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BCF advisors refuse to sign policy, vacate role at College
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The Bowdoin Project National Association of Scholars releases 360 page critique of the College
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Divestment Mills says College will not divest from fossil fuels
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Hazlett, senior dean, to leave Bowdoin for position at Franklin & Marshall College
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Teach-in on Native American appropriation brings oft-ignored campus issues to light
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Teach-in on Native American appropriation brings oft-ignored campus issues to light
Students packed into a standing-room-only Beam Classroom in the Visual Arts Center on Wednesday to hear a presentation from their peers and professors on the appropriation of Native American culture.
According to Dean of Multicultural Affairs Leana Amaez, at least one instance of cultural appropriation occurs each year, often by students who dress in “native” costumes for Halloween or a themed party. These instances are not always limited to Native American attire; she noted that earlier in the fall semester students wearing sombreros were brought to her attention.
When these instances of appropriation occur, Amaez often begins a dialogue with students that focuses not on their intentions, but on the impact their actions had on fellow students. “If the problem is ignorance, then the solution is education,” said Amaez, noting that repercussions rarely take the form of punishment.
The event was facilitated by Zohran Mamdani ’14.
Bowdoin Student Government president Sarah Nelson ’14 opened the discussion by recounting an experience last fall where she attended a costume party dressed as a Native American woman.“When I met with the Dean’s office later that week and heard how hurtful my actions had been to some of my peers, I was embarrassed, horrified and surprised,” she said. “That I had owned a costume for six years and was so ignorant to the fact that it was a misappropriation of someone else’s culture—someone else’s identity—terrified me.”
She went on to explain that she believes awareness education can help other students to think about these issues in a new way.
“I hope that, in listening to my story about a time when I made a serious error, everyone here will be more willing to talk to their peers, especially their peers of different races and ethnicities, about where the holes in our understandings of each other’s identities lie,” she said.
First year Dylan Goodwill introduced herself to the crowd and identified herself a member of the Navajo, Lakota and Dakota tribes; she grew up on the Window Rock Navajo Reservation in St. Michaels, Arizona.
“I’ve grown up with a sense of following my traditional ways—going to ceremonies and living in a hogan, which is the traditional Navajo home,” said Goodwill. “I’ve grown up dancing pow wow since I was two years old.”
She explained that some stereotypically native symbols often used by non-natives in costumes hold deep importance within the Native American community.
“We grew up knowing that the way we dress, the way our hair was, our moccasins, our turquoise, our feathers were all sacred and that everything had a meaning,” she said.
For instance, for Goodwill, eagle feathers symbolize “protection and harmony,” among other things, and she currently has eagle feathers hanging in her dorm room to remind her of this. She explained that seeing these symbols being used by people who had no connection to them was hurtful.
“They’re not costumes. We call them regalia,” said Goodwill. “It’s not something that we’re trying to hide from ourselves—it’s something that we are.”
Assistant Professor of Sociology Ingrid Nelson and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kelly Fayard brought an academic lens to the talk. Professor Nelson explained that the work the teach-in was doing was not about “blame or shame or guilt,” but bringing an awareness of each person’s privilege, which shapes experiences and grants advantages that often go unseen. She encouraged students to “use the privilege that you have to dismantle systems that perpetuate that privilege.” Fayard, a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, detailed the long history of cultural appropriation of Native American images in America. She showed images from the Boston Tea Party, secret societies at Yale and the University of Michigan, professional sports teams logos and fashion that all took symbols from Native American culture.
These stereotypes, in Fayard’s view, are damaging to Native American groups on many levels. She noted that they consistently grouped all Native cultures together without an appreciation for the varied practices of the more than 500 federally recognized Native American tribes. “[Stereotypes] constantly put natives as part of the past,” she added. “It basically erases the existence of modern Native American peoples.”
She encouraged students to buy from Native American designers if they are interested in Native American patterns or traditional jewelry, instead of mass marketed products that proport themselves to be native.
After the presentations, students posed questions to the panelists on how to discuss issues of appropriation with peers who may not understand the issue. One topic that was repeated was the use of Native American figures as mascots in professional sports.
Ben Woo Ching, a sophomore who identifies as American Samoan, noted that these issues can often exist in a gray area.
“The University of Hawaii is the Hawaiian Warriors and that’s okay for them because they’re in Hawaii but it is not okay [when] a white man owns the Atlanta Braves,” he said.
Woo Ching thought the discussion reflected W. E. B. DuBois’ double consciousness, in that “White only perceives as white perceives but the minority perceives from both directions.”
Amaez hopes that more discussions of race and identity can continue in a student-led platform. Next fall, she will begin a training program for students interested in facilitating discussions about race for peers. Plans for this program will be finalized over the summer.
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Satirical art posters removed after complaints
The College cited a lack of attribution as its reason for removing the posters, which were created for a visual arts class.
Copies of a poster produced for a visual arts class, which satirized the reputations of female visitors to the off-campus residence 83 1/2 Harpswell Road—known as Crack House—were taken down last Thursday by College administrators because of the poster’s lack of attribution.
Jack Mensik ’14, whose image is featured on the poster though he was not part of the group that conceived of the image, explained that the posters were displayed for approximately 20 minutes before they were brought to the attention of administrators in academic and student affairs.
The project was created for an assignment in Visiting Artist in Residence Accra Shepp’s Photography and Color, in which students were instructed to produce a piece of art that would “intervene in public space,” according to Mensik. One group created this piece of satire, titled “Crack Pre-Check.”
Shepp and the students who produced the image would not speak to the Orient on the issue.The poster encouraged young women over the age of 21 to submit “three recommendations from past sexual partners” and “full body shots and vital stats.” Approved applicants would then receive “unlimited access to Crack House” and “improved social standing.” The poster also included the tagline, “If you’re hot, you don’t deserve to wait.”
The image played on the Transportation Security Administration’s Pre-Check list, which offers a chance to apply for a background check that qualifies flyers for an expedited screening process at airports.
“I don’t think it worked as satire,” said Dean of Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd. “And it hadn’t occurred to the students who produced it that it could be read as anything but satirical.”
“Class related or not, art or not, this kind of imagery is powerful,” said Foster. “In this case, no one was taking ownership of it, so people who were being affected by this didn’t have the ability to engage people.”
Mensik posed with a lacrosse stick and a Bowdoin Lacrosse jacket for the photograph that appears on the poster. Mensik explained that he did not fully understand the group’s aims for taking the picture and that he understands why some would find the resulting image offensive.
“I think it’s unfortunate when people get offended, but at the same time, it’s admirable when risk is taken,” he said.
Caroline Martinez ’16 was one of the few students who saw the project last Thursday afternoon. She saw one in the entrance of Chamberlain Hall, where she is a residential assistant and brought the project to the attention of Residential Life staff.
“I thought that the intentions weren’t bad, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t offensive,” she said. “For me, this poster shows the high tolerance we have on campus for sexism that we don’t have for other issues that affect us.”
Martinez particularly objected to a phrase on the poster—“All applicants may be subject to physical inspection”—which she felt made light of consent in sexual relationships.
“For me, it seemed to continue the sexist tone that we have on campus instead of questioning it,” she said.
She did not know that the image was part of an art class project, or the fact that posters on campus need some attribution, but said that she would have removed the poster regardless.
“It touched on an issue that’s very sensitive and I completely understand why people reacted the way they did,” said Mensik.
The poster did not feature either the artists’ names or the class for which the project was created. Both Judd and Foster suggested that the image would have been allowed to remain posted on campus had it included these things, in accordance with a school policy on posters.
“[Identification] provides the context for the comments or the conversation,” said Judd. “The absence of any ownership potentially projected speech onto someone else.”
“People need to be able to engage you in a dialogue,” said Foster. “Freedom of speech does not protect anonymity, in my mind.”
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Talk of the Quad: Though a house is not a home, a library may be
There are some rivalries that just can’t be reconciled. Sparta and Troy. Ohio State and Michigan. The Red Sox and the Yankees. I’ve never had much of a stake in any of those. The only rivalry I’ve ever felt passionate about is the one between the Bowdoin libraries, and for me, Hawthorne-Longfellow (H-L) will always come out on top.
I can only vaguely recall the first time I stepped inside. It was a cool day in June and a dark-haired sophomore in jeans and flip flops rattled off a series of facts I did not care about. (Over one million volumes! Named for members of the Class of 1825! $60 in free printing each semester! Inter-Library Loans!)
It wasn’t—by a long shot—the most impressive of the libraries I’d seen on a college tour. It isn’t considered the most impressive of our campus buildings.
Patricia McGraw Anderson agrees. In her book, “The Architecture of Bowdoin College,” she writes, “The new library is neither a monumental building nor a competitive one.” Monumental and competitive are adjectives that accurately describe Hubbard Hall—Bowdoin’s library until H-L was completed in 1965.
Named for two of Bowdoin’s most prominent alumni, H-L was built over a period of two years and was designed by Steinman, Cain and White, the later incarnation of the same architecture firm that built Cleaveland Hall, Moulton Union and Gibson Hall. In 1982, the building was expanded to include, among other things, the underground passageway that connects H-L to the Hubbard stacks.
It is undoubtedly where I’ve spent the most time on campus over my four years. My dad warned me at the beginning of my college search that this would be the case, but I waved him off. The casual keg-side conversations I yearned for would not be found in a library.
I wish I could tell you that most of this time was spent completing assignments for my courses, but alas, I did not do all of the readings for my classes. (Except, of course, for the ones I’m taking this semester. Hi Professors!) Sure, I liked my courses and have great memories of them, but the time in H-L I treasure most wasn’t spent reading the Federalist Papers.
Instead, I explored old interests and cultivated new ones. Books came to Bowdoin from places like Presque Isle, Maine and Williamstown, Mass. and I devoured them over long breakfasts in Moulton. Those that had sat on shelves collecting dust came alive after I took them out of the library for the first time. I watched the raised seal on page 55 of every book the College owns morph as the years went on.
On the fourth and fifth floors of the stacks, I read the monologues of Spaulding Gray, the dramas of Eugene O’Neill and the short stories of Ann Beattie. I uncovered the history of ballet and the life of one of its greatest stars, Anna Pavlova, who would have rather died an early death than never be able to dance again.
When I should have been outlining papers, I snuck down to the basement to read old issues of Life and Time dating from the World Wars to the Kennedy assassinations. They taught me that “infographic” is just a new word for something their editors had mastered almost a century ago. As the years go on, type faces change and advertisements’ taglines dwindle from six paragraphs to six words.
I attempted deconstructions of the best newspaper and magazine writing with the vain hope that something would stick in my own writing. I fell in love with profiles of people famous and obscure, from John Wayne to Zell Kravinzky, the latter who donated a kidney and $45 million to those less fortunate than him.
I spent more time than anyone I know in the Special Collections reading room where you’re not allowed to have a pen. After a four-day search, I discovered that the marble statue in the landing of Hubbard is Ophelia, sculpted by Pasquale Romanelli and donated by Henry J. Furber of the Class of 1889.
When I was sure Bowdoin had made a mistake by granting me admission, the only thing that could turn my day around was looking out onto the Quad from couches by the third floor windows early on a Saturday morning and watching dogs play fetch and kids climb on the lions outside the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
Libraries are time capsules that remain open for everyone and that’s especially true of H-L. Even its name harkens us back. And yes, the past wasn’t always an excellent one—the building was built at a time where its doors would have been closed to me.
Having time in the middle of the day to randomly wander into the stacks and spend an hour reading is one of the things I will miss most about Bowdoin. It’s the kind of thing that reinvigorates me in a way I’d never anticipated.
In the October 8, 1965 issue of the Orient, an anonymous student wrote a letter to the editor, lambasting the new library as a “good place to take your date, rather than a good place to study.”
The author hoped that change would come soon. He wrote, “In sixty years, the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library will be outgrown and Bowdoin can look forward to another, marvelously improved, designed-with-the-student-in-mind library.”
The next ten years could bring a new library to campus, but I could not imagine one that could have served me better.
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Women's hockey finishes as NESCAC runner-up
While many Bowdoin students flew south for spring break, the women’s hockey team saw its season come to a close with a 4-1 loss to Williams in the NESCAC championship. The Bears end their season with a 13-11-3 (6-7-3 NESCAC) record.
A chaotic NESCAC quarterfinals left the No. 4 Polar Bears as the second highest-seeded team remaining in the tournament. While Bowdoin defeated Wesleyan at home, both Middlebury and Amherst, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, were knocked out of competition, leaving third-seeded Williams as the highest ranking team. The matchup saw former Bowdoin teammates—Williams Head Coach Meghan Gillis ’07 and current Bowdoin Head Coach Marissa O’Neil ’05—face each other as rivals.
Williams set the tone of the game early on Sunday after Williams’ Hanna Beattie scored in the first thirty seconds of the game. Excellent goaltending from Williams junior Chloe Billadeau held Bowdoin to only one goal—scored in the second by Ariana Bourque ’16 with the assist coming from juniors Colleen Finnerty and Schuyler Nardelli.
Early in the second after Williams scored its third goal of the afternoon, Beth Findley ’16 replaced first year Lan Crofton in net for Bowdoin.. Unfortunately, the change couldn’t block a fourth Williams goal from Cristina Bravi.
Though Bowdoin led the Ephs 29-26 in shots, they couldn’t find the back of the net and after a scoreless third period, lost 4-1, giving Williams its first NESCAC championship in program history.
On Saturday, Bowdoin stomped out longtime rival Colby in a 4-2 semifinal victory after losing to the Mules during their first two games of the season. Nardelli scored the first of Bowdoin’s goals early in the first period on a power play.
Colby answered while Bowdoin captains Chelsea MacNeil ’15 and Emily Tang ‘14 sat in the penalty box. With a 5-on-3 advantage, Colby’s Megan Fortier banked a shot off Crofton and into the net with 16 seconds to go in the first.
Colby scored one more power play goal in the second, giving them a 2-1 lead until MacNeil took the rebound of Tang’s shot from the crease and scored to tie the game. Bowdoin pulled ahead nine minutes in the third period when MacNeil launched a shot at goalie Brianne Wheeler that sailed into the net. MacNeil’s second goal of the game was the only goal that did not come as a result of a power play advantage from either team.
Five minutes later, Bourque scored her eighth goal of the season off an assist from Rachel Kennedy ’16, giving Bowdoin a two-goal lead. Despite pulling Wheeler in the last minute of the game, the Mules could not tie it up.
Crofton made 18 saves for the Bears on Saturday.
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College receives $150,000 grant to digitize writings of Civil War general Oliver Otis Howard
The project will serve as a pilot project for digitization methods moving forward; grant pays for over 40 hours of student labor a week
By 2017, the writings of Union General Oliver Otis Howard, Class of 1850, will only be a click away.
Last Wednesday, the College announced that it had received a $150,000 grant from The National Historical Publications and Records Commission to digitize the Howard collection. According to Richard Lindemann, director of special collections and archives, the process will take three years and will include the scanning of over 150 pages of material, ranging from the 1850s to the 1910s.
The Howard collection is the most frequently accessed collection at the College. Lindemann said approximately 70 people, from Bowdoin and from other institutions, use the Howard collection each year.
Howard is most widely known as the Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a Reconstruction-era federal agency dedicated to aiding the newly freed slaves of the South. Professor of History Patrick Rael is a scholar of Civil War history and often teaches seminars where his students require the collection for their research.
“Outside of Washington D.C., this is the biggest source of information on how the Freedmen’s Bureau worked,” said Rael.
Prior to his tenure at the Freedmen’s Bureau, Howard was a career soldier; after leaving Bowdoin, he went on to West Point and continued working in a military capacity up through the war. After the Freedmen’s Bureau was disbanded in 1874, he returned to military life. In 1877, he became infamous for leading a group of Army soldiers to hunt down the Nez Perce Indians, who were planning to escape the reservation system by fleeing to Canada.
“It gained a lot of notoriety. In the time this was on all the front pages. Everyone was keeping track of this campaign,” said Rael. “It was one of the most notable episodes in the Indian wars after the Civil War.”
The collection includes portions of Howard’s correspondence from family members, as well as the soldiers and freedmen he kept in touch with during and after the War.
“Some of the letters have illustrations in them. Howard was fond, particularly in writing to his children, of drawing little camp scenes to give them a sense of what Papa was up to in the field,” said Lindemann.
Though mostly letters, the collection also includes scrapbooks Howard filled with the small tokens from his travels. According to Lindemann, scrapbooking was “a common way at that time of having a sense of who you are and where you’ve been.”
Lindemann noted that the Howard collection will serve as a “pilot project” for a new method of digitization. The project will build off of previously created online finding aids, which will help limit the amount of new information necessary to store and access the catalogue.
“All we’re doing is scanning and converting the TIFFs into PDFs then attaching the PDFs to the finding aid,” he said.
This scanning will take over 40 hours of student labor each week, as well as full-time project supervision. Much of the grant will go towards paying these workers.
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BCF advisors refuse to sign policy, vacate role at College
Rob and Sim Gregory, who have served as volunteer advisors to the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship (BCF) for eight and nine years respectively, will step down from their roles at the end of this academic year due to their refusal to sign the College’s Volunteer Agreement. Though the Gregorys will no longer hold an official position at the College, they are not banned from visiting or giving talks on campus.
Introduced this fall, the Agreement requires all volunteers associated with the College to formally agree to comply with the College’s policies. Among the policies outlined in the Agreement is Bowdoin’s Freedom from Discrimination and Harassment policy, which prohibits discrimination against any Bowdoin community member based on factors that include race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.
The Gregorys said that signing the non-discrimination policy would violate their faith and the Christian gospel they teach, specifically their scriptural interpretations of sexuality.
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Interactive: Coles Tower renovations to begin this summer
Coles Tower is getting a long overdue makeover. This summer, the College will spend $2.8 million to renovate the building, which turns 50 this year. Four floors will be renovated each year for the next four years. The completed project will cost approximately $5 million, according to Katy Longley, the senior vice president for finance and administration and the college treasurer. The College will partner with Harriman, an engineering firm in Auburn and Massachusetts-based Consigli Construction Company, which has an office in Portland. Consigli worked with the College in 2007on the Art Museum and in 2004 on the Chapel.
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NAS protests Bowdoin's ‘global citizenship’ at Brunswick conference
Ten months after the publication of their 360-page “What does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students,” the National Association of Scholars (NAS) returned to Brunswick to address the “global citizenship” promoted by the College.
In his response to last April’s report, President Barry Mills stated that one of the College’s goals was to “prepare our students to become global citizens in a global economy.” Yesterday’s conference, entitled “Global Illusions: Bowdoin’s Post-Citizens and the Future of American Higher Education,” included talks from scholars who critiqued global citizenship, attributing it to the decline of American citizenship.
Sponsored by the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a right-wing think tank whose mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise; limited, constitutional government; individual freedom; and traditional American values,” the event drew a crowd of approximately 50 people to the Inn at Brunswick Station, fewer than six of whom were Bowdoin students.
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Men’s hockey tops Midd in OT thriller
After a busy first week of classes, student fans rejoined their Brunswick counterparts at Sidney J. Watson Arena to watch the men’s hockey team go 2-1 last week, losing to top-ranked Williams College at home on Saturday.
On Tuesday evening, the Bears welcomed the University of Southern Maine to Watson Arena. In their previous match up—the final game of the fall semester—the teams had tied 3-3. The USM game is one of six non-conference games for the team this season. The game came after a tough weekend of games, and left the team with only a single practice to prepare for the contest.
“We call those games the ‘Tuesday Trap’ games, especially coming off a big weekend when people are tired and beat up,” said Jay Livermore ’14. “It’s tough to turn it around.”
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College signs deal with solar panel provider
While students were drinking obscene amounts of coffee in the midst of finals week, the College made one important step towards the completion of what will be Maine’s largest solar power plant. In December, the College signed an official agreement with SolarCity, the company that will build and own the panels, according to Katy Longley, college treasurer and senior vice president for finance and administration.
While the deal’s specifics cannot be released due to a non-disclosure agreement, Longley did confirm that the panels will not significantly cut the College’s energy costs.
“It’s pretty much cost neutral for the College for the first several years,” she said. “However, if electricity prices spike, we may save money sooner.”
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‘The Object Show’ provides unique challenges for preparators
“The Object Show”, the Museum of Art’s latest exhibit which features pieces from various deparments of the College, opened last night. The exhibit spans from before the College’s founding to more recent times, with pieces like James Bowdoin’s wardrobe and a stuffed lobster. It will be on display in the Museum’s Osher and Halford Galleries through next June.
The show was installed over a period of three weeks. Last week, the galleries were filled with nothing but empty cases, and the last of Prendergast paintings had just been sent back to their museums of origin. Yesterday morning, most pieces had been mounted and placed in their cases, but there was still last minute tinkering to be done. Many of the labels had not arrived, and some wall text still had to be put up.
Co-director of the Museum of Art Frank Goodyear explained that this was not an uncommon circumstance.
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Talk of the Quad: His persistence in resistance
Looking around campus, it’s easy to see the members of the Bowdoin community we’re most proud of. Some—Howard, Chamberlain, Stowe—are so deeply tied to the history of our nation that it would be foolish not to acknowledge the role Bowdoin played in their lives. Others—Mitchell, Druckenmiller, Osher—are the titans of the present. They’re philanthropists who demonstrate the benefits of a Bowdoin education in our society. Today, however, I present to you another Bowdoin alum worthy of our praise: Sumner Waldron Jackson.
I spent this summer on campus, trying to take in every bit of it before I graduate in the spring. I came to appreciate sitting outside of Gibson Hall on the bench in front of Bowdoin’s memorial to alumni who lost their lives fighting for our nation. That’s where Jackson’s name first jumped out at me. A member of the Class of 1909, he would’ve been in his late fifties by the end of the Second World War, and yet he’s listed as among those who died.
Most students don’t know this, but Special Collections keeps a file for every alumnus of the College. So I took down Jackson’s name and class year on the back of my hand and climbed the steps to the third floor of the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.
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Barker ’80 first female Chair of the Board
This weekend when the Board of Trustees met to discuss the business of the College, for the first time a woman sat at the head of the table.
Deborah Barker ’80 was officially named Chair of the Board of Trustees to May. A member of the Class of 1980, she went on to receive an MBA from Harvard, and worked for many years as an investment banker. She currently spends her time outside the Board working with educational nonprofits.
Barker humbly acknowledges that it is a noteworthy accomplishment to be the first woman to chair the Board.
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J-Board heard 5 academic, 2 social code cases in ’12-’13
The Judicial Board (J-Board) heard seven cases in the 2012-2013 Academic Year according to its annual report released Wednesday. Of these cases, five were connected to violations of the Academic Honor Code, and two dealt with violations of the Social Honor Code. Additionally, the Student Sexual Assault and Misconduct Board heard two cases.
This marks a significant decrease from the 18 cases heard during the 2011-2012 year, and 15 cases during 2010-2011.
The report, which can only be accessed online by members of the College community, lists the violations and the subsequent punishments handed down by the Board.
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Student affairs holds closed panel on hazing
The Office of Student Affairs, in conjunction with BSG President Sarah Nelson ’14, hosted a forum to discuss its new hazing policy Wednesday night.
Tim Foster, dean of student affairs, Tim Ryan, athletic director, and Allen Delong, director of student activities, took questions and comments regarding the recent changes to the policy, hoping to ease students’ anxiety surrounding the issue.
The meeting was closed to non-community members and memebrs of the press, and as such, direct quotations from students present cannot be printed here.
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Student Affairs implements revamped hazing policy
After a string of hazing incidents were brought to light in the past academic year, the College spent the summer revamping its hazing policy. Bowdoin expanded its definition to include case studies, questions for students to consider when planning events, and a list of suggested team events. Tim Foster, dean of student affairs, was clear that the changed language of College policy was only one strategy for eliminating hazing on campus.
“If the whole focus is simply on revising the policy, I don’t think the magic answer [to eliminating hazing] is in a revised hazing policy,” said Foster. “I think that’s part of a broader effort to increase awareness.”
First, the Athletics Department completely retooled how it addressed hazing. Ashmeade White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan explained that not only did team captains get a full coach-led training session on what constitutes hazing, but teams will also be required to gather to discuss the issue.
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Foster restructures Office of Student Affairs
Tim Foster, dean of student affairs, announced that Office of the Dean of Student Affairs will be consolidating two part-time positions into one full-time position, which will be known Associate Director of First-Year Programs via campus-wide email on Sunday. Foster also announced the departure of Dean Laura Lee, within the email.
Foster announced these changes after Margaret Hazlett, senior associate dean, decided to leave Bowdoin to become Dean of the College at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. “Whenever you have someone who’s been in a senior position such as Margaret’s, for as long as she has, it’s a good chance to step back and say ‘How do we want to best organize ourselves to best meet the needs of students, faculty and staff going forward?’” said Foster.
The new associate director position will take on a series of new responsibilities. He or she will oversee international students, accommodations for students with disabilities, and the Host Family Programs.
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Hazlett, senior dean, to leave Bowdoin for position at Franklin & Marshall College
After 16 years at the College, Margaret Hazlet, senior associate dean of student affairs, will leave Bowdoin next year to take up a position as Dean of the College at Franklin and Marshall College (F&M), a liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster sent an email to the campus announcing Hazlett’s impending departure on Monday afternoon.
Hazlett said when she first arrived at the College she did not intend to stay for so long.“I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll be here two or three years and I’ll move on’,” she said.
Foster explained that Hazlett was hired through an unusual chain of events. A mutual friend had reached out to Foster, hoping he would be able to advise Hazlett, who was then in the midst of applying for a position at Georgetown University. Foster, upon seeing her qualifications brought her to the attention of then-Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley. Hazlett started at the College as the assistant dean of student affairs.
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The Bowdoin Project: National Association of Scholars releases 360 page critique of the College
Bowdoin students spend too much time talking about identity, don’t know enough about the founding fathers, and have way too much sex.
It took the National Association of Scholars 19 months to reach those conclusions, which, among others, are detailed in “The Bowdoin Project,” the organization’s report on the College.
Totaling 360 pages, the report applies conservative ideology of the past three decades to virtually every aspect of Bowdoin policy, academic affairs, and student life. The report assails Bowdoin on topics as wide-ranging as sustainability and climate change, gay marriage, and affirmative action.
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College to offer new course in computational studies
The College will offer the first course in a new interdisciplinary program of study, Digital and Computational Studies, this fall.
Eric Chown, who currently serves as the chair of the Department of Computer Science, and Associate Professor of Art History Pamela Fletcher will teach the course, which will be called Gateway to Digital Studies. Though the class will contain some introductory material, it will largely be project-based to allow students to investigate their own specific inquiries.
Discussions surrounding the creation of a digital studies course began last winter. Over the summer, Chown and others took part in a workshop for faculty to examine what the first course in this new field would be.
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The Bowdoin Project: What is the NAS?
The National Association of Scholars defines itself as “an independent membership association of academics and others working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debated in America’s colleges and universities.” The organization “advocates for excellence by encouraging commitment to high intellectual standards, individual merit, institutional integrity, good governance, and sound public policy.”Dr. Stephen Balch founded the NAS in 1987 and served as its president until 2009. He currently serves as the director for the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.Peter W. Wood, who received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Rochester in 1987, succeeded Balch as president of the NAS. Prior to joining the staff of the NAS, he taught at Boston University in the anthropology department.“Students in general may have disagreed with his politics, but found him to be a very inspiring and tough teacher,” said Boston University Professor Tom Barfield, who was chair of the department during Wood’s tenure. Wood left Boston University to serve as provost of The King’s College in New York City, a Christian liberal arts college which Michael Toscano, the report’s co-author, attended.One of the first major works published by NAS was a report titled “The Dissolution of General Education: 1914-1993,” which was published in 1996. As part of this study, NAS analyzed the curricula of the fifty top schools in the country, including Bowdoin and many of its NESCAC peers, noting the decrease in broad survey courses during that period. The 65-page report strikes the same note as “The Bowdoin Project,” suggesting, “in the debates over what students learn and ought to learn disagreement most commonly arises over whether the curriculum should be expanded to make it more ‘inclusive,’ ‘diverse,’ and ‘multicultural.’”In October 2011, the National Association of Scholars co-signed an amicus curiae to the Supreme Court in support of Abigail Fisher in the case of Fisher v. Texas, which questions the legality of affirmative action in college admissions. On this matter, the group wrote that it was “dedicated to the principle of individual merit and opposes race, sex, and other group preferences.”The NAS published “Recasting History: Are Race, Class and Gender Dominating American History?” in January of this year. Co-authored by Wood, it examines the changing scope of history courses within the University of Texas, Austin and Texas A&M. This study found that at both institutions—though it states that the problem is more pronounced at UT—race, class, and gender were over emphasized, to the detriment of “military, diplomatic, religious [and] intellectual history.”In a March 2013 article titled “National Scholars’ Group Turns 25, Showing its Age,” Peter Schmidt, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, addressed the declining relevance of the NAS since its “height in the late 1990s.”Shortly after the publication of this article, Peter Wood refuted many of its claims in an online comment on the Chronicle’s website. He argued that the NAS is a thriving organization that still has a powerful impact on the academic community.Wood wrote, “The documentation we provide on the politicization of the curriculum and bias in faculty hiring rightly alarms the public, if not the faculty members and academic administrators who ought to be most concerned.”The National Association of Scholars defines itself as “an independent membership association of academics and others working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debated in America’s colleges and universities.” The organization “advocates for excellence by encouraging commitment to high intellectual standards, individual merit, institutional integrity, good governance, and sound public policy.”
Dr. Stephen Balch founded the NAS in 1987 and served as its president until 2009. He currently serves as the director for the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Peter W. Wood, who received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Rochester in 1987, succeeded Balch as president of the NAS. Prior to joining the staff of the NAS, he taught at Boston University in the anthropology department.
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LePage’s cuts to Medicaid will affect coverage for 20,000 Mainers
Cuts save Maine $4 million and reduce MaineCare’s eligibility threshold to 133 of the federal poverty line, down from 150%
A series of cuts to MaineCare—Maine’s Medicaid program—will go into effect today , affecting the healthcare coverage of nearly 20,000 people statewide. Governor Paul LePage proposed the cuts late last year.
Early this year the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) approved cuts for “the optional group of parents and caretakers” previously covered. It also approved reducing the MaineCare eligibity threshold of poor Mainers from 150 percent of the federal poverty level to 133 percent. In addition, the new cuts reduce benefits for elderly Mainers who are otherwise able to recieve coverage through Medicare.
“These cuts are not easy decisions because they do involve real people,” LePage wrote in a press release last year.
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Class size policy leaves classrooms cramped
Nearly 45 classes this semester have exceeded the maximum enrollment listed on Bearings. Of these, the Department of Mathematics has the most over enrolled classes with nine, the Department of Government ranks second with four classes above their designated limits. The course with the most students is Professor Samuel Putnam’s Psychology 101, with 64 students enrolled.This is significantly smaller than last spring’s highest enrollment for Classical Mythology, which had a whopping 96 students and last fall’s Environmental Studies 101, which had an enrollment of 81. To accomodate popular courses, the department will somtimes offer additional sections.
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Divestment: Mills says College will not divest from fossil fuels
President Mills said the College would not agree to divest the endowment of fossil fuels in the immediate future on Tuesday, just one day before Middlebury College announced plans to investigate the feasibility of divesting its own endowment. “At this point, we’re not prepared to commit to divest from fossil fuels, but I would never say never,” said President Mills on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after meeting with a group of students, led by Matthew Goodrich ’15, who petitioned for divestment. “We expressed to him that this is an issue that the student body cares very deeply about and that we really want to move forward with this,” Goodrich said.
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College remembers veterans, honors alums in active service
“There is no way to maintain the frontiers of freedom without cost and commitment and risk. There is no swift and easy path to peace in our generation,” said President John F. Kennedy in his Veteran’s Day address at the Arlington National Cemetery in 1961. His words echoed through Smith Union on Sunday when representatives of the College Republicans recited the speech to commemorate the national holiday, before asking for a moment of silence to honor the sacrifices of American servicemen and women.
“It’s an often overlooked day of remembrance, but what we wanted to do was just remind people ‘hey it is Veteran’s Day and take a minute to think about all the sacrifices people have made for you,’” said Sam Sabasteanski ’13, co-president of the Republicans.
This reading was not the only way that Bowdoin honored Bowdoin servicemen and women on campus.
Professor of Government Christian Potholm has collected photos of alumni in the armed services for a number of years, and put them up outside his office this summer.
“I don’t know any place else on campus where we recognize [alumni] that are serving the country,” said Potholm. He hopes it serves as a reminder “that somebody is out there [fighting] on our behalf.”
Sabasteanski was impressed with Potholm’s effort.
“You can look at, say, the flag pole monument and see the names of Bowdoin people who served before, but it doesn’t hit you quite like having pictures of people, ” he said.
Captain David Donahue ’07 is currently serving as an instructor at The Basic School in Quantico, Va. He recently returned from a three-year tour of duty, during which he spent seven months in Afghanistan before moving on to another deployment in Southeast Asia.
Though he completed Officer Candidate School at Bowdoin, Donahue chose to decline a commission at graduation. However, after working as a civilian in Boston, he decided to return to the Marine Corps.
“Sitting behind a desk all day, I was not having that same sense of fulfillment,” Donahue said. “I wanted to go back to the Marines. I thought that was where I fit in.”
Luke Flinn ’10 is currently training to become a helicopter pilot for the Marine Corps in Milton, Fla. In an email to the Orient, Flinn said he decided to join the Marines because of “the professionalism of its members, its storied history, and its distinct esprit de corps.” Flinn said he knows six other Bowdoin alumni who are also Marines.
Neither Donahue nor Flinn knew of the display in Hubbard Hall.
“It’s pretty cool that [Potholm] would do something like that,” said Donahue.
Another Bowdoin Marine, Captain Katie Petronio ’07, gained national attention this year for asserting her belief that female Marines should not be allowed to serve in the infantry.
In March, she wrote an article for the Marine Corps Gazette titled “Get Over It! We’re Not All Created Equal."
“I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion, that we haven’t even begun to analyze and comprehend the gender-specific medical issues and overall physical toll that continuous combat operations will have on females,” Petronio argues in the article.
Petronio later appeared on CNN to defend her position.
Erika Leach ’02, a captain in the Air Force, moved from active duty to the Reserves in March of this year. As a Reserve Airman, she advises students who are applying to the Air Force Academy and ROTC programs.
“I wanted to have a little more flexibility. With the Reserves, you have a lot more control of where you are,” she said of her decision to join.
Leach began her service in 2003 and chose the Air Force based on the advice of her parents, who both served in the Navy after finishing college. In 2010, she was deployed to Qatar for six months, where she worked closely with a colonel in charge of information technology for the region.
Potholm said that he has noticed a pattern of student athletes serving in the armed forces. Donahue played football and lacrosse all four years at Bowdoin, and was captain of the lacrosse team his senior year.
Though not a varsity athlete herself, Leach noticed similarities between the culture of a team sport and that of the Air Force.
“Athletics and leadership can go pretty hand in hand, whether you’re an actual captain or just on the field. That parlays well into the military from what I’ve seen,” she said.
Leach said that compared to others in the Air Force, her liberal arts background is unusual, but believes that it was beneficial. She found that Bowdoin fosters the same philosophy of“giving back to the community” that the military promotes.
Potholm acknowledges that his is not a complete list, and encourages those who know of other alumni in the military to contact him so he can update it.
While being a Marine is not easy, Donahue still describes his service as the most rewarding work he could imagine.
“There are miserable experiences,” he said. “But the highs we experience together, the sense of accomplishment, that shared feeling between peers and subordinates is incredible.”
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In letter, professors defend time spent outside the classroom
Bowdoin students are already looking ahead to Winter Break, but for professors, those five weeks are not a complete vacation. Professor Scott Sehon, chair of the philosophy department, views Winter Break as precious time outside of the classroom to dedicate to his own research.
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New trustees bring expertise in business and law to board
The Board of Trustees convenes this weekend with four new members to discuss renovating the former Longfellow Elementary School and changes to upgrade the College’s data network.
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335 students meet with CPC in last ten days, eight seniors secure jobs
Eight seniors have accepted full-time job offers so far this year, according to the Career Planning Center (CPC) that they have found positions for after graduation. Each of these students will be joining companies at which they had previously interned. For the rest of the nearly 500 members of the senior class, the job hunt continues.
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Samantha Garvey ’16 gets shout-out from Obama at DNC
When President Obama recalled meeting inspiring Americans in his address at the Democratic National Convention last Thursday, Samantha Garvey '16 had no idea she would be mentioned.
Garvey met Obama last January when she was named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, one of the country’s most prestigious science competitions for high school students, for her research on the defense mechanisms of mussels.