Field hockey celebrates 40 years of dominance
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When Dan Dowd guards William Wegman’s exhibit at the Bowdoin Museum of Art, he is keeping watch over some of his own work as well. Dowd is one of five museum security guards who are also artists. A photographer and sculptor, he works primarily with wood and galvanized metal. He moved to Maine in 2001 and has spent the last five years balancing his work at the Museum with his artistic pursuits.
In a statistical comparison of the College’s 2011-2012 athletics rosters and student enrollment, the Orient found that a large number of Bowdoin’s sports teams are lagging in attracting out of region athletes.
For many, field hockey is more than just a sport at this school. To the community, it is a point of pride; to spectators it is an event; and to players it’s about keeping a tradition alive. This fall marks the 40th anniversary of the women’s field hockey program at Bowdoin—an exciting event for any team, but an even more exceptional one for the most successful team in the College’s athletic history. Over 40 years the Polar Bears boast a record of 390 wins, 159 losses, and 17 ties—a record that seems to be moving nowhere but up under the direction of Head Coach Nicky Pearson who is in the midst of her 17th season with the team. Next year, the first Bowdoin students born after Nicky Pearson began coaching field hockey for the College will matriculate.
In an op-ed published in the Amherst Student on Wednesday, “An Account of Sexual Assault at Amherst College,” Angie Epifano, a former member of the Amherst Class of 2014, bravely recounts how she was raped by a classmate as a first year. Since it was released, her account has sparked an outpouring of sympathy and outrage at the administration’s response, and has inspired others to come forward with similar stories. Epifano writes that she felt unsafe on the small campus and did not tell anyone about the assault. When she did seek help from the college’s sexual assault counselor, she was asked whether the rape might have been just “a bad hook up” and was dissuaded from pressing charges or initiating disciplinary proceedings. Months after the assault, Epifano confessed suicidal thoughts and was transported to emergency care. When she returned to school, she was blocked from studying abroad or writing a senior thesis in light of her “unstable” condition. Epifano withdrew from Amherst after her sophomore year, one year after the assault. One of the most disturbing aspects of Epifano’s testimony is her characterization of how administrators tried to whitewash her assault and subsequent withdrawal from the college. “Silence has the rusty taste of shame,” she writes, condemning the school’s attempt to “sweep sexual assaults under a rug,” and noting how administrators failed to provide her with a support system and instead insisted that “Amherst is a safe place.”
Laurence Pope ’67 arrived in Libya last Thursday as senior envoy of the U.S. State Department, and has since been occupied meeting leaders of the Libyan congress, interim government, and U.S. diplomatic officials. As chargé d’affaires, Pope will lead U.S. diplomatic efforts in Libya and fill the role played by the late Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a September 11 terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, a city in northeastern Libya. “Since I arrived on October 10, I have been meeting the Embassy staff, and calling on the government and other diplomats,” Pope wrote yesterday in an email to the Orient. “My first visit was to the Foreign Ministry, as is traditional, and yesterday I met with Congress President Mohamed Megarief who is the interim chief of state. He spent many years in exile as a courageous opponent of Qadhafi, and it was inspiring to meet with him as the leader of a free Libya. I hope to see the Prime Minister designate later today.”