BCF Advisors

Letter to the editor: Response to Sam Chase '16

To the Editor:
Your columnist Sam Chase says of me, “Easterbrook... is quick to proclaim his intellectual and moral superiority over, well, anyone who isn’t him,” in his column last week, "Hot takes and paragraph breaks: mocking the worst of sports writing."
Okay, that’s his opinion. Curious nothing is cited to support this sweeping generalization. In what instance did I “proclaim” my “moral superiority” over “anyone who isn’t” me? I doubt Bowdoin professors accept papers that contain far-reaching ad hominen condemnations unsupported by a single specific.
Chase further declares that I am “not exactly strapped for cash.” How does the Bowdoin Orient claim to know this? What possible information could your newspaper have about my finances? Chase certainly never called me for any form of fact-checking. I hope Bowdoin students do not imagine that writing serious nonfiction books, literary novels and Atlantic Monthly articles—how I spend most of my time—is a path to riches. When my son Grant Easterbrook ’11 attended Bowdoin, he received financial aid. Which your columnist would have known if he’d engaged in even the most rudimentary fact-checking steps.
One of the temptations faced by students who attend elite colleges such as Bowdoin is making oneself seem important by mocking others. I hope Chase will learn to overcome this sophomoric (in more ways than one) inclination. He’s obviously got a lot to learn about how to write carefully.
Regards,Gregg Easterbrook P ’11Bethesda, Maryland

Letter to the editor: Open Letter to the Maine Public Utilities Commission

To the Editor:
Last week you saw us, the students of Bowdoin College, turn out in strong numbers and speak passionately at the hearings in opposition to the Central Maine Power (CMP) rate change. We spoke to news outlets and directly to you about how a rate change—in particular a standby fee on renewables—would put progress at risk, adversely effect our school, and put our futures in Maine in jeopardy.
The Friday after the hearings, still feeling the rush of excitement from the hearings, Bowdoin students mobilized to turn off all of the light switches accessible to them and un-plug as many devices as possible from CMP’s grid. Part visual experiment, part boycott, during those fifteen minutes we were able to decrease energy use by 7.7 percent overall and by 13 percent on North Campus where the Quad, most of the first year bricks, and the majority of the academic buildings reside. Because a large portion of this decrease came from the dorms, some of which reduced their energy use by more than half, it is clear how much massive student support and collaboration was required to create this kind of event.
Beyond the practicality of a 15-minute boycott of CMP’s services, there was a beauty to it. The campus was unlike I had ever seen it. The freshman bricks only sported ribbons of light from the automatically illuminated bathrooms. In a transformation of one of Bowdoin’s most iconic buildings, Hubbard’s black silhouette revealed no light from the interior. Even Coles Tower, the second tallest building in Maine and our second largest residence hall, managed to go completely black.
How did this happen? Well, 76 students volunteered to turn off lights outside of their room, but there were far more students, faculty and staff who made sure that their rooms, offices, and break spaces were dark and unplugged. There are remarkably few times when the campus is unified around one issue, and this was one of them.
Maine Public Utilities Commission, (MPUC) we call on you to make a choice for the future of this great state. Do not approve the rate change. Do not punish renewables. Instead, help us move into a future that allows us, as citizens of Maine and as citizens of humanity, to chose to be energy independent.
Thank you for your service to the state of Maine. I hope you make the right choice for the state you serve.
Bridgett McCoy ’15

Letter to the editor

April 4, 2014

To the Editor:

I write regarding the recent controversy about Bowdoin Christian Fellowship to encourage the Bowdoin community to evaluate the Dean’s action.

According to Ernst Helmreich’s “Religion at Bowdoin College” (1981), the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship (BCF) began meeting in Moulton Union in 1974. Led by a staff worker affiliated with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), a national organization, BCF has met from 1974 to the present day as an officially recognized chapter of IVCF. IVCF has provided chaplains to BCF at no charge to the College. This 40-year, mutually beneficial relationship should not be blithely tossed aside.

I personally benefited greatly from IVCF’s work; I know numerous students, Christian and non-Christian alike, who received hours of counseling, support, and encouragement from IVCF staff. Bowdoin is a challenging school with limited spiritual resources. The College should not divest itself of the vital presence of IVCF.

Inter-Varsity has chapters at nearly every top college and university in America: four chapters at Yale, six at Duke, 11 at Harvard, three at Stanford, six at Columbia, and seven at Berkeley—to say nothing of the chapters at Middlebury, Amherst, and Swarthmore. All of these schools have strong commitments to tolerance and diversity, and each has made a place at the table for an IVCF chapter. If Harvard has 11 flourishing IVCF chapters, can Bowdoin’s expressed commitment to pluralism not bear the weight of one?

Bowdoin welcomes other student organizations affiliated with national organizations, including the Amnesty International Club and Bowdoin Hillel. There is nothing strange or nefarious about BCF’s status as a chapter.

Sincerely, Dr. Owen D. Strachan ’03
Assistant Professor of Church History at Boyce College

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