Class discussion

Editorial: A system of the same

Earlier this week, MacMillan House advertised a party planned for tonight called Gender Bender. The posters read: “dress as a woman, dress as a man, dress in between, dress best as you can.” Upon creating a Facebook event for the party, MacMillan quickly received criticism: students on campus addressed how the events’ posters implied a gender binary and how the event brought a sensitive conversation into the insensitive environment of a campus-wide party.
One of the major criticisms was the lack of partnership with Gender Matters, a new discussion group and supportive space for trans/genderqueer/non-binary students to come together to share common experiences and seek support from one another. No member of MacMillan House openly voiced knowledge of this student group.
Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, prior to advertising the party, members of MacMillan discussed the event and met with the Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA). Following that meeting, MacMillan planned to host a panel to explore issues of gender before throwing the party. This programming, however, fell through. Although the House’s intent was not malicious, without this fundamental part of the programming the planned campus-wide was still hurtful and offensive for some. The House should have canceled the party as soon as the plans for the panel failed to come to fruition.
In recent years, students have criticized the College Houses for being predominantly white spaces. In addition to racial homogeneity, however, College Houses consistently attract clusters of applicants who are members of similar campus groups and who socialize with similar people.
The Office of Residential Life’s website describes members of College Houses as “thoughtful leaders in the broader campus community.” In order to be leaders of the greater campus community, however, there must be representation of the student body as a whole in the College Houses. While Bowdoin makes efforts to diversify the overall campus, the College still needs to work to diversify existing spaces, such as the College Houses. This begins with diversifying the makeup of the College House system.
The fact that relevant student communities were overlooked in the planning of the party highlights the lack of social diversity within College Houses. It is important to recognize that for the panel and party to have been properly executed, the makeup of MacMillan—and all College Houses, for that matter—must be representative of all identities that make up the student body.
College Houses seek to be the “living rooms” of Bowdoin’s campus—but if the College House system is not diverse, how can the Houses be truly welcoming spaces? The current social stratification on campus is exemplified by the homogeneity in College Houses. As we move forward in conversations like these, it is important to be mindful of who the conversations include.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Marina Affo, Julian Andrews, Steff Chavez, Meg Robbins and Joe Seibert.

Editorial: 'We are the college, if we want to be'

In an email to the Bowdoin community on January 30, President Clayton Rose wrote that President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees “has the potential to harm students, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities across the country—including here at Bowdoin—and also to put their family members at risk.”
The immigration order immediately affected Bowdoin students, faculty and staff from the seven implicated countries, and on Monday Rose wrote that the College is working to provide these community members access to legal counsel.
In an email to the Orient yesterday, Rose said that, with regard to Trump’s policies, “any actions or statements on my part will be motivated, in the first instance, by those things that challenge our educational mission and/or our [sic] threaten members of our community.”
Rose’s statements and the actions the College is taking to support its students are valuable. But Rose and the College have a responsibility to proactively speak out against Trump’s actions, separate from their impact on Bowdoin as an institution. In short: Bowdoin needs to do more.
The administration has a significant degree of power that, if leveraged effectively, can be used for proactive resistance.
As students, our role in this is most important. If we want our college to speak on our behalf, we need to hold it accountable and make explicit demands.
Public opposition is a step in the right direction, but we can call on Rose and the administration to put pressure on our Maine and federal representatives. We can demand that the school schedule more programming addressing contemporary political and social issues. We can demand that professors find ways, in and out of the classroom, to convey knowledge and skills to do good in the Trump era.
In May of 1970, students at Bowdoin voted to strike in opposition to America’s military action in Southeast Asia. President Roger Howell Jr.’s actions that spring are notable because they matched the school’s public policy to student political demands about an issue unconnected to the interests of the College.
But the student demands came first. Members of the Bowdoin community have already taken action, such as participating in women’s marches and last week’s protests at airports. But if we are serious about pressing for change, the intensity and frequency of our actions and demands need to increase. As the Orient editorialized on May 6, 1970, “What we ourselves have often failed to grasp is that we are the college, if we want to be.”
If we’re unified in our demands and speak as as a student body, Rose would be wise to follow the example Howell set in 1970 and align the College’s actions with the voices of its students.
A Bowdoin alumnus signed E.B. wrote in the May 1970 edition of the Bowdoin Alumnus, “What was the alternative to the suspension? To have conducted business as usual? To have told seniors, many of whom are only weeks away from going to war, that they should stick to their books because their President knows best?” Neutrality is not an option, and lack of action in this case is equivalent to neutrality.

Editorial

This piece represents the opinion of The Bowdoin Orient editorial board.

January 27, 2017

The Bowdoin student body is disproportionately wealthy, with a fifth of students hailing from the top one percent of the income spectrum, according to a study by the Equality of Opportunity Project republished in the New York Times last week. The study indicates that socioeconomic diversity at Bowdoin remained largely the same between 1998 and 2009, and data published in the Orient this week shows that the percentage of students receiving financial aid between 2008 and 2015 has remained at roughly 45 percent, despite increased spending on aid.

The data shocked some of us, but others felt it matched their perception of Bowdoin. This discrepancy is important and shouldn’t be downplayed, as it demonstrates students’ varying levels of consciousness regarding wealth on campus. As students at Bowdoin, we spend surprisingly little time discussing class—both amongst ourselves and with administrators, faculty and staff—considering the dramatic impact that socioeconomic status has on every Bowdoin student’s experience, from buying textbooks to navigating social life.

There are also institutional questions that need to be addressed. Of critical importance among these are Bowdoin’s admissions policies relating to class and increases in the overall cost of Bowdoin.

Need-blind admissions are an improvement over need-based admissions but this 1990s policy is outdated and there are other ways of improving our admissions practices. If Bowdoin is committed to educating a more socioeconomically diverse student body, there are enough qualified low-income applicants to allow for such change. In order to achieve that goal, the College would need to go beyond need-blind admissions, which is the most progressive admissions policy regarding socioeconomic class that we know of. By further developing an admissions system that actively seeks qualified low-income students, Bowdoin could distinguish itself as a leader on the issue of class equity in elite higher education.

Since 2008, there has been a 3.2 percent average year-to-year increase in comprehensive fee, accompanied by a 3.16 percent average year-to-year increase in average financial aid gift size. These roughly equal increases cancel each other out and keep the number of students receiving aid flat. If Bowdoin wants to substantially increase the socioeconomic diversity of the student body, it needs to either increase gift size faster than the comprehensive fee or stabilize the comprehensive fee. We acknowledge the efforts the College is making to investigate the budget, but the budget (and comprehensive fee) will almost certainly increase again this year. To achieve a more socioeconomically diverse campus, we encourage the community to focus on the budget and hold the College accountable to keeping the comprehensive fee stable or significantly increasing financial aid spending.

Class affects every student at Bowdoin, and we should more thoroughly investigate how it influences our experiences here. This goal requires efforts from students and administrators alike, working together to bring issues of class to the forefront of conversation and taking steps to ensure that the reality of the student body reflects the College’s goals regarding socioeconomic diversity.

This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, Harry DiPrinzio, Dakota Griffin, Meg Robbins and Joe Seibert.

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