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The other night, I had the immense pleasure of eating a meal cooked by Jacob Baskes ’20, a fantastic chef and the most eligible bachelor at Bowdoin. Jacob and I have been friends since our first year when we both joined the frisbee team.
If you’re familiar with Bowdoin, you’re probably familiar with the Russwurm African American Center. This house was constructed in 1827 and named after John Brown Russwurm, an 1826 graduate of Bowdoin and the first African American to receive a Bowdoin degree.
When you walk into Amy Maloney’s house, it looks like any ordinary house. Magnets, pictures and notes cling to the fridge, art hangs from the wall and light streams in from the windows. There are three cups on the kitchen table, each full of pencils sorted by color, with a large sheet of paper showing Maloney’s latest landscape design laid out beside them.
The recent influx of asylum seekers in the American Northeast has motivated Bowdoin students to engage with refugees in Brunswick and its surrounding cities and develop new service programs tailored to meet the needs of these communities.
In just over a week, the busy hallways and quiet study nooks of the College will have a new addition: a collection of stories from the Bowdoin community relating to disability hung all across campus. In hopes of increasing visibility on International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD) on December 3, the DisAbled Students Association (DASA) is asking faculty, students and staff to contribute submissions expressing their own experiences or those of friends and loved ones.
“We fix catastrophic mistakes,” Joel Amsden said, pulling a replica of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul electric guitar out of its case. The neck was unfinished and barren. The guitar, worth around $5,000 according to Amsden’s off-the-cuff estimate, needed extensive repair.
Maine loses nearly a person per day to opioids. But on campus, students are largely insulated from the crisis, which hits Maine’s aging populations and manual laborers especially hard. In Cumberland County, there were 74 overdoses during the first quarter of 2019, down from the previous quarter’s 86.
My family moved to Maine the summer before I started high school. I had spent most of life among the skyscrapers of Chicago, where anonymity was expected in the bustle of city crowds. Yet I felt very connected to my city.
When I see the word “mental illness,” my mind goes straight to the word “illness.” Then a host of other words start to flow through my mind: disease, disability, impaired, bad, inferior, unworthy. The list continues, but the negative connotation of the words remain the same.
As Maine’s Democratic primary on Super Tuesday approaches, students across campus are bringing the race to Bowdoin. Presidential campaigns realized the power of the college-student voting block; the rates of college students who voted doubled in 2018.
During his first semester at Bowdoin, Joe Hilleary ’20 signed up for an introductory Arabic class. He did not have any previous experience, and he definitely did not expect to fall in love with the language.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the Bowdoin campus is a goldmine for obscure references to the College’s history. Exhibit A: in the fall of my first year, I was strolling through the quad alongside my upperclassman friend as she told me about compass engravings—yes, you read that right—scattered throughout the landscape of the College as some sort of historical reference.
Allen Daniels, Bowdoin security officer first class, warned me that he was going to cry during our interview. “I can’t block it out,” he said of his time in the military. “It’s like a watermark. It’s always there, over the image that is real life.
I recall my Bowdoin experience through excessive cultural consumption. It sounds like Nick Hornby “High Fidelity”—like mumbo jumbo, but it’s a great cataloging method. Fall 2016: I over-played Frank Ocean’s “Blonde.” Fall 2017: I discovered Pavement, and logically started to think I grew up in the 90s.
Once daily, I swallow a tiny pill that contains 100 mg of the drug Sertraline, more commonly known by its brand name, Zoloft. Sertraline has many side effects, including, but not limited to, worsening depression, dizziness, drowsiness, vomiting, diarrhea, decreased sex drive, impotence or difficulty having an orgasm.
During my three years at Bowdoin, I have dined at nearly all of Brunswick’s restaurants. I have enjoyed meals at Frontier, Little Tokyo, Enoteca Athena and Shere Punjab. I have eaten passably at Richard’s, Joshua’s and Sweet Angel.
From conducting cutting-edge research in the nation’s capital to publishing an article about the preconception of gay areas as white, Assistant Professor of Sociology Theo Greene has done it all. During his sabbatical in Washington, D.C.
This fall, five tenured or tenure track professors joined Bowdoin’s ranks, settling into the community and bringing new ideas to their departments. They specialize in a wide array of subjects, including religion, Asian and Africana studies, music, neuroscience, biology and chemistry.
On the fourth Sunday of every month, a small group gathers in the hole-in-the-wall space above Moderation Brewing to sip beer, chat and reflect on feminist texts. Open to people of all genders, the Brunswick Feminist Book Club met for the first time last November when Kira Bennett Hamilton brought a couple of friends together from the Brunswick area.
There is a long history of Bowdoin alumni going into politics at all levels, from state and local seats to the Presidency. Two recent Bowdoin alumni may soon join the growing list of Bowdoin graduates in political office.
Every Monday night for the past five weeks, 16 members of the Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) on race gathered at 30 College Street. Through dialogue, rather than debate, participants aim for honest understanding across racial identities. Facilitated by Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Eduardo Pazos and Associate Dean of Student Affairs for Inclusion and Diversity and Director of the Sexuality, Women and Gender Center Kate Stern, the program is designed to allow students of various racial backgrounds to come together to discuss issues of race on campus and in society at large.
In an often high-stress environment like Bowdoin, self-care is encouraged, whether it’s in the form of writing, drawing or taking a warm shower. “Stress might be [a] unifying factor, but [it’s] not something I encourage us to over-identify with or let run our lives,” said Kate Nicholson, Bowdoin’s new assistant director of Student Wellness.
Everyone remembers something different about their first time on Bowdoin’s campus. Maybe it’s the stress of move-in day, the excitement of that one soccer game you watched as a prospective student or even running through the quad as a little kid on a sunny summer day.
As most upperclassmen know, Bowdoin offered “express breakfast” at Moulton during finals in the spring of 2019. Students could swipe in at the Moulton Express counter and grab a breakfast sandwich, a cup of coffee and some yogurt to go.
Career Exploration and Development (CXD) is introducing a new peer advisor program this semester in an effort to provide students with more opportunities to learn about the office and receive career support. The three peer advisors—Elly Veloria ’20, Mike McAlarney ’21 and Amanda Rickman ’20—offer regular drop-in hours in the CXD and David Saul Smith Union to help students with basic career tasks like crafting a resume or drafting a cover letter.
Fashion is an essential part of my identity; it’s partly rooted in my personality, but it truly stems from a cultural expectation of dress I learned while growing up in an African family living in Boston.
These self-portraits were made by William Utermohlen, a 20th century contemporary artist. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1995. At the onset of his Alzheimer’s, he decided to sketch a portrait of himself once a year until 2000—he died in 2007.
Maine celebrated its first Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday. For many Bowdoin students, their awareness of Native Americans comes only from history books or environmental justice readings. Native students are very much present on campus, and Indigenous people have been present in the Brunswick area since well before Bowdoin’s founding.
After roughly four years on Pleasant Street, Twice-Told Tales is turning the corner. The used book store is making its highly anticipated move from the current location on Pleasant Street to Maine Street. Twice-Told Tales is a volunteer-run used book store that serves as a part of the Friends of the Curtis Memorial Library Program, a due-based organization that raises funds for the local library by selling donated books that are in good condition.
When I was younger, I would go to my friend Clara’s house around Halloween to bake pumpkin pie, watch TV and tell scary stories with our friends. I remember huddling in a circle under a tent we’d made from sheets, taking turns narrating the eeriest, most haunting tales we could imagine.
Last week family friends came up to Maine for a wedding. They made a stop to visit me, and I took them to breakfast at Mae’s Café and Bakery in Bath. A fifteen minute drive from campus, Mae’s offers a picturesque setting, high quality service and excellent food.
When I was 16, I started starving myself. Troubled with weight issues—real and imagined—my whole life, I took advantage of a stomach bug I caught while traveling. I began a trend of underfeeding myself, going hungry for hours every day, then working out for upwards of 60 minutes, six to seven days a week.
Growing up, the High Holidays were the only time my whole family would go to synagogue. “High Holidays” is the collective name for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).
Even in her 10th year at Bowdoin, Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science Collin Roesler’s eyes light up as she discusses her research in oceanography. For the past three years, Roesler has been studying how phytoplankton in the ocean capture and export carbon dioxide into deeper areas and remove the gas from the atmosphere as part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Export Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS) mission.
Produced, edited and filmed by Zoe Stilphen ’22 At Wildflours, Maine’s first entirely gluten-free market and bakery, customers who would usually be limited by dietary restrictions can enjoy sweets, breads and savory treats worry-free. The bakery, located at 54 Cumberland Street, has grown since its opening in 2008.
Last Tuesday, newly-appointed Dean of Students Kristina Bethea Odejimi led a morning spin class while the regular instructor was on vacation. Why? Because there was a problem to be solved, because Odejimi really likes to cycle and because the class gave her the chance to do what she enjoys most: meet the individuals who make up the community she has been hired to serve, while getting in a tough workout.
Every weekday morning this semester, nine Bowdoin students pile into minivans to travel to their classroom: the Schiller Coastal Studies Center. Swapping laptops for test tubes and sneakers for rubber boots, students in Bowdoin Marine Science Semester (BMSS) explore coastal environments through a hands-on, intimate semester-long experience.
Whether it’s thanks to the sunlight seeping through the skylight, the endless display of cookies and cupcakes or the freshly baked bread, Bowdoin students and the greater Brunswick community gravitate toward Wild Oats Bakery & Cafe, a long-time Brunswick staple.
It’s officially fall. Apple picking season has descended upon us, frisbees litter the quad and College House residents are finally settling into their castles on Maine Street. The same houses, I might add, which many years ago were home to fraternities; famous members of these organizations include William S.
My freshman fall, I was still reeling from two breakups I’d gone through my last year of high school. One was with a friend, and one was with a boyfriend. At 17 years old, the loss of those relationships wreaked total havoc on my sense of self.
I am a profoundly uncomfortable person. I don’t make people feel uncomfortable, and I often feel emotionally comfortable, but I struggle to be physically comfortable—especially when seated. I squirm, tap my foot, adjust and re-adjust my seat.
I’ve always held that the coffee from Bowdoin’s Cafe is superior to the brew in the dining halls. Even though both locations carry the same types of coffee made by the same company, the Seacoast Coffee Company, I thought I could taste a difference.
Many Bowdoin students flock to The Little Dog Coffee Shop, a Brunswick fixture located on Maine Street, but as students return to campus for a new year, they will return to a new version of The Little Dog, complete with changes in decor, an expanded menu and extended hours on Thursdays and Fridays for “Lit Nights” and live music.
My mom drinks from her Bowdoin coffee mug every morning. And she’s got the whole process down to a science. Grab mug, choose coffee flavor, shove mug into Keurig, wait. Pick mug up, walk over to comfy corner table, do crossword of the day and drink coffee.
As I drove through Brunswick Industrial Park toward Elevated Remedies, I was hit by the unmistakable smell of weed. The skunk-like scent was unsurprising, but it disappeared as soon as I pulled up to the storefront.
Since opening in 2012, Tao Yuan—Pleasant Street’s Asian fusion restaurant—has been in the business of serving the delightfully unexpected. With dishes like “duck confit fried rice” and “Maine Jonah crab wide noodles,” chef and co-owner Cara Stadler deftly crafts a cuisine that is both delicious and surprising.
At 3 p.m. today, students, faculty and staff will gather around five exhibit cases on the second floor gallery of Hawthorne-Longfellow (H-L) Library for the opening of “Tension/Tenacity: Africana Studies at 50,” an exhibition that explores the five-decade history of Bowdoin’s Africana studies program, the John Brown Russwurm African American Center and the Black Student Union (formerly the African American Society).
For Rowan Byrne ’21, the first days of September mark not only the start of a new school year, but also the launch of a surf program he has been organizing since arriving at Bowdoin two years ago.
Unlike most seniors, Carolyn Brady ’19 had the opportunity to walk across two stages this summer: the first, in May, to collect her Bowdoin diploma, and the second, on June 22, to collect her sash and crown as Miss Maine 2019 at the Freeport Arts Center.
Even a cursory glance around campus reveals the ways in which the College has changed since its founding. Buildings, in a range of architectural styles across various time periods, reflect not only the College’s evolution, but also the changes in its leadership.
Brunswick has been home to a local cinema since 1908. The name and location of this theater have changed over the past century, but today, Eveningstar Cinema on Maine Street carries on the tradition as Brunswick’s go-to specialty box office.
Last June, we stuffed all of our books and beauty products into Phoebe’s old Volvo and hit the road. From Houston we blasted through Memphis, Nashville, D.C. and then New York, the city, eventually landing in Brunswick.
On March 28, 2019 there was a significant passing in my world. The series “Broad City” aired its final episode after a wildly successful five season run. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Broad City is a raunchy buddy comedy starring two millennial women living and working in New York City.
There should be a Schoolhouse Rock episode about how the Orient’s production night works. Without the help of a nifty jingle, I will not attempt to describe the full process, but rather set down here that it involves six rounds of edits, various photo and design checks and a weekly $50 snack budget.
This Monday, I traveled to space. While my corporeal body remained in the familiar comfort of the first floor of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, my perception was responding to a different world altogether—the unwieldiness of zero-gravity movement and a limitless expanse of black, punctuated by hazy starlight.
“Name a college from every state that touches the ocean,” Bob Stuart ’77 announced last Thursday in Kresge Auditorium. Teams of elementary schoolers grabbed their pencils and began listing off schools: Bowdoin in Maine, Tufts in Massachusetts, Stanford in California.
Rushing to catch a bus back to Jerusalem, Sophie stops at Sabich Shel Oved (Oved’s Sabich in English) for a not-quite sandwich, not-quite taco Israeli delicacy: sabich. Back in Brunswick, Eliana strolls down Maine Street after class and picks up lunch: sweet potato and fish tacos from the Taco the Town food truck.
If you walk past the Hannaford’s parking lot, you’ll find a small, white building with a sign that reads, “Welcome is our mission.” Inside, the main room is packed with people chatting, reading and drinking coffee.
Pete Seeger stood on the stage of Pickard Theater in front of a single microphone. He picked the strings of his signature long-neck banjo and whistled a gentle harmony, his foot tapping out the beat. After a minute, he stopped playing and began to explain the history of the long-neck banjo and the folk music he played on it.
Isabella Angel ’22 is too nervous to eat dinner, drinking ginger ale instead in hopes of calming her anxiety. In 10 minutes, she will no longer be a Bowdoin College student but Fulvius Nobilior, a Roman general and esteemed member of the Senate, where she will face her rival in a court case over stolen goods.
When you “take financial resources and human beings and juxtapose them such that they produce an added value in human beings,” what do you get? A college, according to former Bowdoin President Robert H. Edwards.
This past Monday, over 400 students, Stanley Druckenmiller and I packed into Pickard Theater to listen to John Kasich. The talk was very informative. For instance, I learned that Ohio had dealt with race, that presidential power is overrated and that the Nixon White House tapes probably include a recording of an 18-year-old Kasich.
We talk a lot about hometowns, both in our casual conversations and within the pages of the Orient. Given that this is a column on our home state of Texas, we felt it’d only be fitting to pay our respects to our home cities in the Lone Star State—places that, by virtue of their complexity and size, dazzle and confound us, often at the same time.
Alyce: I watched the fire from across the river, just close enough to see firemen weaving through the filigreed belfries. As I stood in the smoke among the assembled crowd of tearful Parisians, someone started singing the “Hail Mary”—“Je vous Salue Marie” in French.
“Game of Thrones” (GoT) is back, baby! Thank the Old Gods and the New. Heck, I’ll even thank R’hllor (sorry Shireen). There is a hole in my heart that can only be filled by the NFL or by dragons, and for now that hole is filled.
My friend Nathan and I knew we wanted to live in Reed House early in our first year. We loved the romance of the fire escapes, the neighborhood feeling and all our friends who lived there or who had lived there.
Hanging on Associate Professor of History Sarah McMahon’s wall, tucked between letters from family members and images of the Maine landscape, hangs a quote from former President of the College Robert Edwards: “These colleges, this one in particular, grew until 1970.
It’s easy to tell who the locals are at the Machane Yehuda Market. Jerusalemites gesture emphatically and bicker loudly with vendors. They insist on only the freshest. They know what’s in season and which stalls have access to the best produce.
When Alyssa Gillespie, now the chair of the department and associate professor of Russian, came to Bowdoin in the fall of 2016, only one student was majoring in Russian. Since then, Gillespie has worked tirelessly to expand the department, which now has 15 majors and two minors.
We talk a lot about hometowns, both in our casual conversations and within the pages of the Orient. Given that this is a column on our home state of Texas, we felt it’d only be fitting to pay our respects to our home cities in the Lone Star State—places that, by virtue of their complexity and size, dazzle and confound us, often at the same time.
As students, we are constantly generating data on campus, whether we know it or not. From using Blackboard to Polaris to Outlook, we are engaging in conversations with these channels through our actions online. How does Bowdoin treat this information?
Many talks around faith this year have involved violence, often focusing on shootings in places of worship. But at Bowdoin, around the couches in 30 College and through events all across campus, members of the Brunswick community have gathered to engage in interfaith dialogue in a collaborative and optimistic manner.
During my first mammogram, I put my shoes in a locker before entering an inner waiting room. After I passed the front desk and made my way down a hallway, I was handed a robe the color of chewed bubblegum.
It’s 8:34 a.m. and I awaken to the pitter patter of rain on my window. “Guess it’s time to put those rain pants to good use,” I think. They’re nothing special—just a kid’s large from Amazon that provide the same fit and utility I’d get from an adult small, but for $10 less.
College presidents are a special kind of celebrity. They’re probably not the kind you’d stop to take a picture with, but whether or not we realize it, many of Bowdoin’s presidents’ names are ubiquitous on campus.
Forgive me Thorne Food Waste Owl, for I have sinned: most mornings, I pick the strawberries out of the fruit salad bowl. I’m not the only culprit; most people don’t want pineapple on their oatmeal or in their cereal, so they carefully collect slices of strawberries from the top of the fruit salad instead.
Around the bar at Moderation Brewing on the first Friday in March, 10 students and 10 professors discussed the purpose of American colleges. The group, formally titled the Concordia Forum, had departed from the couches in the Massachusetts Hall Faculty Room and walked to Moderation Brewing to continue their conversation, which lasted for over two hours.
This Tuesday, members of the newly formed Multiracial Student Union (MRSU) crowded into a dining room in Moulton Union. Although club leaders Ayana Harscoet ’21 and Flora Hamilton ’21 came prepared with a list of discussion points, the group dwelled on one question for the entire hour: “When did you first realize you were mixed race?” for the entire hour.
“Y el muro … ¿funcionará?” “And the wall… will it work?” asks an older man, who is kind and usually smiling but now looks concerned. He has dark skin, wrinkles around his eyes and a t-shirt torn at the sleeves.
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was a fresh wound in American public memory, and white institutions across the country were beginning to confront major gaps in their course offerings and their woefully homogenous student bodies.
When women were first admitted to the College in 1971, they enthusiastically pushed their way into all aspects of campus life, especially the athletic arena. As former Athletic Director Ed Coombs said in an Orient article from 1979, “I don’t think we or any of these schools [that went co-ed] anticipated the type of sports these women would want to play.
The bear wasn’t supposed to be there. It was just a black one, a mother whose deep eyes held ours for too long—so long that we continued to lock eyes, paralyzed, our weary knees locked by both reverence and fright.
From the decision to get up in the morning to the decision to go to bed at night, our days are filled with choices. There are big decisions, like whether to move to a different city, state or country.
This past Saturday, customers of all ages buzzed in and out of the trademark Brunswick store, Gulf of Maine Books, at its 40th anniversary celebration and sale. The Maine Street store has drawn readers and writers to Brunswick, from local high schoolers to best selling authors.
The Merciless Debate Society, an unofficial discussion group based in Coles Tower, is dedicated to President Clayton Rose’s often-mentioned principle of “intellectual fearlessness.” The students of this group hope to “mercilessly” confront and debate topics that they believe are often ignored on campus.
Brunswick is home to many cafes, coffee shops, stores and a variety of well-liked restaurants. As for upscale dining, selection has been slim—until now. Odd Duck, which opened January 1, prides itself on filling this niche.
As you move towards the private rooms in Thorne Hall during dinner on any given night, you may be able to catch the sounds of an unfamiliar language. From Spanish to Hebrew, dinnertime language tables provide students with an opportunity to practice their native tongue or develop skills learned in the classroom.
A young boy, yarmulke on head and Kiddush cup in hand, tentatively sips Manischewitz wine on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah. It’s his first taste of wine. He’s relieved to find its saccharine taste familiar, not too different from grape juice.
On Tuesday evenings, the pink-lit walls of the basement that houses WBOR hold chatter that will never run on air: hypotheses on Marx, utopian visions of a socialist society and opinions on where Kamala Harris falls on the political spectrum.
“Yes, I was there for the earthquake … Yes, I felt it … crazy, humbling.” These words always seem to shake my listeners more than the earthquake shook me. Words have that effect. I was in the mountains of Mardi Himal on April 25, 2015 when a 7.8-magniude earthquake shook Nepal.
Recently, I’ve spent a lot of my free time knitting and thinking about making. I grew up with crafting, making creative objects as a part of my daily life. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have my own fabric basket, craft box and knitting needles.
We were squatting on the edge of the waterfront, warm brown waves lapping at our sand-speckled limbs. Oil rigs winked in the distance, the roar of a Confederate flag-adorned pickup truck occasionally punctuating the lazy ocean breeze.
There are only two kinds of people in the world. Are you left-brained or right-brained? Type A or Type B? Are you a 1 or a 0? Quantitative or creative? Creator or builder? Art or algorithms?
The Orient’s “50 things to do before you graduate” reads: “6. ‘Win’ dinner—be the last to leave.” Come graduation, most students can brag about having won Moulton or Thorne at least once. But the ultimate winner of Bowdoin Dining is John Parker, who has been working for the College for the past 35 years.
Bowdoin has no shortage of notable alumni to boast about. Yet unless you’re a physicist or engineer, you might not have heard of Edwin Hall, Bowdoin Class of 1875. Hall was born in Gorham, Maine on November 7, 1855, and grew up in the area, ultimately attending the College and continuing on to make enormous strides in his respective field of physics that altered the course of fields such as engineering and technology entirely.
“Work in the state you love” was the tagline of this week’s Maine Employer Career Fair, which brings employees from across the Pine Tree State to campus. For Bowdoin students, that state might be the one they grew up in or one they had never seen before arriving on campus.
This year, the English department brought new and now internationally-award-winning talent to its faculty. Author and Assistant Professor of English Alex Marzano-Lesnevich recently won the prestigious France Inter-JDD foreign book prize for the French translation of their 2017 cross-genre book “The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir.” This award is given by a committee of prominent French journalists to one book internationally per year in any genre.
We’re from Texas. Houston and Austin, respectively. At first, this didn’t seem to matter much. We both come from transplant families, families who found Texas by accident—or kismet—depending on which way you look at it. The more we talked, the more we fell back on this shared upbringing in order to make sense of who we are: two ethnically ambiguous, romantically adrift young women in Donald Trump’s America.
