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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.
“The Fuckboy, in his current form, aims for the night, aims for the break, goals to ghost. The Softboy strings you along under loftier auspices. He is Nice yet Complicated; this isn’t just a hookup. It’s a series of such,” wrote Alan Hanson in his article “Have You Encountered the Softboy?” Lillian Eckstein ’18 read this piece aloud to me a couple of months ago with the premise, “HOW HAVE YOU NOT READ THIS?” I cannot help but assume she was implicitly commenting on my softboy past.
Dear Reader, With Nick’s Bowdoin departure looming, we decided this week to review a beer just because the packaging looked pretty. As Nick’s housemate quite rightly put it: “such a sexy can; love the matte.” Indeed, old friend.
This afternoon, students will venture outside—binoculars in hand—for Bowdoin’s third annual Birdathon. The rules of the event are simple: Teams of five work to identify—either by sight or sound—as many bird species as possible over the course two hours.
Although most students on campus have long been familiar with the Ivies headliners A$AP Ferg, Vanic and Smallpools, only some students have heard the name Moonlighting Production Services, LLC. This production company has been working with Bowdoin to provide light fixtures and sound services for the yearly Ivies concerts and many other Bowdoin events for over 20 years.
I know that for many students at Bowdoin, the onset of spring’s warm weather is welcomed with open arms. For others (namely, myself), the warm weather is not so welcome. In Maine, warm weather and insect life come hand-in-hand, and there are few things I find more bothersome than insects.
As students flock to the Brunswick Quad and Farley Field House in celebration of Ivies this weekend, members of the Office of Safety and Security will follow—and among them will be officer Sonny Toscano. A New Jersey native, Toscano has been working at the College for a little over three years.
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug. It’s been a wild ride folks. We’ve reviewed a lot of wine and a lot of juice we tried to pass for wine. But after this week’s column hits the printing press, our tenure as Bottom of the Barrel columnists comes to an end.
International students face unique difficulties at Bowdoin, which enrolls the fewest non US citizens in the NESCAC, such as navigating career opportunities, advisors and campus resources that don’t fully understand their experiences and a foreign social culture.
A simple phrase justified my self-hatred. “That’s so gay.” I remember feeling numb as I stared into the eyes of my friend’s mother, shocked as she spoke the words in reference to her son’s unwarranted detention.
I have a cheap Richard Prince print on my dorm-room wall from his Untitled (Fashion) series. I downloaded the image from the internet and turned it into a poster. (I figured this would be within bounds based on Prince’s own relationship with appropriating others’ work.) I like the image because it’s simple and suggests our own complicity in consumer culture by appropriating what was originally a magazine ad.
As Ivies quickly approaches, dear Reader, a budget beer was very much in the cards for this week’s issue of Tapped Out. And in the end, the choice was obvious. Our beer is regularly available in the town of Brunswick and comes in at less than a dollar per can; yet, it is rarely (if ever) spotted at our campus parties and in our dorm rooms.
Each spring, the College offers a Faculty Scholarship of $3,000 to 100 students who have been admitted to Bowdoin through Regular Decision. The scholarship is contingent on their acceptance of Bowdoin’s admittance and can be used to fund any “enrichment activities,” such as research or internships, during the students’ Bowdoin careers.
Levi Wark starts and ends his shifts in the Stowe Inn parking lot with his two vans: the Chevy camper he drives to work and Bowdoin Shuttle BSS1 where he will spend the next 10 hours.
Taco the Town is officially back from its winter hiatus. This food truck, run by Chef Tai Choo and his crew, is a unique addition to Brunswick’s culinary scene. Choo grew up eating from San Francisco taco trucks and brought his tastebuds to Maine, serving up tacos, burritos and quesadillas for his community.
Every morning I get up at 6:30 a.m. My first class does not begin until 10 a.m., but I still get up at 6:30 a.m. After I get up, I grab my towel, my shoes and my bathroom caddy (which is a lovely shade of sparkling pink) and I head to the bathroom.
It’s amazing the amount of crap we write that hits the cutting room floor before you kind souls read our writing. We are men prone to waxing nostalgic. We are men prone to making the same six jokes, some involving hip-hop, some involving partying with wine in settings not necessarily conducive to drinking wine.
On January 31, the Orient received an email from Dr. Ilan Goldberg with an invitation. Almost two months after publishing an article concerning the politics, process and practice of medical leaves at Bowdoin, Goldberg reached out to let us know about his own program, Semester Off.
Anyone who has enjoyed an iced mocha, a London fog or a Sunrise Smoothie from The Café in the past two years probably has Molly Safford to thank. Safford has worked in The Café since Fall 2015, though she previously worked for Jack Magee’s Pub and Grill.
I have the voice recordings from every interview I have conducted as an Orient reporter. At last count, I had 105, an average of slightly more than two interviews per week. They occupy a non-negligible portion of my phone’s memory space.
Living at school with a disability is tough. As someone who survived a brain infection three years ago and had to relearn to read, speak and walk without falling, I know my fair share of what tough is.
Are you, dear Reader, also hoping for a hint of spring at this point (spring meaning the idyllic version and not a surprise blizzard)? Never fear, your beer columnists have an antidote to April snow. Brewed by Bissell Brothers Brewing Company right in Portland, LUX rye ale is—as the name might suggest—a true luxury of a beer.
At Spindleworks, a staff of seven professional “artist mentors” helps participants develop their artistic skills in a variety of media including writing, painting, drawing, pottery, sculpture, animation, filmmaking and musical theater. The center also provides artists with the opportunity to display and sell their work in local shows. Several Bowdoin students volunteer each year.
My mother has recounted to me many times an event that took place when I was only three or four years old. I was on the playground with a friend, and I had taken his hat.
Trusted music blog Wikipedia defines Tropical House, also known as “trop house,” as a subgenre of deep house. “It possesses typical house music characteristics, including synthesizer instrumentation, and a 4/4 kick drum pattern. Tropical house differentiates itself from deep house, which can often have a very dark sound, whereas tropical house can be described as having a more uplifting and relaxing sound.
It was a wintry Saturday afternoon late last semester when an older man with a festive kilt, a snowy white beard and a friendly demeanor walked into a meeting of Bowdoin’s Board Game Club. After chatting with several students, he asked if there was someone he could speak to about donating board games.
Often sporting an Aloha shirt and always a pleasant smile, Cashier Dave Luce welcomes all Thorne breakfast goers each weekday morning. Luce has a particularly special relationship with the Bowdoin students whose OneCards he swipes, likely because he once was a Bowdoin student himself.
Recently, my friends have stopped asking me if I’m going to drink this weekend. I can’t tell if I like it. On the one hand, I now no longer have to explain, “no, I still can’t drink—yeah I’m still feeling the symptoms of my concussion—yeah it has been about 10 months now.” On the other hand, the fact that they have stopped asking also suggests that they, like me, see no time in the near future when I might be fully recovered.
Every now and then someone will ask me where I am from and I’ll tell them that I’m from Baltimore. One of two reactions follow. Either my questioner will hesitantly accept the answer and walk away or they’ll try again.
21st Amendment Brewery’s Down To Earth is true to its description as a smashable beer. An IPA will never go down like a watery American lager, granted, but this brew can go the distance. It’s refreshing, it’s delicious and it’s not too complex to enjoy multiple cans. Even before you open this beer up, the art—a strangely-happy-spacesuit-clad monkey chilling in a hammock by the ocean—is worth a brief marvel. And once it’s cracked, it only gets better.
To accompany this week’s feature on class,“What Money Means,” I invited Drew Van Kuiken ’17, Jhadha King ’20 and Kate Berkley ’18 to have a candid, personal discussion about class. In my reporting, many students expressed frustration with a lack of meaningful discussion.
An in-depth look into the dynamics of class and wealth among Bowdoin's student body, especially exploring the perspectives of the wealthy majority on campus. Confronting class differences throughout a diverse student body can be uncomfortable and difficult to navigate; this article asks students to face this discomfort and talk about their experiences anew.
From Honolulu tofu to tofu stir fry to the small cubes available at the salad bars, the tofu in the dining halls is ever present. Produced by Heiwa Soy Beanery, the tofu has been a staple of Bowdoin Dining Service’s repertoire for two years.
