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Monday through Saturday, you can usually find reruns of Seinfeld playing at 90 Union Street, home to Brunswick’s new (as of last spring) cafe, Dog Bar Jim. That is, when it’s not 85 degrees out and you arrive to find a sticky note that reads, “Too hot for Seinfeld,” on the vintage TV that rests near the cash register.
Breakfast at the Paramount in Boston meant a 45-minute wait in the standing line to order, a subsequent fight for a table and an inevitable shouting match between Conversation and Noise. “Izvini sto kasnim!” I yelled, “I’m sorry I’m late!” She waved at the air to both forgive and beckon me to her table.
My toes balance on the slotted, concrete boat launch, and the water around my ankles is cold. I walk forward, and the water makes itself known higher and higher on my body. Goosebumps coat my skin: I know I must dive in and that it will be warmer once I’m submerged.
Growing up, my anxiety was like a cloud. Always there, mostly invisible to others, making everything a little bit more grey. For many years, I thought that everyone had one. I had always been taught that my brain was my most valuable possession.
Four floors of evenly-spaced windows tower over the Androscoggin River. The faded brick structure stands firm, bookending Maine Street just before Topsham. Though unassuming from the exterior, Fort Andross is a place bustling with motion – hundreds of individuals enter and exit every day, each with a unique purpose.
For many, Cumberland Self Storage signifies transition: a temporary place to store belongings. But for the past 11 years, Manager Steve Howe has been a constant friendly face to greet and help customers. “A lot of people think it’s dull and boring—you just sit on your butt all day long and don’t do anything—but that’s not the case.
Every Saturday from November to May, vendors selling goods from freshly-harvested mushrooms to homemade body lotions shuffle in to fill the first floor of Fort Andross with their colorful stalls. This is the Brunswick Winter Market, where the vendors are as eclectic and versatile as they are passionate about their craft—whether it is cheese- and butter-making, coffee roasting or knife sharpening.
Next door to the Winter Market is the Waterfront Flea Market. In fact, customers have to walk past the flea market to get to the winter market. A lot of people pause before the flea market, look, a bit confused and intrigued, at the couple of mismatched chairs out front, but many just continue to the other market.
John Bisbee has exclusively welded nails for the past 32 years. “I thought it was just a little phase, and it wasn’t,” said the artist in his riverside Fort Andross workshop, where he has worked since 1996.
Leaning back comfortably in a well-worn chair, Jim Bleikamp describes how he has gone “über-local.” The president of Radio 9 WCME, housed in the heart of Fort Andross and found at AM 900, he says, “You could tune in to the station every hour and figure that the Northern boundary of the world is maybe Rockland and the Southern boundary is Freeport.
With a median age of 44.5 years, Maine is the oldest state in the United States. An aging population presents a variety of challenges. Brunswick itself has three senior housing facilities, one of which is Mid Coast Senior Health Center.
Any north-facing windows at Fort Andross provide a full view of the Brunswick dam, a massive concrete structure on the Androscoggin River with a capacity 19,000 kilowatt-hours, according to the Maine Governor’s Energy Office. Today’s dam is hydroelectric, owned by Brookfield Renewable, a subsidiary of the international asset management company, but dams have shaped Brunswick’s development for centuries—the first was built in 1753 to serve the town’s sawmills.
Deborah Todd crafts every one of her colorful ceramic tiles by hand, from start to finish, through a process she invented at the start of her career 37 years ago as the apprentice to a potter in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Hidden in the basement of Fort Andross, First Class Fitness & MMA is easily overlooked by many of the Fort’s visitors. “Fort Andross is such a giant building that a lot of people don’t really know we’re there,” said owner John Raio.
Rather than continuing to work in biology laboratories post-graduation, Ian Trask ’05 opted to pick up trash. After winding his way through various jobs, he ended up as a groundskeeper at a hospital in Massachusetts, cleaning parking lots and he ultimately deciding to use trash as a medium for art.
Cappuccino Meltaway Truffles. Almond Butter Crunch. Coconut Clusters. Dark Chocolate Pecan Turtles. Peering into the glossy display case at Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections on Maine Street is enough to entice even the slightest of chocoholics.
We are basically in a relationship. It’s been eight years. We’ve lived together for two and a half, traveled around the world, hung out with each other’s families and are currently listed as each other’s “emergency contact.” You can find us eating most meals together in Thorne, popping up most often in each other’s tagged photos and wearing full-set matching pajamas when we go to bed together each night.
The summer before to my freshman year, a burglar ransacked my house while I was home alone. It was a lazy morning. I was reading in bed when I heard the first knock. I continued reading without pause, noting that my mother—the only other resident of our home—was not due home until lunchtime.
Ishani Agarwal ’20 says she came to Bowdoin “blind.” An international student from Mumbai, India, Ishani gleaned everything she knew about Bowdoin from pamphlets and the internet. Once transplanted to campus and settled in small-town Maine, Agarwal wondered about a lot of things.
With its history of Arctic exploration and museum research, Bowdoin’s connection to the Arctic go way back. Today, with issues still surrounding various polar environments, Bowdoin continues to make strides in the field, as exemplified through a continuous, cross-disciplinary pursuit by faculty members across several academic departments.
“The quad is really the heart of campus,” I used to tell unconvinced tour groups, faking a smile as we walked along snow banks piled four feet high through the winter. “It’s really beautiful during the first and last weeks of the year!” I promise them.
Two years ago during my sophomore fall, I stumbled across an opinion article by Professor of Philosophy Sarah Conly in the Boston Globe. Professor Conly was writing on the heels of China’s decision to end its decades-old one-child policy and allow two children per family.
“Perché gli americani vogliono imparare l’italiano?” (“Why do Americans want to learn Italian?”) This was the question my friends asked when I told them that I was going to go from working on my Master’s in Italy to teaching Italian conversation at Bowdoin.
I met Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Erin Johnson in her studio in the Edwards Center for Art and Dance. Midday sun streamed in through room’s the large windows, generously lighting the space. There was very little furniture in the room, giving it an airy quality.
Behind Hannaford, a five-minute walk from Bowdoin’s campus, sits the primary facility for Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP). The nonprofit, which handles over a million pounds of food each year, combats food insecurity—a perpetual and growing issue that affects over 200,000 Maine residents each year.
Holding court behind the counter as two men from a local band walk through the store’s glass door, Gary Lawless asks: “What’s a drummer who’s lost his girlfriend?” It’s quiet for a beat. “Homeless,” he exclaims.
This article is the fourth and final installment in the Diversity Matters series, in which students from the Diversity in Higher Education seminar present research based on interviews with 48 seniors. To read the first installment, click here.
Camille Serrano ’18 is from Olathe (oh-LAY-thuh) Kansas, about 20 miles southwest of Kansas City. When asked if there are any places in Olathe that she thinks about when she thinks of home, this is what Camille said: “Oh my goodness.
This article is the third installment in the Diversity Matters series, in which students from the Diversity in Higher Education seminar present research based on interviews with 48 seniors. To read the first installment, click here.
We asked six first years to tell us what they wish they knew before starting at Bowdoin. These are their responses.
When I was looking at colleges, I placed a very particular (almost unreasonable) emphasis on the weather. I wasn’t looking for anything perfect; rather I wanted something different. The weather in Los Angeles always seemed too sunny and perfect—in fact the weather in California is so perfect that we have a perpetual problem with droughts.
Two figures stand under a tree near the Bowdoin Chapel. It is a birch tree or maybe an oak—I am not sure, and it doesn’t even matter. The tree is just beginning to bloom. Its silvery green leaves shudder in the cool May breeze, and its rosy buds are filled to burst with flowers that reach to meet the morning sun and cast stippled shadows across the grass.
Last Thursday night, I attended my first “underground queer party.” Inspired by Wesleyan’s biweekly “secret gay keg parties,” this was intended to bring together and revitalize Bowdoin’s lackluster queer community. This party wasn’t the local gay club I frequented abroad, replete with handsome men in their mid-twenties, strobe lights, drag queens and complimentary drinks.
This article is the second installment in the Diversity Matters series where students in the Diversity in Higher Education seminar present research based on interviews with 48 seniors. To read the first installment, click here. Students can easily go through Bowdoin with color-blind understandings of race unchallenged and undisrupted.
Scuffed Carhartts, funky mountain art and red walls keep the warmth inside Kaladis Brothers Coffee during the dark winter months, when a cup of coffee is about 130 degrees hotter than the temperature outside. Although Rachel Zafren ’18 spends most of her year away from Anchorage, every other customer is coming up to talk to her.
Thirteen portraits on a slanting wall in David Saul Smith Union show students’ faces superposed over images that remind them of home. The art is striking, as is the message behind it. Cheng-Chun (Kevin) Yu ’19 and Shinhee Kang ’18, who created the exhibit together, hope to shed light on the presence of international students at Bowdoin and the unique challenges they face as they try to fit in and access the same opportunities as domestic students.
Isaac Kabuika ’20 doesn’t get much sleep, but you would never be able to tell. The neuroscience and computer science double major just started an IT Learning Program to help underprivileged populations in Lewiston, Maine, in addition to taking five classes this semester.
When we applied to Bowdoin, we checked boxes on the Common App designating our “official” identities, which suggest to Admissions how we might add to “diversity” on campus. But what happened next, after arriving on campus?
In high school, I spent countless hours babysitting younger kids. It was my primary source of spending-money and more importantly an experience that helped me grow immensely as a person. Kids are full of contagious enthusiasm that makes it hard to be anything but happy when you’re around them.
“So, you’re a vivid dreamer. You really need to get those dreams analyzed,” my doctor told me with the authority of her white coat and the distance of a wide desk. I discussed the recurring themes and characters in my dreams: my middle school volleyball coach, my first boyfriend, my second boyfriend, my family friends, my parents.
I love my Amtrak Downeaster six-trip college pass. For 86 dollars, I can take three round trips from the doorstep of campus to Woburn, the gateway to JOB (Just Outside of Boston) land. My three—or four or five, depending on weather and track repair—hour rides have punctuated my seven semesters on campus, bookending Thanksgiving and spring breaks.
Irfan Alam ’18 isn’t sure how to pronounce his first name. The confusion stems from the varied intonations of his friends at Bowdoin (air-fawn), his family (air-fawn) and his friends from his largely white private high school in Austin, Texas (urr-fawn).
Vessel and Vine, the newest addition to Brunswick’s assortment of small businesses, opened on Thursday on the corner of Maine and Pleasant streets. Part restaurant, part wine bar and part retail store, Vessel and Vine is the brainchild of owner Nikaline Iacono’s culinary and aesthetic sensibilities.
If you call up Autometrics auto-repair and supplies for a consultation, a new part, or some advice on your car, you might be surprised. When the ringing stops and the line clicks, the voice on the other end is not the one you might expect: that of a gruff mechanic, grabbing a call between repairs.
AUDIO: Carly Berlin reads. When I came to Bowdoin, everyone asked me where my accent was. Where? Nowhere. This was a matter I had never considered. I hadn’t noticed that my parents spoke with subtle twangs ’til my college friends noted this, but that would be years down the road.
AUDIO: Ellice Lueders reads. Tucson, Arizona, is a city confined unlike any other. Geographically bound by mountains in every direction, Tucson is the only major US city without a highway running through it. The city is an asphalt island surrounded by a sea of towering, spiny kelp.
During my time away from Bowdoin, my life changed dramatically when somebody close to me was diagnosed with a severe case of bipolar disorder. Part of their diagnosis also included “psychotic tendencies,” or sensory experiences of things that do not exist and/or beliefs with no basis in reality.
When white “Freedom Rider” and Wesleyan professor Dr. John Maquire visited Bowdoin over 50 years ago, he left the message that Bowdoin students would never fully understand the struggle for civil rights until they personally and directly understood what it was like to be black in the south.
Moulton light room (MLR) is a panoptical experience. Loyal MLR’ers are both inmates and guards, simultaneously watched while watching others. Eyes latch onto us the moment we enter, observing everything from our meal companions to our outfits.
Eight months ago I checked into Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, changed into a hospital gown and mustard-colored socks and plummeted into the depths of general anesthesia to the sound of Paul Simon’s first solo album.
Craig Finn is the lead singer of The Hold Steady, an indie group that has been called “America’s best bar band” by Rolling Stone. Tad Kubler is the guitarist. They both cheat at beer pong. As to the cheating, Derek Kraft ’06 noted, “[Arms] just hanging over the table, things like that.
It’s not hard to see why Union Street Bakery has quickly won a place in the hearts of locals since its opening nearly three years ago. In this short period of time, Brunswick residents have walked again and again up those distinctive green steps, sometimes hungry for gooey chocolate chip cookies, other times for fresh brioche cinnamon buns, but most often, for lively chats with owner Sandy Holland.
I was walking around Boston, having a joyous time. It was nice to be in a new city where I could forget my problems for a day. I wouldn’t say I was in epic emotional turmoil, but a month earlier I was officially diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, put on some pretty hefty medication, told that my Nordic ski career was toast and that I would potentially never be able to exercise again.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a complaint about hookup culture, I would have at least enough to buy dinner for two. As I fantasize about wine and candlelight, I wonder what has become of dating.
In the Peter Buck Center for Health and Fitness, an intimate room on the third floor with purple cushions, dim lighting and statues of Buddha seems out of place. But several nights a week, students and community members come to Room 302 for meditation classes, retreating from the chaos of campus, if only for 55 minutes.
Do not be alarmed if, when passing Room 213 of the Buck Fitness Center, you hear “MEOW” or “WOOP” coming from behind a closed, pulsating door. These noises are always synchronized with the beat of a new Jennifer Lopez collab or the breakout hit of yesteryear.
After a faculty departure left a gap in the Department of Government and Legal Studies’ curriculum, Associate Professor of Government and Asian Studies Henry Laurence asked his friend Bradley Babson, a former World Bank employee to North Korea and current consultant for the World Bank and the United Nations, to join the Bowdoin faculty for a single semester.
Last Friday night, I begrudgingly left my couch, bidding farewell to the slice-and-bake cookies and small group of friends amassed at my off-campus residence, to make the trek to Reed House. Underclassmen are often surprised to learn that I lived there—after all, I don’t play Frisbee and I stopped paying my Outing Club dues after my first year.
While students took a break from studying to watch “Stranger Things” or one of the other nearly 2,500 television series on Netflix during finals last month, Bart D’Alauro ’95 was packing up “E.T.,” an inspiration for “Stranger Things” and the 38,000 other discs that composed his now-closed DVD rental store on Maine Street.
Exploring history, healthcare and humanitarianism in the legacy of the Vietnam War, 13 Bowdoin students embarked on an Alternative Winter Break (AWB) trip to a rehabilitation center for veterans and children who were affected by the U.S.-released herbicide known as Agent Orange.
Harry DiPrinzio: You currently produce a podcast each week, but you’re also a full-time organizer and activist——How do you manage the work of communicating with all these people, preparing for podcasts, getting guests to come on, educating yourself about what’s going on and educating others like celebrities and other activists?
December on Bowdoin’s campus means shorter days, colder nights and the potential onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) for some members of the Bowdoin community. “SAD is a phenomenon that arises for certain people related to diminished light which typically occurs in Maine from the end of October and continues to into Mid-February,” wrote Director of the counseling service and wellness programs Bernie Hershberger in an email to the Orient.
On May 18, 1940, Andrew Haldane ’41 received a wooden spoon from his classmates, the award given to the student voted the most popular member of the senior class. Haldane—football captain, baseball player, president of the student council and class secretary—would later find himself called into service for the U.S.
From Peer Health to Healthy Relationships, there are a number of campus organizations dedicated to student health at Bowdoin. Despite the active presence of these groups, Bowdoin students can sometimes find it difficult to access resources related to sexual and reproductive health.
On December 5, 2015, I was sexually assaulted. I stayed in to study for an exam. He had gone out. He staggered through the hall, a little queasy and smelling of liquor. I gave him a trash can and a glass of water.
I am quite fond of my life in Brunswick, but the weeks between fall break and Thanksgiving break are enough to drive anybody bananas and, coupled with the overloaded semester I had created for myself, I was ready to leave—or so I thought.
On the night before the 2015 NESCAC Volleyball tournament, Dana Williams ’18 didn’t understand why she was crying during the team huddle. Her team was happy and ready to take home a shiny trophy at the end of the tournament.
There are three fish that live in a tank in the waiting room of the Counseling Center on College Street and every week I get to spend a few minutes just staring at them. One is fat and large, it swims slowly and only turns just as it reaches the glass wall.
Throughout the semester, Bowdoin students in Education 1101, Contemporary American Education, have been exploring topics that arise in educational systems throughout the United States. Issues ranged from discrimination and privatization to charter schools and special education.
Bowdoin’s foundation is its history. For centuries the institution was mostly wealthy, mostly white and all male. These students fought on both sides of the Civil War, influenced federal policy, founded colleges—and invested innumerable resources back into their alma mater.
Soulmates. Do we believe in them? Is there truly one perfect person out there that you’re just meant to be with? What forces of fate could pull you to “the one”? And will you ever find them?
Each year, there are on average only eight students who focus their studies on the Arctic. Spearheaded by Susan Kaplan, professor of anthropology and director of the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center, the Arctic Studies program is an informal concentration in the earth and oceanographic studies, anthropology and sociology departments that began in 1985.
If a good guy with a gun exists, it would be inside a church in Texas. I have not lived a life punctuated by the immediate and personal threat of gun violence, nor of violence in general.
Relationships between the administration and student body are an integral part of a high functioning college or university. Humanizing our institutional superiors provides us a sense of companionship and support rather than discomfort and condescension as we persist in our academic, extracurricular and social endeavors.
On October 17 Professor Nathaniel Wheelwright published “the Naturalist’s Notebook,” with co-author Bernd Heinrich, an esteemed natural history writer. This Wednesday evening, Wheelwright spoke about the book at Curtis Memorial Library. He explained his inspiration to write the 200-page book, which is part nature guide, part five-year calendar journal for use by the reader.
Earlier this year, a fully loaded 15 round gun magazine was found under a chair on the third floor of David Saul Smith Union. The 9mm clip belonged to a student who is a highly trained EMT and licensed gun owner.
From a young age, we are trained to believe that traits have inherent feminine or masculine qualities. Women are emotional. Men are logical. Women are nurturers. Men are providers. Women are pursued. Men are pursuers. These rigid roles largely stem from stereotypes but still leave lasting marks on impressionable minds.
At the corner of Pleasant and Maine streets, a group of elderly Brunswick locals stand on Friday afternoons with signs condemning all acts of war—cars drive by and honk showing support for the group’s message. This passionate, albeit small, congregation represents part of a larger organization known as PeaceWorks, a national organization whose mission is to educate its members and the community about all issues important to citizens of a democracy and encourage non-violent solutions to conflict.
Recently, many of my friends and peers have posted the hashtag “MeToo” on their Facebook pages. This hashtag makes a pretty compelling statement: sexual harassment and assault are still a long, long way from being preventable on Bowdoin’s campus or any place in general.
In May of 1945, Joseph H. Johnson Jr. ’44 found himself shimmying down a rope into Adolf Hitler’s library. Once ornate with handmade bookshelves of wood and glass, the library had been moved from the second floor to underground, thereby protected by the body of the mountain when British troops bombed Hitler’s Berghof home five days before his death.
Chair of the Russian Department Alyssa Gillespie spends much of her time in the basement of Sills Hall. Thin rays of natural light peek through the bottoms of windows, illuminating her office and its many Russian knick-knacks.
From sunsets on the Quad to scenic nature adventures and students abroad, Bowdoin’s official Instagram account has become an important element of the college’s communication strategy. Aware of the more than 10,000 students, parents, prospective students and alumni following the account, the Student Digital Media Team (SDMT)—a group of eight students comprised of sophomores, juniors and seniors employed by the Digital and Social Media team—works to make this portrait as genuine and encompassing as possible.
Recognizing a lack of late night food options for students, seniors Sawyer Billings and Joe Gentile developed PolarEats, an app that creates a digital marketplace for local restaurants to make late-night deliveries accessible to anyone in the Brunswick-Topsham area.
By hosting speakers from a queer disabled writer to a black transgender reverend, Bowdoin Queer Straight Alliance (BQSA) hopes that the first annual “OUTtober” will reflect and engage with a wider range of Bowdoin’s LGBTQ community.
We interviewed three men, Mac Brower ’18, Justin Weathers ’18, and Harry Porter ’19 about their experiences navigating the hookup and dating scene here at Bowdoin. This is a continuation of a series of perspectives on Bowdoin’s hookup culture through the lens of differing gender identities.
When Arthur McArthur Jr. graduated from Bowdoin in 1850, there was no Office of Career Planning to point him to jobs at Deloitte and L.L. Bean. His first decade after college was a whirlwind comedy of errors: he sailed off to the Gold Rush in California but almost starved in Panama, he joined a filibustering expedition to conquer Central America but washed up on a coral reef in the Caribbean, and he served as a major in the Civil War but was shot dead by a sniper in an orchard outside of Richmond, VA.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the photos captioned #bowdoinabroad on Instagram don’t tell the full story. Instagram never does; there’s no way that a filtered square can capture an entire semester. And yet I spent this past spring posting photo after photo, scrolling through cleverly captioned snapshots and trying to define and tell my own story without the context of everything I knew.
We interviewed three women, Anais Leroy ’20, Sophie Sadovnikoff ’19 and Tess Trinka ’18 about their experiences navigating the hookup and dating scene here at Bowdoin. This is the beginning of a series of perspectives on Bowdoin’s hookup culture through the lens of differing gender identities.
For the handful of Bowdoin students with family on the island, Maine and Puerto Rico have never felt further apart. Since the storm, many have had to wait days to contact loved ones. When they finally do get the opportunity, they can be met with both relief and distress.
Eduardo Pazos just moved into his office in 30 College. The walls are mostly bare. The furniture has yet to be worn in. Yet, when he sits down to get interviewed, the standard accouterments lose their stiffness.
Three new female STEM professors, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sarah Harmon, Assistant Professor of Biology Patricia Jones and Assistant Professor of Mathematics Naomi Tanabe, have joined Bowdoin faculty this year and are eager to engage with the liberal arts community.
Consistency is easy to find at Bowdoin: in the chimes of the bells, the dinners served at 5 p.m. and parties every weekend. But for some children in the Brunswick area, a Bowdoin mentor’s presence each week is their only constant.
To Lisa Vinikoor, the journey from elementary school teacher to social justice worker to rabbi was a natural progression. Vinikoor, the College’s new part-time rabbi as of August, first felt the pull to her future career on September 11, 2001, during her first week as a third- and fourth-grade teacher in Boston.
Bowdoin College is hookup deficient. Well, not in quantity, but in ideology. A closed dialogue about sex and relationships on campus leaves many students unsatisfied and makes it nearly impossible for change to be enacted. Stories are swapped over brunch and largely forgotten.
Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige is determined to use his expertise in American government to better civic engagement both at and outside of Bowdoin. Rudalevige is an expert on the American presidency for “The Monkey Cage,” a blog founded in November of 2003 by John Sides.
Each summer, Bowdoin offers several fellowships in biology and the humanities that enable students to conduct research or practice various arts on Kent Island. Located off the coast of Maine in New Brunswick, Canada, the 200-acre island has been home to the Bowdoin Scientific Station (BSS), since 1935.
I am a queer person and a disabled person, and every day I am trying to figure out what that means. I decided to write this piece to reflect on those identities—what it means to navigate them and how these identities operate in the world both at Bowdoin and beyond.
As students write papers in the wee hours of the morning, snooze their alarm for an 8 a.m. class, labor over crossword puzzles at lunch, go for an afternoon run, or dance the night away in a dimly lit basement, the Bowdoin Heating Plant’s six engineers work tirelessly to keep the College running.
New Yorkers like to brag about how good our drinking water is, straight from the tap. And, okay, New Yorkers like to brag about a lot of things—but the drinking water really is excellent. When I left the city for Maine, though, I went straight to the salt water.
