bowdoin

John Kasich wouldn’t say whether he’ll run for president in 2020. However, the former Ohio governor did speak about his disagreements with the Republican Party and fielded what were, at times, confrontational questions from students during an hour-long discussion in Pickard Theater on Monday night.

Read more

Career Planning refocuses on practical skills, internships

Helping students develop practical skills is the focus of the newest initiative from the Career Planning Center (CPC). The renewed push comes on the heels of a report released by President Clayton Rose last fall, which found that students felt they lacked important professional skills such as personal finance and public speaking.

Read more

Bowdoin among top Fulbright producers, again

Bowdoin was again lauded as one of the top Fulbright-producing institutions for the 2018-2019 academic year, with 19 students receiving Fulbright Student grants. Among Bachelor’s institutions, only Williams had more awardees, with 22. Thirty-seven Bowdoin students had applied for Fulbright awards, yielding a 51 percent success rate.

Read more

Political donations from faculty and staff increase, stay left in midterm cycle

Political donations by Bowdoin faculty and staff surged during the 2018 midterm cycle and universally supported liberal causes, according to an Orient analysis of data from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Donations made by members of the College’s Board of Trustees were varied between Democratic and Republican groups and candidates, but donations to liberal causes far outnumbered donations to conservative causes.

Read more

First year dies in car crash

Henry Zietlow ’22, from St. Paul, Minnesota, died in a car crash in Wisconsin on Monday. According to a release from the Wisconsin State Patrol, Zietlow and his mother were headed north on Highway 63 near the town of Hayward when a southbound pickup truck lost control and crossed into the northbound lane, where it collided with their car.

Read more

Flying squirrels take up residence

The Northern flying squirrel can glide 135 feet through the air—and a few of these furry mammals have landed in Quinby House this fall. Jeff Tuttle, senior associate director for facilities operations and maintenance, says the squirrels appear to be gone from the House but advises students to take certain precautions to prevent similar infestations in the future.

Read more

Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster to leave the College

Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster will be leaving Bowdoin at the end of this academic year, citing a desire to spend more time with his family before figuring out his next plans. In an email to the student body announcing Foster’s departure on Monday, President Clayton Rose noted the dean’s “profound impact” on the College and said he has already begun a national search to fill Foster’s role.

Read more

Anti-trans language targets bathroom menstrual products

A sign advertising free menstrual products in the bathroom on the first floor of David Saul Smith Union was defaced with trans-exclusionary language this week. In an email to the Orient, Director of Gender Violence Prevention and Education Benje Douglas said that the Bias Incident Group (BIG) would be convening next week to discuss the incident but declined to comment further.

Read more

Studzinski debates highlight differences, turn testy

Candidates for two of Maine’s seats in Congress took to the stage in Studzinski Recital Hall on Tuesday afternoon for two debates preceding the November 6 election. The first debate, for U.S. Senate, featured independent incumbent Angus King and two challengers—Republican Eric Brakey, a current state senator, and Democrat Zak Ringelstein, a former teacher.

Read more

BSG to hold Town Hall, swastika from 2017 reported

Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) will hold a Town Hall at 4 p.m. today to discuss campus bias incidents in light of swastika graffiti found in the Hubbard Hall stacks last month. “There will be space for students to share honest reactions to this bias incident, and community leaders from both the administration and student body will be present to hear and grapple with these concerns,” wrote Nate DeMoranville ’20, BSG chair of facilities and sustainability, in an email on Monday afternoon on behalf of the BSG Executive Committee.

Read more

Alcohol-related summonses issued to eight students

Eight students received court summonses last weekend after several separate off-campus incidents that occurred late Saturday night and shortly after midnight on Sunday. Brunswick Police Department (BPD) issued summonses to two 21-year-old students for allowing a minor to consume liquor and to six students under the age of 21 for possession of alcohol by a minor or consuming liquor.

Read more

Swastika etched on desk draws contempt

In an email to the campus community on Tuesday, President Clayton Rose announced that a swastika, drawn on a carrel and accompanied by the phrase “Heil Hitler,” has been deemed a bias incident. It is the third time the Nazi symbol has been found on Bowdoin’s campus since early 2017 and comes amidst an uptick in white nationalist imagery at colleges and universities across the nation.

Read more

In run for governor, Hayes ’80 fights against partisanship

Terry Hayes ’80 says she never planned on running for office. The first time she did, she lost, only to rebound and win six races over the following decade. After eight years in the Maine House of Representatives and nearly four as the State Treasurer, she has identified partisan bickering as the central cause of the state’s problems.

Read more

Activist and educator DeRay McKesson ’07 publishes book

On Tuesday, Viking Books released “On the Other Side of Hope: The Case for Freedom,” a collection of essays written by educator and civil rights activist DeRay McKesson ’07. The Baltimore native’s debut presents his experiences and memories alongside his suggestions for addressing a range of social problems.

Read more

Alumni

Alums’ original musical to open in New York

Olivia Atwood ’17 and Maggie Seymour ’16 learned plenty at Bowdoin, but they never nailed down the details of what happened during the Watergate scandal. That absence of knowledge is exactly the premise of the alums’ original musical, “Dickie in the House,” which premieres at the Peoples Improv Theater (PIT) in New York on Thursday.

Read more

andross

Dam those fish: human-environment interaction on the Androscoggin River

Any north-facing windows at Fort Andross provide a full view of the Brunswick dam, a massive concrete structure on the Androscoggin River with a capacity 19,000 kilowatt-hours, according to the Maine Governor’s Energy Office. Today’s dam is hydroelectric, owned by Brookfield Renewable, a subsidiary  of the international asset management  company, but dams have shaped Brunswick’s development for centuries—the first was built in 1753 to serve the town’s sawmills.

Read more

Brunswick

Amidst growth, Brunswick faces food insecurity

Behind Hannaford, a five-minute walk from Bowdoin’s campus, sits the primary facility for Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP). The nonprofit, which handles over a million pounds of food each year, combats food insecurity—a perpetual and growing issue that affects over 200,000 Maine residents each year.

Read more

International Students

International students seek visibility, resources

Thirteen portraits on a slanting wall in David Saul Smith Union show students’ faces superposed over images that remind them of home. The art is striking, as is the message behind it. Cheng-Chun (Kevin) Yu ’19 and Shinhee Kang ’18, who created the exhibit together, hope to shed light on the presence of international students at Bowdoin and the unique challenges they face as they try to fit in and access the same opportunities as domestic students.

Read more

News in Brief

Council approves second phase of Whittier Field plan

The Brunswick Town Council formally approved the second phase of Bowdoin’s plans to renovate Whittier Field, the Forecaster reported yesterday. The project includes building a new road to connect Pine Street and Bath Road. The decision this Tuesday followed a vote in December to allow the College to discontinue Pine Street in order to build new athletic facilities alongside Whittier Field.

Read more

Events

Jose Antonio Vargas discusses immigration, discomfort and finding home

Jose Antonio Vargas is home. His California driver’s license may look a little different than a citizen’s, but—in front of a packed Kresge Auditorium last night for the Kenneth V. Santagata Memorial Lecture—he shared his personal struggle to feel like he belongs in America as an undocumented immigrant, and he challenged Bowdoin students to undertake the uncomfortable conversations necessary in today’s immigration debate.

Read more

News in Brief

Bowdoin tops Fulbright list, maintains high success ratio

Half of Bowdoin students who applied for Fulbright awards for the 2017-2018 academic received them, the best ratio among any of the nation’s top undergraduate Fulbright Student producers, according to the Fulbright Program. Forty Bowdoin students applied for Fulbrights last year, and 20 received them, the most from Bowdoin since data became available a decade ago.

Read more

News in Brief

Facilities works to keep up with winter weather

As falling temperatures, rain and snow hit midcoast Maine this week—knocking out parts of campus power on Wednesday—Facilities staff got to work extra early to clear ice from the College’s streets and paths. Over the course of Wednesday afternoon and evening, Brunswick received about seven inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service.

Read more

News in Brief

Senator Angus King wins fight for lobster emoji

Bowdoin students, and anyone with an iPhone or Android device, will soon be able to use a lobster emoji thanks to lobbying efforts from Senator Angus King H’07 (I-Maine). The Unicode Consortium, a Silicon Valley-based group of individuals and corporations that is responsible for designing emojis, unveiled the lobster along with 156 other new emojis on Wednesday.

Read more

News in Brief

Amtrak Downeaster may expand for the summer

The Amtrak Downeaster, which currently runs from Boston to Brunswick, could go as far north as Rockland this summer if the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) approves a pilot program in March. NNERPA wants to ensure that Maine communities will be active Amtrak partners before it finalizes the service, the Maine Free Press reported last week.

Read more

College Houses

Ladd House to be seniors-only next year as students seek upperclass spaces

Ladd House, one of the eight College Houses on campus, will be senior-only housing next year if enough rising seniors apply next week. The decision to convert the House, traditionally occupied by sophomores, into senior housing was proposed by a group of juniors, and occurred amid numerous conversations about how to make College housing more appealing to upperclassmen.

Read more

News in Brief

Warehouse fire causes shortage at Hannaford

A fire at a Hannaford warehouse in South Portland left a number of the supermarket chain’s Maine locations—including the store in Brunswick—short on refrigerated products this past weekend. The Portland Press Herald reported on April 27 that the fire started in a truck’s refrigerator pump and then spread to the warehouse.

Read more

International

At home in all lands

International students face unique difficulties at Bowdoin, which enrolls the fewest non US citizens in the NESCAC, such as navigating career opportunities, advisors and campus resources that don’t fully understand their experiences and a foreign social culture.

Read more

News in Brief

Experience program shorter than past years

The Bowdoin Experience program is one day shorter this year and overlaps completely with the College’s Open House for all admitted students. The program aims to bring admitted students from low-income backgrounds or otherwise traditionally underrepresented in higher education to campus.

Read more

News in Brief

Aircraft manufacturer coming to Brunswick

Brunswick Landing—the site of the former naval base, located approximately 10 minutes from the College—will become the site of a production facility for amphibious sport aircraft, the Times Record reported on April 4. Atol Avion, a Finnish company, partnered with an American investor group to form Atol USA, and plans to have its North American headquarters at Brunswick Landing, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Read more

News in Brief

Faludi named Pulitzer Prize finalist for memoir

Susan Faludi, research associate in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS), was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the autobiography category for her memoir, “In the Darkroom,” (Metropolitan Books). The book explored her relationship with her father, a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor who underwent gender reassignment surgery at age 76.

Read more

College stands by trustee Jes Staley amid Barclays woes

Jes Staley ’79, a member of the Board of Trustees and CEO of Barclays, received a significant cut to his 2016 bonus pay after an internal company investigation revealed that he sought to unmask the identity of a whistleblower who had expressed concern about one of the bank’s executives, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

Read more

Mills to begin one-year stint as UMass chancellor

Former President Barry Mills will become the interim chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass) effective July 1, after current chancellor J. Keith Motley announced his resignation on Wednesday. Mills was named deputy chancellor and chief operating officer at UMass Boston on March 2, signing a five-year contract.

Read more

News in Brief

Moody’s gives College bonds third highest rating

Moody’s Investors Service gave a Aa2 rating—the third-highest rating it assigns—to $45 million of the College’s proposed bonds. The bonds will mature in 2047. Moody’s also affirmed its previously assigned Aa2 rating on approximately $264 million of the College’s existing revenue bonds, according to a release by the agency on March 17.

Read more

Talk of the Quad

Interview lessons

I have the voice recordings from every interview I have conducted as an Orient reporter. At last count, I had 105, an average of slightly more than two interviews per week. They occupy a non-negligible portion of my phone’s memory space.

Read more

News in Brief

Middlebury students protest white nationalist speaker

Administrators at Middlebury College were forced to cancel a public lecture by Dr. Charles Murray, a political scientist and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, due to overwhelming protest by students before the event began. Students chanted and waved signs expressing that Murray’s beliefs—which they perceived to be white supremacist—did not deserve a platform on Middlebury’s campus.

Read more