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Bowdoin Orient

BRUNSWICK, MAINE

BOWDOINORIENT.COM

THE NATIONS OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY PUBLISHED COLLEGE WEEKLY

VOLUME 146, NUMBER 4

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Bowdoin College

The

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

Over 50
faculty up
for leave
in 17-18

College faces difficult


task in supporting
sabbatical for record
number of professors.
BY JULIAN ANDREWS
ORIENT STAFF

Over 50 professors are eligible to go


on leave for the 2017-18 academic year.
Although not all faculty eligible for leave
will necessarily take it, Bowdoin could
face a year with significantly more visiting
faculty as many tenure and tenure-track
professors go on sabbatical. In the last five
years, the number of faculty on leave has
never exceeded 34. The jump in eligibility
for leave is partially coincidental and partially due to faculty postponing their leave
from previous years.
Faculty become eligible for leave for
a variety of reasons. Junior faculty are
granted leave after they are reappointed
and become tenure track. Newly tenured
faculty are also eligible for leave.
Additionally, a 2008 Mellon Grant,
which is now fully endowed, enabled the
College to reduce the time between regular sabbaticals for tenured professors from
every seven years to every six years. According to Associate Dean for Academic
Affairs James Higginbotham, the College
sought this grant in response to a demonstrated need to provide more opportunities for faculty to conduct research and
participate in other intellectual development.
If you do straight math, [the Mellon
grant] should only increase the number
of faculty [eligible for leave] in any given
year by a small amount, said Higginbotham. There was the combination of that

Office of the Dean of Students


28 September 1970

This is the first article in a series about the experiences of women from the
first four-year coed graduating class at the College. The series will explore
various aspects of coeducation, take a look at what some of the pioneering
women of Bowdoin have done since graduation and see whats next for
women at Bowdoin today. See page 8.

With new boiler, campus heat to turn on next week


BY STEFF CHAVEZ

Please see FACULTY, page 4

Class Council
elections see
record turnout
BY DANIEL VIELLEIU
ORIENT STAFF

Over 70 percent of both the first year


and senior classes voted in Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) Class Council
electionsa record turnout for BSG elections. The election also had an unusually
large candidate pool, saw the first tie in
BSG election history and debuted Blink,
a new website used to consolidate student
management and cast ballots.
Vice President for BSG Affairs Reed
Fernandez 17 was not sure what contributed to the large voter turnout.
I dont know if thats because its an
election year, or because BSG was kind
of like prominent last spring and maybe
some seniors wanted to get involved with
that, or first years heard about it before

Please see COUNCIL, page 4


A

ORIENT STAFF

Campus heat will turn on October 4,


Director of Facilities Operations and Maintenance Ted Stam informed students in an
email on Tuesday. Although there is no
official start date, Facilities typically turns
on the heat around October 1. Because a
boiler was replaced in the heating plant, the
heat cannot be turned on until next week.
Because [the boilers] share some common equipment that serves them, we have
to start the plant on a [certain date] this
year, Stam said. I probably would have

recommended starting it this week because its going to be a little windy.


The new boiler is one of two in the plant.
Together, they serve all campus buildings
connected to the central heating system.
The high-pressure steam system the
boilers use will take two days to become
fully operational.
Basically what you do is start the system slowly and you bring the pressure up
in the system slowly, Stam said.
The pressure takes about a day to rise
completely. Once the pressure is up, Facilities turns on each individual valve in
every building to start feeding the steam.

[We] run around and you check everythingmake sure there are no leaks,
make sure that the system is properly
drained and make sure that theres no
chance of a problem, said Stam.
The boiler installation took all summer.
The roof has to come off the building,
the old boiler has to be completely demolished and removed, the new boiler has to
be set in place, then it has to be connected
structurally, mechanically, and electrically. Then the roof has to be put back, and
then it has to be tested, said Stam.
The previous boiler was 40 years old
and no longer worked well, Stam said. The

upgrade means either boiler can heat the


entire campus if the need arises.
The boiler that was being replaced was
a little bit smaller and we couldnt really
heat the whole campus with it in January
of February if we needed to, said Stam.
Now we have 100 percent redundancy,
so if either boiler goes down, we can heat
the entire campus.
Despite the chilly weather, Stam said
Facilities has not received complaints
from students about cold rooms.
People are usually very understanding
of situations if you communicate to them
and we try to do that, said Stam.

College continues sustainability efforts with eye toward carbon-neutral 2020


BY ISABELLE HALLE
STAFF WRITER

Seven years ago, Bowdoin announced


its intention to become carbon neutral
by 2020. That ambitionwhich once
seemed like a faraway goalis on track to
come to fruition by the time current firstyear students graduate.
Keisha Payson, sustainability coordinator for the College, works with the Sustainability Implementation Committee to
ensure Bowdoin meets its goal.
Theres still room for discussion about
how we want to approach being carbon

PICTURE DAY

A portrait series in Smith Union will highlight


studentsexperiences with disabilities. Page 7.

neutral in 2020, said Payson. We


will want to get peoples feedback and
decide what is a meaningful way for
Bowdoin College to become carbon
neutral. There [are] so many different
options on renewable energy credits
that you can purchase on the open
market, and we havent made a decision yet what thats going to look like.
Purchasing carbon offsets will likely
become one aspect of the Colleges ongoing plan.
According to the Colleges 2015 Annual
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory

TOGA TALES

Amber Orosco 19 details the aftermath of


Epicuria in her Talk of the Quad. Page 10.

Update, Bowdoin committed to reducing own-source emissions by at least 28


percent over the 12 years between 2008
and 2020, with the understanding that the
College would need to purchase carbon
offsets in 2020 to achieve the ultimate goal
of carbon neutrality.
As of the end of 2015, the Colleges
own-source emissions had been reduced
by 17 percent compared to 2008, according to the 2015 Inventory Update.
The College continues to take other
steps to reduce its carbon footprint. In
the past year, LED lights were installed

BEARS ON A TEAR

The womens soccer team continues their


five-game winning streak. Page 11.

in Studzinski Recital Hall, Pickard Theater and the Bowdoin College Museum
of Art, and steam lines responsible for
heating buildings were insulated in more
than a dozen mechanical rooms across
campus. Buildings not connected to the
main steam plant transitioned to natural
gas, which is a lower carbon fuel than
heating oil. Several college properties
were weatherized.
The Roux Center for the Environment,
which is slated to open on the corner of

Please see SUSTAINABILITY, page 4

WORLD OF WEIGHTS

Savannah Horton 17 writes about the Buck


basement and defying gender norms. Page 14.

the bowdoin orient

news

SECURITY REPORT: 9/22 to 9/28


in the kitchen.
Students on the 14th floor of
Coles Tower were asked to lower the
volume of their music after complaints were received.

ALEX W

Thursday, September 22
A student tossed a Frisbee and accidentally smashed a
window at Studzinski Recital Hall.
Friday, September 23
An officer checked on the condition of an intoxicated
student at Appleton Hall.
Two fire alarm activations at Harpswell Apartment were
caused by a faulty detector.
There was a hard alcohol violation at Harpswell Apartments.
A water meter on the outside of Harpswell Apartments
was vandalized.
A student reported a suspicious man in the area of the
Dayton parking lot. The man could not be located.
Saturday, September 24
A system malfunction caused series of fire and carbon
monoxide alarms to go off at 75 Federal Street.
A student having a diabetic reaction was escorted to Mid
Coast Hospital.
Sophocles and Demosthenes, at the Museum of Art, reported that a group of five students dressed them in togas
for Epicuria. Sophocles called the act a tragedy. Demosthenes is threatening legal action.
Neighbors reported to the Brunswick police that a student party
on Weymouth Street was causing a neighborhood disturbance.
The police responded to a second neighborhood disturbance complaint on Weymouth Street. Students who resided at the building were warned for disorderly conduct.
A fire alarm at Osher Hall was triggered by burnt tortillas

ESTFALL

friday, september 30, 2016

STUDENT SPEAK:

Sunday, September 25
An officer checked on the wellbeing of a visibly intoxicated student
outside Ladd House.
An unregistered event and a
hard alcohol policy violation occurred in Quinby House.
Wall damage was reported in
the basement of Ladd House following Epicuria.
A brown Mongoose mountain
bike was reported stolen from the
bike rack at Howard Hall. The registration number is 04389. The bike
had been left unlocked.
A student burning a candle in a
room at 52 Harpswell Road caused
a fire alarm activation. Note: Candle
burning is prohibited in residence
halls.
The main door mechanism at
Reed House was damaged.

Monday, September 26
A chair and a piano bench were found damaged in the
common room at MacMillan House.
A drain pipe in the basement of Reed House was broken, apparently by someone either pulling on it or hanging from it.
A student in Coleman Hall reported a missing laptop.
It was later found, having been left in another students
room.
A student took responsibility for a hard alcohol policy
violation at Brunswick Apartments.
Tuesday, September 27
A man was reported to be acting suspiciously and peering into car windows in the parking lot behind the Asian
Studies Program Offices. An officer responded and determined that the man, who suffered from dementia,
had wandered from his vehicle while his wife was walking their dog. The man was safely returned to his vehicle
and the care of his wife.
An officer assisted a student with an ankle injury.
Wednesday, September 28
A campus-wide lockout drill was conducted from 11:00
11:15 a.m.
A vehicle in the Dayton Lot was leaking gasoline. Brunswick Fire Department responded, the leak was contained, and the vehicle was towed away for repairs.
Compiled by the Office of Safety and Security.

Q:

What is your favorite chair on


campus?

Katie Serwer 20
I really love the couch on the
first floor of West. Its unlike
anything youve ever sat in.
You just sink. You become one
with it.

Jeonguk Choi 18
The ones behind the Cafthe
brown ones. It reminds me of
the time I pulled an all-nighter
there with a friend and we took
turns sleeping on the couch.

Maddi Kuras 18
My favorite chair on campus
is wherever Sam Monkman is
so I can stand behind him lovingly...just staring into his eyes.

Michael Amano 17
The black chairs in Druck
atrium. If you wanna talk about
lumbar support, let me tell
you I dont mess around
with the blue chairs.

Patrick Blackstone 17
I have not sat in a comfortable
chair for a very long time and
have been very disappointed
with the chairs on campus.
COMPILED BY OLIVIA ATWOOD, ELIZA GRAUMLICH AND ELEANOR PAASCHE

An unofficial field guide to the chairs of Hawthorne-Longfellow


Reminiscent of a 60s advertising firm,
the brown leather chairs in the circle of
the first floor of (Hawthorne-Longfellow
Library (H-L) add sophisticated comfort
to any intellectual endeavor. These are
possibly the classiest chairs the library
offers.

This chair resides in the basement of H-L but


belongs in your grandparents condo. It was very
la mode in the 1970s, but now, the faded puzzle
upholstering and bulky cushioning provide for
an uncomfortable, why did I sit here again?
experience.

Located in the Media Commons,


these speedy rolling chairs are the
best for studying on the move.
While not ideal for long nights of
reading or writing, sitting on the
hard, bendy plastic and spinning
around will take you back to the
best IKEA visit of your life.

Art Deco design at its finest, this ensemble of patterns and


parallel lines is admired by all. This chair is undoubtedly the
pinnacle of seating on campus.

Simple, classic, timeless, utilitarian


seating for the woodshop, hipster
communal table, kindergarten and
evidently, the Bowdoin library.
COMPILED BY ELEANOR PAASCHE; ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOPHIE WASHINGTON

friday, september 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

news

NEWS IN BRIEF Without anonymity, interest in Yik Yak wanes


COMPILED BY JESSICA PIPER AND TARAN SUN

PHISHING ATTACK TARGETS EMAILS


Bowdoin email accounts encountered a phishing attempt on Thursday morning, according to an email
from Information Technology (IT)
to all students and employees. The
attack was similar to a series of consecutive phishing attempts on the
Bowdoin network earlier this month.
The phishing email was sent to
student employees disguised as a
message about payroll. It included a
link to a page that closely resembled
Bowdoin webmail and asked students to enter their username and
password. Any students who entered
their credentials likely had their accounts compromised.
IT instructed students who entered their information on the webpage to change their passwords.

Bowdoin email accounts have strong


spam filters that typically catch phishing,
but the email managed to evade the Colleges protective measures.
We do have spam filters in place
that basically will catch a lot of these
bad things but [the email] came
through from a .edu address, said
Eric Berube, associate IT security
officer. The people who are doing
this know that, so they compromise
accounts at other institutions and
then use that to get to us.
Berube stressed the importance of
students maintaining an awareness
of phishing attacks.
With phishing, a big part of it is
just making sure people are aware
when they get it, not to open it and
not to enter their credentials.

VOTER REGISTRATION CONTINUES


The Joseph McKeen Center for
the Common Good tabled in David
Saul Smith Union to assist students
with voter registration on Tuesday.
The event coincided with National
Voter Registration Day to encourage
the political participation of the student body.
We want all students to be civically engaged. Community engagement
can take a lot of different forms, but
one of them should be participating
in the electoral process, said Andrew Lardie, the McKeen Center associate director for service and leadership. [It is important to] know
what is at stake in the community,
what is at stake on the ballot and be
able to participate in [the electoral
process] by being both educated and
motivated to do it.
McKeen Center representatives
were on duty in the Union all day.
They helped with online voter registration and requesting absentee
ballots through Turbovote, a third
party service paid for by Bowdoin
Student Government.
We help them to register, decide
where to register, and we have absentee ballot registrations for a few
different states, said Liam Gunn
17, the McKeen Center election engagement fellow. The rest of what

we do involves educating people


about the election.
Historically, there was no administrative apparatus to support students civic engagement in the elections, Lardie said.
The table received a steady stream
of students seeking assistance.
I think [the event] has been really strong, said Lardie. I think
if nothing else, we wish we had the
resources to be more present, more
often and in more places.
The McKeen Center will also table at future events, such as sports
games, after the vice presidential debate on October 4 and after the final
presidential debate on October 19.
Its important for us as students
to get involved and have a say, especially in this election, and I think
that the voter registration booth was
a really good resource to help students with that, said Ellie Sapat 20.
The fact that National Voter Registration Day occurred right after the
presidential debate was perfect because the topic of the election was
fresh in everyones mind.
Lardie said the McKeen Centers
Facebook page, Bowdoin Votes, is
an additional resource that Bowdoin
students can use to further educate
themselves about the election and

TOWN CONSIDERS BUS TO PORTLAND


The Brunswick Town Council will
vote in the coming months on a proposal for a commuter bus connecting
Brunswick to Freeport, Yarmouth,
Falmouth and Portland.
The service would be run through
Portland Metro Bus. A ride to Portland would cost $3.
Senior Lecturer in Physics Karen
Topp heard about the bus proposal
due to her interest and advocacy for
public transportation.

I think students [would] be


happy to have access to Portland,
she said.
Due to federal matching grant
money, the proposal would cost
about $50,000 for the first two years,
after which costs would spike to
$150,000 annually.
If the council votes in favor of the
bus, service would likely begin in
July 2017. A date for the vote has not
yet been set.

BY CALDER MCHUGH
ORIENT STAFF

A source of amusement and controversy alike in the past three academic years, the app Yik Yak has
been neither since classes began this
fall. In August, Yik Yak announced
an overhaul, eliminating much of
the anonymity that characterized
the earlier versions of the app.
Yik Yak was originally launched
in the fall of 2013 by Tyler Droll,
Douglas Warstlerwho has since
been ousted from the company and
settled out of courtand Brooks
Buffington, all of whom attended
Furman University in South Carolina together.
At Bowdoin, the app caused stir
during the winter of this past year
and elicited a response from President Clayton Rose in a campus-wide
email on two separate occasions.
This year, the apps update has
coincided with a dramatic decline
in use on Bowdoins campus. Yik
Yak users (or Yakkers) now have
to create a personal handle to post
on the app which allows users to
chat privately with one another. The
changes also included an overhaul of
the interface design.
David Berlin 19 believes that these
changes have caused the considerable
decline in popularity amongst Bowdoin students.
I think the formatting of the updated app is much more confusing, he
said. [The username] kind of defeats
the purpose of being anonymous.
While the app provided some
harmless levity at points last year, it
gained notoriety because of the disagreements it hosted, many of which

DAZED AND CONFUSED: A screenshot on Yik Yak reflects the decline of the
apps popularity on Bowdoins campus.
devolved into ad hominem attacks.
In the aftermath of the gangster
party, Rose criticized students use
of the app.
In situations like this, there is
no place for the cesspool that is created by Yik Yak and other forms of
anonymous postings, he wrote in
his email to campus.
He addressed the campus again
in February after the tequila party, writing: Yik Yak is a place for
misinformation and for ignorant
and hurtful comments that stereotype, marginalize, and threaten.
And it is also where students are
unfairly criticized for acts they did
not commit.
Due to the apps contentious nature, some students are grateful
that Yik Yak is no longer rife with
posts. Emilie Montgomery 18,
who deleted the app after her first
year, was frustrated by the ways in
which it could become an outlet

for ignorance.
Last year, it purely became a
place where people could make sexist comments, racist comments or
just offensive jokes without having to face any backlash, and I just
dont think thats something that this
campus is really about, she said. I
think that its better to just not use it
at all than to have people say stupid
things on it.
Emma Newbery 19 agreed.
I just think it really encourages
cowardice on campus and people
are able to say a lot of stuff because
they dont have to stand behind
their opinions, she said. So I think
its a stupid application and no one
should use it.
Whether the app will make a
comeback at Bowdoin is still unknown, but for now the campus appears to have lost an outlet for divisive discourse and squirrel jokes
alike.

news

FACULTY

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1


effectwhich would take us probably
normally from the mid-30s up to the low
40s which is something that we can manage[and] faculty members that had
decided for various reasons to postpone.
That created a configuration where for the
year 2017-18 and even 2018-19 we have
some clustering.
Faculty can request postponement
of their leave or take their leave earlier if
they feel it would better align with their
academic pursuits. For instance, 45 faculty were eligible for leave for 2016-17, but
14 opted to postpone, so 31 are currently
on leave. The Office of Academic Affairs
must approve all postponement requests.
When faculty are approved for leave,
the College pays them full salary for one
semester, or half salary for a full year. Faculty can apply for other sources of funding, both internal or external.
Faculty leave does create a resource
strain, as the College has to pay the faculty
members on leave as well as their replacements. Interim Dean for Academic Affairs Jennifer Scanlon said that the Office
of the Dean of Academic Affairs may be
faced with a situation where it is unable

the bowdoin orient


to support all the faculty who wish
to take leave, although it hopes to
avoid such a scenario.
200
Faculty eligibility is one thing,
180
and ideally, all faculty who are eligible would be able to go on leave,
160
she said. But were facing record
numbers of faculty being eligible
140
for leave, so we have to figure out
120
what that means.
In addition to the strain that faculty leave puts on resources, leave 100
also places a burden on the campus
80
community that is harder to numerically define.
60
Even with the best visiting fac40
ulty members, they come in and
put their courses on the books [and]
20
students dont know who they are,
so the courses are sometimes under
enrolled, and it takes any faculty
member time to adjust to a new culture, said Higginbotham. The way
courses are taught at Bowdoin and
the way that we need to work with students
are different from almost any institution
that we compare ourselves to.
Although the number may change
due to faculty deciding to postpone their
leave, at the time of publishing, 51 faculty
members are eligible for leave next year.

COUNCIL

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1


they even got here, Fernandez said.
Voter turnout rose from about 60
percent last year, and more than half of
the 54 attendees of the 2017 and 2020
Class Council information sessions ran
for office.
Fernandez said Blink worked very well
this election.
I dont think anyone had any confusion, and there were no technical errors,
which there have been in the past, he said.
The election results were first released
Sunday night. At that time, however, there
was a tie for the second position of 2020
class representative to BSG. Nathanael
ELIZA GRAUMLICH, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT DeMoranville 20 won the election with
120 votes, and first years Beatrice Cabrera
SENIOR CITIZEN: Senior Class Council
President Esther Nunoo was elected by a margin and Leah Matari both received 106 votes.
The bylaws of the BSG Constitution do
of 20 votes. She said she hopes to bring the class
not include provisions in the event of a tie.
of 2017 together through light-hearted activities. As a result, Fernandez and BSG President

friday, september 30, 2016

Professors eligible for leave compared to tenured


and tenure-line faculty

Professors on leave
Tenured and Tenure-line Faculty

2014-2015
2015-2016
2016-2017
2011-2012
2012-2013
2013-2014
* The number of tenured and tenure-line faculty for 2017-2018 has yet to be determined.

2017-2018*

The deadline for faculty to apply for leave


is October 1.
Higginbotham said he could not reveal
the breakdown of faculty eligible for leave
by department, but several departments
have the potential to lose more faculty
than others.

There are departments that have maybe four members and three of them are
eligible for leave, he said.
Going forward, Higginbotham said he
hopes the amount of professors going on
leave will stabilize at around 40 per year.
He is expecting 44 or 45 faculty on leave

for 2018-19, but he said that number


could rise if faculty postpone due to this
years abundance of eligibility.
The best thing we can do is try to spread
things out a little bit, and the next time they
come up hopefully were not dealing with
the same type of bubble, he said.

Harriet Fisher 17 decided to hold a 24hour runoff election between Matari and
Cabrera. Cabrera was announced as the
winner on Tuesday.
Fernandez expressed interest in proposing a bylaw amendment to the BSG
Assembly this year in order to establish
a procedure in the event of a tie. He also
said BSG is open to utilizing Blinks option
of ranked choice voting in future elections, which would would decrease the
probability of another tie occurring.
The following seniors were elected: Esther Nunoo as president, Ellie Quenzer as
vice president, Samantha Hoegle as treasurer and Spencer Shagoury and Annie
Glenn as class representatives to the BSG.
The following first-years were elected:
Shani Agarwal as president, Salim Salim
as vice president, Ben Hopkins as treasurer and DeMoranville and Cabrera as class
representatives to BSG.
Nunoo said she hopes to promote inclusivity and engagement amongst the
senior class. Additionally, she hopes to

bring the class together through a variety


of light-hearted events and activities, such
as a senior game of manhunt at night.
Whats important to meand one of
the reasons that I decided to runis that
no matter what we end up doing, it will be
inclusive. So, I dont want only a certain
group showing up to certain things. I want
to make sure that everyone feels welcome
and once theyre there, they actually want
to stay and get to know people, she said.
Nunoo believes her honesty, enthusiasm and ability to bring people together
will help her in her new role.
Agarwal said she hopes to bring the
first year class together through a variety of fun and intellectual programs that

celebrate the class diversity and increase


class involvement in Council decisions.
Several of Agarwals plans include hosting
an autumn carnival, fostering round-table
discussions about identity and conducting
polls to find other programs that interest
the class.
As an international student, Agarwal
said she is excited to work with students
from diverse backgrounds.
One of the things weve been told
by [President] Clayton Rose is that
were one of the more diverse classes
Bowdoins seen in the past couple of
years, she said. Im really excited to
bring people together from all these
different backgrounds.

SUSTAINABILITY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Harpswell Road and College Street in the


fall of 2018, will be Bowdoins first building to conform to the highest Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
(LEED) standards established by the
U.S. Green Building Council, known as
LEED Platinum.
Weve got multiple LEED Silvers [and]
the renovation of 52 Harpswell was our
first LEED Gold, so shooting for LEED
Platinum is a big deal for us, said Payson.
Its going to be a standout for Bowdoin
College in terms of how little energy it
uses relative to other buildings of its type.

In addition to sustainable construction, the Office of Sustainability hopes to


reduce carbon emissions by encouraging
students to change their behavior. The
office holds an annual energy conservation dorm competition, which will last
through the month of October. An online
program allows students to monitor electricity use for each building in real time.
We look at the energy competition as
a real opportunity for us to engage people
on the topic of behavior change and how
they can use less energy, said Payson.
She recommended that students make
small changes to their daily routines,
such as turning off lights before leaving
for class.

friday, september 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Wislar 18 organizes portrait series on disability


BY MAIA COLEMAN
STAFF WRITER

Daisy Wislar 18, an outspoken


advocate for Bowdoin students with
disabilities, organized a photography
exhibit on around a portrait series of
eleven Bowdoin students. Set to open
in the Lamarche Gallery in David Saul
Smith Union on Monday October 3rd,
the exhibit is titled I Am: A Conversation about Disability at Bowdoin
and Beyond.
These portraits will be accompanied by texts written by these students
illustrating their experiences as students with disabilities on campus. The
exhibit will be opened to the Bowdoin
community with a kick-off event on
Monday evening at 7 p.m., followed
by a Q&A panel featuring six students
with disabilities.
With the sponsorship of the Bowdoin Office of Accommodations and
the Good Ideas Fund, Wislar organized the event to highlight the diverse experiences of an identity that
she believes is often overlooked in
community discussion.
I really want to create a space
where that community can authentically speak about that experience, what
its like to be disabled on this campus
and in doing so create a larger campus
conversation, Wislar said. When people talk about identity and talk about
these intersectional identity issues that
come out in a community like this, I really want ability to be included. I think
its really important that we hold space
for ability in that conversation because
it impacts so many people here whether you know it or not.

In her effort to start the dialogue,


Wislar has been vocal about sharing
her own experiences as a student with
a disability.
Having a disability affects everything and nothing all at once. On the
day-to-day its just my lived experience, its just who I am. At the same
time it impacts how I navigate this
campus, it impacts how I interact with
other people so its constantly informing everything I do.
Wislar chose to feature portraits
in her exhibit because of their powerful visual quality. Collaborating with
classmate and student photographer
Jude Marx 18, the two conducted
interviews with each featured student before Marx photographed each
portrait. Marx hopes that the individual spirit of each student will come
through in each portrait.
The whole project is about giving visibility to individuals and identities that we dont really talk about
and I think that photos are a really
special way of doing that. [They] are
a platform for the individuals to say
what they want to say and theyve all
done it differently, said Marx.
Wislar expects that seeing portraits featuring real Bowdoin students will serve as a reminder that
disability exists among us, even in
places we dont expect. She hopes
the exhibit will counter the narrow
and stereotypical portrayal of disability often portrayed in the media
and provide a more diverse and relatable image.
The exhibit will be on display
in the Lamarche Gallery in Smith
Union through October 24th.

TESSA EPSTEIN, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

WHO I AM: Daisy Wislar 18 (left) and Jude Marx 18, the organizer and photographer, respectively, of Wislars upcoming portrait
series featuring students at Bowdoin with disabilities. The exhibit will launch on Monday October 3 at 7 p.m. in the Lamarche Gallery
at David Saul Smith Union.

Kerney 02 returns to discuss novel


BY ALYCE MCFADDEN
STAFF WRITER

Kelly Kerney 02 visited Bowdoin


on Tuesday to read from her recently
published novel, Hard Red Spring.
The book addresses the complicated
and tragic history of American involvement in Guatemala through the
lens of four women.
A remarkable book by a remarkable
writer, and Im proud to say shes one
of our own, said Professor of English
Brock Clarke in his introduction of
the event.
Split into four sections, each offers
the perspective of a different female
protagonist within in a different time
period in the South American nations
twentieth century. Standing at a podium
in the Faculty Room of Massachusetts
Hall, Kerney read an excerpt of her
book and then took questions from the
assembled students and faculty.
Tuesdays campus visit marks Kerneys second event at Bowdoin; she read
from her debut novel, Born Again, following its publication in 2006.
Coming to the College as a student
from a sheltered and highly religious
childhood in Ohio, Kerney said her
Bowdoin education provided the backbone for what would become her literary career.
I came to Bowdoin really, really unprepared for college, she said in a phone interview with the Orient. Id never written
a paper before and I didnt know what half
the things in the course catalogue were.

One of the courses that piqued her


interest was a course on the modern history of Latin America. It was this class
that would not only provide the inspiration for Hard Red Spring, but also
revolutionize Kerneys worldview. After
that first year at Bowdoin, Kerney said
she knew she wanted to write about the
relationship between the United States
and Latin America.
Kerney also credits Bowdoins Department of English with teaching her the
skills necessary for a career in writing.
I truly believe that 90 percent of
writing is reading, and I learned this

as you are not only challenging the student but being challenged by her.
Published by Penguin Random
House, Hard Red Spring has received
positive reviews from a variety of sources including Publishers Weekly and
The New Yorker, which called the novel
ambitious and rewarding.
Kerney said she hopes the novel
will educate readers and encourage
them to connect emotionally with the
historically significant subject matter. Savannah Horton 17 attended
the reading and said that though she
didnt know what to expect at the out-

I truly believe that 90 percent of


writing is reading, and I learned
this here [at Bowdoin].
KELLY KERNEY 02, AUTHOR OF HARD RED SPRING
here [at Bowdoin], she said.
Writer-in-Residence Anthony Walton worked with Kerney in class and in
her honors project in creative writing.
He said Kerney improved as a writer
week by week, and was always enthusiastic about what she was learning.
That sort of student is always exciting, because as a professor you have to
keep pushing to stay ahead of the student, Walton wrote in an email to the
Orient. Its a challenge of the best kind,

set of the event, she enjoyed hearing


about Kerneys career and inspiration
for the book.
It was very exciting to hear from a
Bowdoin graduate who was so successful in writing, Horton said.
Kerneys most important advice to
Bowdoin students interested in writing
is to set aside time to write.
In the end, writing is still you and
the page, and youve got to give that
time, she said.

College hosts symposium on


intermediality in art history
BY BRENDAN PULSIFER
STAFF WRITER

Experts from around the country visited Bowdoin this Thursday and Friday to
present their research at the Art History
Departments symposium, Across the Divide: Intermediality and American Art.
The event explored the interactions between various forms of media, including
paintings, photographs and newspapers
and examined the larger social and political implications of art forms.
Dana Byrd, assistant professor of art
history at Bowdoin, was inspired to organize the symposium when the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA)
acquired a camera that belonged to the
famous painter Winslow Homer.
Scholars had not considered that
Homer, a painter, used a camera in any
way, Professor Byrd said. Using a photograph as a preparatory mode for creating
a painting is sometimes considered less
desirable in the field of art history and that
prompted me to examine the issue of the
camera and more generally, the interplay
of media in American art.
Byrd said she brought in speakers to
challenge the audience to think critically
about different art forms.
In her lecture entitled Audiovisual
Grammar, Ellen Tani, Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral curatorial fellow at the
BCMA, analyzed the ways in which sound
influenced photographer Lorna Simpson.
Similarly, Jason Hill, assistant professor of
art history at the University of Delaware,
considered multiple angles of interpreting

photographs in newspapers and magazines


by looking at captions and context.
Speakers at the symposium also focused on salient social and political issues
in art history, such as the representation
of freed slaves after the Civil War through
the artistic depictions of their clothes, as
well as depictions of lynchings of AfricanAmericans in the press.
Byrd said she structured the symposium differently than most in an effort to
keep the audience engaged throughout
the conference. After each presentation,
a discussant offered immediate feedback
and opened the floor for questions. Byrd
said the idea was to create interactive conversation where the audience not only
heard from esteemed lecturers but had the
opportunity to connect with them as well.
I took so much away from the symposium, especially from Michael Lejas presentation, said Daniel Strodel 20.
Leja, Professor of History of Art at the
University of Pennsylvania, who gave
Thursday nights keynote address, spoke
about how images both transcend and
are bound to media forms, including daguerreotypes and lithographs.
He argued that in changing the form
through which the visual is represented
whether that be from daguerreotype to
lithograph or drawing to paintingan
artist can facilitate a change in perceived meaning.
When you move an image from material to material, it will retain intrinsic values, but each material gives it a different
nuance, said Strodel. The whole experience was truly eye-opening.

a&e

friday, september 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

Visiting artist melds cinema and francophone studies


BY ALLISON WEI
ORIENT STAFF

Actor and award-winning film director Lyes Salem has come to Bowdoin to
teach as a visiting artist in francophone
studies. This semester he is teaching Creative Writing and Filmmaking, a seminar
cross-listed in the francophone studies
and cinema studies departments.
Salem has wanted to be an actor for
as long as he can remember. Born and
raised in Algeria, he moved to France to
pursue his dreams. There, he interned at
the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts for three years, spending his
time acting and performing in the theater. However when civil war struck Algeria in the 1990s, Salemjust 25 years
old at the timechose to take a break
from his acting career to write about
what was happening in Algeria.
His first two short films, Jean-Fars
and Cousines, won awards worldwide, with the latter receiving the Csar
Awardthe French film industrys
highest honorfor Best Short Film in
2005. In both works, as well as in Salems subsequent productions, Salems
relationship with Algeria plays an important role.
All my movies are linked to Algeria
or the history between France and Algeria, Salem said. For me, Im not speaking or talking about Algeria. But I try
to talk from Algeria. I try to write and
make movies with universal stories but

that are happening in Algeria.


Though he is often inspired by grim
events, not all of his work takes on a solemn tone. His first major feature film,
Masquerades, which was featured in
several film festivals throughout Europe, is a comedy about a man living
in a small Algerian village. His second
feature film, LOranais, follows two Algerian war heroes who eventually lose
their revolutionary ideals and become
businessmen.
In the spring of 2015, Salem visited
Bowdoin, Colby and Bates to speak to
students about LOranais. During his
visit to Bowdoin, he visited a Francophone studies class. Shortly after, he received an offer from the department to
teach at the College.
The teachers here have PhDs, but
I did not exactly have university studies, said Salem. I try to be here and
share my experience of what I love to
do, which means writing and making
films with the 18 students who are in
my seminar.
According to Wayland Chiu 18, a
student in the seminar, Salems perspective as a filmmaker has lent itself well to
a culture of learning and teamwork in
the classroom.
I think his perspective is very
unique, said Chiu. The very first day,
he told us to think of it as less of a class
and more as a group project and a group
journey of learning. His philosophy is
see one, do one, teach one. To me, that

emphasizes that he really cares about


the learning process and cares about
what we get out of his class.
Creative Writing and Filmmaking
which is taught entirely in French
explores storyboarding, scriptwriting
and filmmaking, as well as French and
Francophone cinematographic genres.
Students work together to create a short
film at the end of the semester.
The final project is where we get to
take our cumulative knowledge and really apply it in a real context and show
off what weve learned, said Chiu. And
I hope in general that I learn to develop
a story better than I did before.
I hope what they get out of this class
is an experiencemaking something
they never did, Salem said. Maybe
they never will do it again, but with this
experience, maybe they surprise themselves. Or, in the best case, maybe some
of them will decide to spend their lives
writing and making films.
While his students have been hard at
work trying to learn from him, Salem
said that his new role as a teacher has
also helped him with his own work.
I used to think and write alone in my
desk or office, but now, I have to think
of how to stimulate others to write,
said Salem. For me, its very interesting
because it puts me in a situation where
I never did what Im doing now. Im
thinking of how I can stimulate others,
and when I find a solution, that solution
helps me too when I write.

SAVANNAH SIMMONS-GROVER, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Visiting artist and critically-acclaimed filmmaker Lyes


Salem brings his real-world experience to the classroom in his course Creative Writing and Filmmaking.

Local author sheds light on sexual assault


BY RACHAEL ALLEN
ORIENT STAFF

Young adult novelist Maria Padian is


not afraid to tackle tough issues, from
Somali immigrants in Lewiston to eating
disorders in ballet dancers. In her fourth
and most recent novel, Wrecked, to be
debuted Monday at the Curtis Memorial Library, Padian, a Brunswick resident,
takes on sexual assault on a small colHANNAH RAFKIN, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT
lege campus. Unlike a number of young
A COMMON THREAD: Jacob Russell 17 (left) and Aisha Rickford 20 (right) enjoy the new exhibit adult books focused on the perspective
of the victim, Wrecked alternates bein Smith Unions Blue Gallery, curated by Bowdoin Art Society co-president Julian Ehrlich 17.
tween two points of view, grappling not
only with consent but also the way we
determine truth.
I realized that everybody came to
that issue with their own set of expectations, with whatever baggage and
predispositions we bring to that kind of
construct this zone served to both define situation. How do we determine truth
BY JULIA ROHDE
its
boundaries
and
to
hint
at
the
common
from the other side of the closed door
STAFF WRITER
themes found among her poetry. Tolchin- when were not there? Padian said. I
Inspired by the idea of threads and the sky intentionally left these themes unsaid, wanted [this story] to come from difconnections between literature, people, however, leaving it up to the reader to dis- ferent points of view, so the point of
poetry and life, Raisa Tolchinsky 17 cre- cover what the common threads allude to. view wasnt just a narrative device, but
ated a new exhibit that is currently on
Theres not one common thread, but it was a theme.
display in the Blue Gallery of the David each color means something to me. I purA fast-paced read, Wrecked flips
Saul Smith Union. Curated by Julian Eh- posefully didnt put [a key] in the exhibit between the perspectives of Haley and
rlich 17, co-president of the Bowdoin Art because I wanted people to go in with their Richard, the respective friends of the
Society and the student curator for the own ideas, without a predetermined thread accused and accuser, as they become
Lamarche and Blue Galleries in Smith that theyre looking for, said Tolchinsky. involved in the investigation and roUnion, the display showcases a collecFor Tolchinsky, this new venture has mantically involved with each other.
tion of 25 poems connected by a web of been a learning experience and a release. Between each chapter, the omniscient
strings. This is the first of many senior When planning for the exhibit, she first retelling of the night of the alleged
spotlight exhibits Ehrlich has planned for had to determine which of her poems rape draws the reader into a quest for
the year.
contain recognizable connections and truth in the context of an upheaval
I chose Raisa as the first artist I would links to each other in the context of per- of stereotypes.
feature in Smith Union because I know son, place and feeling. In recognizing and
I very intentionally did not choose
her to be a prolific and creative writer, naming the emotions that frequently ap- the accused to be a fraternity member
said Ehrlich.
pear in her own writing, Tolchinsky said [or] a member of a sports team, Padian
In this space, Tolchinsky decided to she experienced an emotional release.
said. The accuser is somebody who
create a poetry zone, made tangible by the
Poetry is a way to make sense of what is new to college and who is trying
strings that define its boundaries.
is painful, what is difficult, a life being a to make friends. The guy she accuses
I was looking to find a new way to life, Tolchinsky said. Those things will doesnt fit a lot of the stereotypes that
present poetry in a public sphere call- keep coming up. The nature of them we see in the news. I wanted to avoid
ing attention to where poetry can be changes, but I will always have things that all those stereotypes and instead create
found in everyday life, even in the mun- Im trying to understand.
a story that could be anybodys story.
dane, said Tolchinsky.
The exhibit will be on display through
With down-to-earth characters and
The threads that allowed Tolchinsky to October 14.
a relatable setting, Wrecked hits close

Hanging by a thread: Tolchinsky


17 debuts poetry exhibit in Union

to home for many high school and college students. While the situation and
characters are entirely fictional, the
culture of Bowdoin and peer schools
persists in the story.
I went to a
small New England
school, I live here [in
Brunswick], my kids
went to small New
England
schools,
so I think the setting and the culture
in the book is very
much
influenced
by this type of setting, Padian said.
People will recognize a small, New
England NESCAC school in this book.
The book forces the reader to confront not only the difficulty of determining truth, but also the blurry
lines of political correctness. From
Patagucci obsessions to apple picking, one can imagine these students
at Bowdoin. The Board, the books
equivalent of Yik Yak, heightens its relatability, wreaking havoc and further
confusing truth and trust.
I spoke to everyone from Title IX
coordinators to victims, Padian said.
I read a lot of victim accounts ... I
spoke to lawyers who represent young
men who have been accused at colleges
[of sexual assault]. The hardest part for
me was writing the scenes where the
kids were actually being interviewed
by the investigator ... Thats all sealed
and privateno one would ever tell me
what that was like.
Even with this research, Padian
knew that a subject like sexual assault
was a minefield.
I lived in fear that some of the early
reviewers would decide that this book
was not striking the right pose, Padian
said. I worried somebody would say
shes a victim blamer. Or somebody
else would say, My God, shes been so
unfair to the accused.
Padian has been meet with positive
reviews, however. Critics have been

praising her new perspective on this


timely subject, as well as the realism of
the characters in their struggle to make
good choices.
These realistic characters, Padian be-

My highest aspiration for


the book is that it sparks
conversation.
MARIA PADIAN, LOCAL AUTHOR
lieves, are products of fictions unique
ability to create empathy.
I dont ever start with plots, I start
with character ... But how do you really create a character? Padian said.
You have to get into the skin of this
person that you may not really have
anything in common with. The process
of writing a character involves radical
empathy.
This empathy, according to Padian,
allows for more open conversation. She
says books allow people to say things
they might not if they were discussing
real people and real events.
Fiction frees us up to maybe speak
more honestly, she said.
Padian hopes the book will initiate
honesty surrounding the conversation
on sexual assault on college campuses.
My highest aspiration for the book
is that it sparks conversation, Padian
said. Really difficult, really uncomfortable, really awkward conversations.
If theres going to be any real change, it
not going to come from the top-down
... its going to come from you folks, living in this world, having these conversations yourselves and deciding what
you want to do and how to talk with
each other about these issues.
Padian will read from Wrecked at
the Curtis Memorial Library on Monday, October 3 at 7 p.m. The event,
open to the public, will include a book
sale, door prizes and food.

friday, september 30, 2016

FEATURES

the bowdoin orient 7

Finding fairies at the Cliff Trail


PENELOPE LUSK

EXPLORING MAINE

SAM BRILL-WEILL, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

MULTIDIMENSIONAL: Dave Ruuska 17 built a phone case using one of Bowdoins 3D printers. The printers, used to produce lab equipment and
other materials, save the College money and provide opportunities for innovation.

3D printers facilitate lower-cost learning


BY LOUISA MOORE
ORIENT STAFF

On the third floor of Druckenmiller


Hall, 3D-printing innovations are taking
place. There, in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Soren Eustis, students
and faculty are constructing everything
from scientific equipment to cartoon figurines from pieces of plastic.
Eustis work began in 2012 when he
bought a used 3D printer for his lab. A
self-proclaimed tinkerer, Eustis wanted to
explore the endless possibilities of what he
could print. However, he soon found that
the used printer was not adequate.
It turned out that that one was really
good for making sort of useless stuff, said
Eustis. My students loved it, but it really
wasnt reliable enough or precise enough
to do anything useful with.
Shortly after, Eustis received funding
from Bowdoin to buy a new 3D printer.
He has since moved on from printing figurines to printing objects that have significant use in the lab, like vial racks and parts
of a quartz crystal microbalance.
Many object designs are available for
free online. Once someone uses the print-

er this design information, it proceeds to


heat plastic filament and extrude it layer
by layer until the object is complete.
By making these objects himself, Eustis
saves a lot of money. A new quartz crystal microbalance, for example, can cost
around $10,000a steep price for a single
piece of equipment. To cut costs, Eustis
has been experimenting with building
the microbalance himself, which allows
him to build prototype designs for several
hundred dollars. He prints some pieces
and orders the others, like the crystal, that
cannot be printed.
You take away a lot of the cost that isnt
very specialized and then you just spend
your money on the important components that cant be printed, said Eustis.
He can also test his own designsrather than using open source plans from the
Internetwith less restriction.
It allows me to try things that I
wouldnt be able to try before, said Eustis.
The hope is that we get good enough at
designing things from scratch within the
lab so that, if we have a concept, we can
completely design it ourselves.
Eustis finds his work applicable to his
classes as well. For his introductory chem-

istry class, Eustis has printed 3D periodic


tables. Both the construction process and
Eustis teaching approaches have fascinated students.
I think its far better at teaching [students] about scientific apparatuses and
what theyre actually doing if were designing them ourselves, said Eustis. We always lament how instruments these days
are so black box. It really is good for students to have some working knowledge of
whats going on inside.
Students in his lab, like Dave Ruuska
17, have also used the printer for their
own pursuits. Ruuska was able to print a
phone case for himself using open source
designs from the Internet.
Although Eustis and Ruuska have been
successful in the lab, the process of 3D
printingfrom the design software to the
printed objects themselvesis still very
much in development.
Its an emerging technology, said Ruuska. People are still finding new uses for
it.
For those interested, there are several
other 3D printers on campus. Though
some may be open in the future, none are
currently available for general use.

This week Im writing from my bed


(shout out to everyone whos suffering
from the change-of-season plague), where
Ive been embroidering a dishcloth and
blowing my nose and trying to keep the
two activities separate. Sickness can bring
a period of welcome relaxationa brief
lapse in responsibilitybut it can also be
a cage.
We speak frequently, here, about the
Bowdoin bubble and the forces that draw
us inward and keep our attention focused
on the little everyday Bowdoin issues. That
bubble is usually seen negativelyan invisible wall that keeps students from having to engage with what lies on the other
side. Like from a sickroom, Bowdoin students can express a desire for escape.
So, we leave campus, sometimes fleeing
to Little Dog and sometimes farther. Get
in a car and drive down Harpswell Road.
Turn left at Schoolhouse Caf. Press your
nose against the window as you cross over
a glinting field of mudflats ringed by faraway pines. Park behind the unromantic
Harpswell Town offices and follow the
obliging signage to the Cliff Trail. Enter a
new world.
Light falls on the loamy pine needles
like paint off the tip of a Pollock brush.
The forest is rare congruity, all greens
and soft browns and the effervescent gold
of September sun. The Cliff Trail, one of
Harpswells most popular destinations,
wanders for two and a half miles through
the woods, peaking at a lookout over a

SOPHIE WASHINGTON

150-foot cliff that drops down to the


tidal ripples of Long Reach. There are few
sounds but the occasional footstep and
the determined rustling of aspens, and
few smells but the richness of earth and
the sweetness of pine.
Where that rich earth forms welcoming hollows and meets with sturdy tree
roots, you can find the fairy houses. Constructed by obliging humans of all ages (if
we dont build the fairies homes, where
will they live?) from twigs and curling
birch bark and detached mosses, the fairy
house zones are nurtured by the town under the endowment of a mysterious benefactress named Lindsey Perkins.
Last Sunday, couched in pillows of
newly fallen leaves, I helped build a little
fairy house, complete with two Adirondack-style chairs in the front, so the fairies could enjoy the patches filtering over
their garden. For a few hours, readings
and dinner plans and even the terror of
Trump were eclipsed by a literal vacation
to fairyland.
A change in scenery can shift everything: a day from mediocre to marvelous,
a mindset from the past to the future, a relationship from unsure to cemented. And
those changes in scenery can be additive.
One Bowdoin world can be so much bigger than campus, and at the end of four
years its likely that no two will look the
same. Every mental map exists in endless
Venn diagrams of shared nights in Hatch
and solo bike rides to Simpsons Point.
In that context, the Bowdoin bubble becomes ever-expanding.
My personal Bowdoin world, infected
by strep, is an unwelcome destination
right about now, although my roommate did ask if she could see the white
spot in my throat. So Im staying
home, staying in place, taking
some time to heal and do
old-fashioned needlework. But Im happy to
know that the elasticity
of my place-based experience has stretched
to include a tiny house
with a birch bark chimney which may not survive the winter, but which
made my week invincible.

Tapped out: strong Baltika No. 9 for strong apple-picking people


BY JAEYEON YOO
COLUMNIST

You more or less made it through


the first month of college (and Epicuria)! Also its autumnso hooray!

Leaves! Instagrammable landscapes!


Midterms! My prediction for the rest
of the semester: itll be Fall Break
soon, with some midterms, then midterms until finals, midterms during
finals and then some finals. To celebrate, why not try a festive Baltika
No. 9?
Reasons why Baltika No. 9 pairs
well with apple picking season:
The Baltika No. 9 can is beautifully autumnalred, with gold rimming. The beer itself matches the can;
poured into a mug, its a nice color
inoffensively golden with not too
much foam.
With its extremely malty flavor and
smell, Baltika No. 9 goes well with sweet
or tart foods like apples. I wouldnt
recommend drinking it with anything
savory, but it would
go superbly with
apple
cider
or donuts.
Its
also
slightly smoky
and nutty, but
be warnedthe
aftertaste is meSOPHIE WASHINGTON

tallically malty, so pairing it with food


is a good idea.
Its efficient; this strong lager has
an alcohol percentage of at least 8%.
The can advertises itself as genuine
strong beer. Okay Baltika, thanks for
your genuineness.
I really could not taste the high
alcohol percentage and it was very
drinkable, albeit bubbly. This is not
a beer to shotgun, but one to drink
leisurely while you pick apples or eat
pumpkin-spiced foods.
Its a new beer that Im willing to bet
youve never tried before. Go ahead
and push your beer boundaries.
That said, I thought Baltica No. 9
was a little too carbonated and sweet.
The initial smell and first sip were
nice, but a stronger taste of hops
would have balanced it out better. My
least favorite aspect of this beer was
its strong metallic aftertasteperhaps
itd be better out of a can, but I wasnt
a fan. However, its good for a cheap
beer (especially after the first one),
and I would drink Baltika No. 9 over
a regular Budweiserat least it has a
distinctive character to it.

You could probably find Baltika No.


9 at Bootleggers or another liquor store
because Baltika is the biggest Russian
beer exporterbut its unfortunately
not available at Hannaford. It costs
anywhere from $1.00-2.30 per bottle
in the U.S.
There are also a lot of different types
of Baltika beer if youre looking for
something lighter than No. 9. To give
you some idea of how big this beer industry is, the Baltika brewery in St. Petersburg is as big as the Vatican, Baltika
started out in Russia as one of the most
popular beers in the U.S.S.R. but is now
a part of the brewery company Carlsberg Group, a German-style business
with headquarters in Denmark. Now
Baltica beer is sold around the world.
Next time, Id like to try out the intriguing idea of beer cocktails (as advertised by my constant Spoon University emails), but if you have any other ideas,
please email me at jyoo2@bowdoin.edu.
The 2 is of utmost importance, because
my younger sister is jyoo@bowdoin.edu,
and she doesnt like beer (also, shes not
21). Come on Bowdoin, why am I number 2 when I was here before her?

ADDITIONAL
NOTES:
Tonights Soundtrack: Fiona Apple,
because I wanted some angst to balance out the sweetness of the beer. And
also: Apple, get it?
Tonights Toast: Za osen To
autumn, in Russian.
Side note: Na zdorovye is actually not
the Russian toast, which is a common
misconception. Literally translated, it
means, On your health, and while it
is a popular toast in Eastern Europe, its
not a thing in Russia. However, Russians
are rightly famous for their lengthy,
varied and altogether spectacular toasts.
Appearance:
Smell:
Flavor:
Mouthfeel:

Overall:

8
features

the bowdoin orient

friday, september 30, 2016

friday, september 30, 2016

AND WELL SEND OUR DAUGHTERS TO BOWDOIN IN THE FALL:

ORIENT STAFF

the bowdoin orient

By Emily Weyrauch

Satisfaction with coeducation also fell along fraternity lines. According to the poll, two-thirds of independent men (that is, not a
member of a fraternity), favored full coeducation, while only around
42 percent of fraternity men did.
One male respondent wrote: Theyre dumb, but they are good
tools. The girls have preserved my sanity, bless their dumb little hearts.
I dont really feel that this place is co-ed; it is still a mens college
with some women around, wrote an anonymous first-year man in the
1972 Orient poll.
The history of women at Bowdoin is only a small piece of the timeline of Bowdoin, which was chartered in 1794.
We have a long pasthundreds of yearsand women have been
present only for [45] years, said Scanlon. You wouldnt expect a lot
of the people we talk about to be women, because its recent. But even
so, I think that we dont say enough about our alums who are female. I
think most people probably couldnt name any.
In upcoming issues of the Orient, this series will examine how the
women of the Class of 75 navigated fraternities and social life, health
services, athletics, safety and the classroom.

CELESTE JOHNSON

Con is a pathologist and went to medical school, specializing in the study aof childhood cancer. She has held
faculty appointments at a variety of institutions, most currently as professor emerita at Vanderbilt University.
She lives in Surry, Maine and does volunteer work teaching, writing and mentoring younger academics.

CHERYL COFFIN

features

To meet seven other


women from 75
and read anecdotes
about their time at
Bowdoin, visit
bowdoinorient.com

JOYCE WARD

Johnson ran her own technology plastics recycling factory after working in finance. She also became a licensed
wildlife rehabilitator and completed her MBA at the University of Connecticut, then became a professor. Johnson
showcased dogs as American Kennel Club Champions and just acquired 80 acres of land in Conn..

MARY ANNE SHUBE

Julia ORourke 18 and Katie Miklus 16 contributed to this report.

Ward lives in Harvard, Mass. with her husband of more than 30 years. They have a daughter and a
son, both in their 20s. She has worked in the fields of library science, information retrieval, search
and machine learning since earning an MLS at Columbia University in the late 70s.

PATSY THALHEIMER

Shube has worked in many fields including marketing, real estate development, consulting and writing.
She is married to fellow Bowdoin alum Rick Shube 75 and currently mentors refugee families and works
with Habitat and Humanity. The Shubes have two sons and split their time between Colo. and Maine.

were there as part of the Twelve College Exchange program, or were


transfer students. In fact, months before the first four-year female students arrived on campus, the first woman, Sue Jacobson 71, graduated
from Bowdoin after transferring from Connecticut College.
As Bowdoin began matriculating women, it formed the Ad Hoc
Committee on Coeducation, as well as many committees and subcommittees for three phases of coeducation.
I dont know that they were prepared for girls, so that made it a
little challenging, said Tawana Cook Purnell, who matriculated with
the class of 75 and transferred to Spelman College after her sophomore year at Bowdoin, in a phone interview with the Orient. And
they looked at us as though we were sort of seductive aliens.
A February 1972 Orient poll prompted students to indicate if
they preferred for Bowdoin to be an exclusively mens college, be
a mens college accepting women as transfers, continue with the
present schedule for coeducation or progress to fully educational
(50 percent women).
The poll revealed dissatisfaction with coeducation: The largest
body of student opinion wants faster progress toward full coeducation; the next largest group wants no coeducation at all, wrote Richard
Patard 74 in an Orient article published on February 4, 1972.

TAWANA PURNELL

Thalheimer holds a MA in Spanish from Middlebury College. After working in insurance, she raised her three
children and welcomed five additional children into her family with her husband as licensed foster parents.
She currently works as a broker in Ill. and enjoys triathlons, mission trips and being a grandparent.

financial plight of the College. President Roger Howell stressed that


it was economically imperative that Bowdoin grow its student body
to at least 1200 students.
Coeducation was viewed not as an end in itself, but rather as
a means of achieving economic stability, wrote Michael Cary 71
in the Orient.
The Pierce Report heavily cites the March 1969 Princeton Report The
Education of Undergraduate Women at Princeton, and this document
along with other records in the office correspondence of Howell show
that the administration was keeping a careful watch on the progress of
similar schools. By the time the report was published, it had been no
more than a year since Yale and Princeton released plans to go coed and
several other mens schoolsHamilton and Williams in particular
had announced a coordinate college program with a womens school.
It was in the air, said Interim Dean for Academic Affairs Jen Scanlon, whose 2011 gender and womens studies class created a website
to commemorate 40 years of coeducation. It was in the air in the late
1960s and early 1970s that womens worlds were exploding. And the
academy was one of those places, so there were many, many schools
that started to go coed at around the same time.
Bowdoin educated female students in years prior to 1971, but they

After transferring from Bowdoin after her sophomore year, Purnell earned her BA in philosophy from
Spelman College and her MA in private school leadership from Columbia University. She raised three
children and is currently the head of school at the Bishop Walker School for Boys in Washington, D.C.

There were so few of us [women] that it was almost like we didnt


have time to make friends with each other, said Celeste Johnson 75 in
a phone interview with the Orient. We had to go out and be ambassadors on behalf of all the other women.
The notice on the bulletin boards came after the 1969 Report of the
Study Committee on Underclass Campus Environment, also known as
the Pierce Report. The Pierce Report cited a 1968 survey that showed
81 percent students in favor of some coeducation, and outlined the
main arguments for (and one against) coeducation.
The reports reasons for supporting coeducation mostly focused on
the benefits for male students at the College. The benefits of coeducation included an increase in diversity of thought, an increase in student involvement in the humanities and in extracurricular activities
and an improvement in mens social abilitieshaving a civilizing effect on fraternities and helping them not view women as sex objects.
This report cited a desire to increase the size of the College from
900 men to 1200 or 1500 students so that it could compete with other
liberal arts schools and offer a wider variety of courses.
According to an October 2, 1970 Orient article about the Board of
Overseers approval of coeducation, the discussion about coeducation
happened at the same time as a more urgent conversation about the

THE WOMEN OF 75

On September 28, 1970, a notice from the Dean of Students was


posted on bulletin boards around campus. It announced a resolution
that the Governing BoardsBoards of Trustees and Overseersof
Bowdoin College approved just three days earlier:
[...] that Bowdoin College undertake a program for the admission
of circa 300 women to courses of study leading to the baccalaureate
degree [over a period of four years], substantially as set forth in a report of September 1970 prepared by President Howell.
This was kind of a closed world and I could now go in and see what
a New England mens school was like, said Joyce Ward 75, who was
one of the nine female applicants accepted early decision for the first
four-year coeducational class at Bowdoin, in a phone interview with
the Orient. It was like having a door open to see something that a
woman my age would never have been ever able to see before.
In that fall of 1971, 65 women would enter into Bowdoin as first years;
14 of them were legacies, all but two of them were from the Northeast, 26
of them had gone to private school and nine were women of color.
They would join 254 first-year men, making about a one to four ratio
of women to men in their class, and about a one to 10 ratio for the College as a whole. The ratio of women to men would increase gradually
over the next 20 years.

WHEN COLLEGES WENT COED


This timeline represents the years that college boards announced that they were going
coed. All were mens colleges that began admitting women except for Vassar and
Connecticut,which were womens colleges that started admitting men.

1883
Middlebury

1963
Colgate

1966
Wesleyan

1967
Colby

1968
Yale, Lafayette

1969

Vassar, Connecticut, Williams, Princeton, Franklin & Marshall, Trinity

1970
Bowdoin, Lehigh

1971
Dartmouth, Holy Cross

1972
Kenyon

1974

Amherst

1977

Hamilton

10

features

the bowdoin orient

friday, september 30, 2016

TALK OF THE QUAD


AS AN EAGLE TOWARDS
THE SKY
Ive heard that birds are disappearing. I dont understand all the implications of mass extinction, but Im
sure that it does not augur well for
us. Maybe its encouraging that birds
have recently found refuge in the
Orient. In response to three articles
published two weeks ago, I wanted to
share something I noticed.
I recently saw a Chukar partridge
in Brunswick. I was walking by 52
Harpswell when I spotted two older
men across the street, frozen with

LIFE IN LADD:
POST EPICURIA
When the topic of Epicuria, the
Mens Rugby teams annual fall party,
came up, all of us who live in Ladd
House had major concerns. What
might go wrong when hundreds of
alcohol-bearing and toga-wearing
students came through the doors of
our home? Most of us had only experienced the night once, and some
never at all. We had no idea what to
expect and what was expected of us.
To our relief, the Mens Rugby team
took care of practically everything before the party, but we were still anxious about what would become of our
house. I was most protective of the
second floor bathrooms. Given that
there would only be one bathroom
for the hundreds of guests on the first
floor, it was assumed that some would
inevitably use the bathroom upstairs.
All we had to go on were stories of
past Epicurias, where all sorts of
goodies were found in the bathrooms
and showers the morning after.

eyes fixed on something in the lawn


next to me. They were pointing and
talking excitedly to each other. I will
not give a detailed description of
the Chukarthe article 2 weeks ago
did that well enoughbut will say
that its beautiful. It certainly stands
out in a suburban landscape. For its
size, it was extremely disruptive that
afternoon: the two men all but ran
into the road to get a closer look,
stopping traffic, while I scrambled
to take a picture of it. This encounter roughened an otherwise smooth

walk home that had been completely


sanded down by routine. It reminded
me that there is more to the landscape than my usual walks reveal:
there are worlds besides our own
that we manage to distance ourselves
from but cannot quite escape. Usually, however, it takes something as
outwardly extraordinary as a Chukar
to wake me to this fact.
A walk across campus is usually
rusheda way from A to B. The
Bowdoin landscape is pretty but is
rarely more than a background for
our determined livesand a predictable, safe background at that. An erratic squirrel is the most disruptive
thing most of us encounter regularly and even that is hardly enough
to free us from our busy heads. We
rarely observe what we see.
This summer, I worked with a
number of avid birders in a community where loafing is virtue. They walked slowly and
paused frequently, keen on
small details and nuances I
could not perceive. They saw
things I didnt and loved the
wildlife refuge in a way I could
not. As Liam Taylors Talk of
the Quad explained, going birding gives us the
chance to observe and
connect with beings
radically different
from us. Done well,
it can be a hobby
of humility: past
plumage and species lies an exSOPHIE WASHINGTON
perience alien
SOPHIE WASHINGTON
but not entirely
inaccessible
to us. The

Before we knew it there were togas, tacos and tons of Bowdoin students coming through our doors
some expecting a night that would
define their first semester. Upon assessing the aftermath, it was found
that we had done a decent job. There
were, however, some interesting
finds. There were stray togas everywhere, one of them in an Elsa print
(nice) and another hanging from the
chandelier (impressive). We awoke
to a broken thermostat in the basement and a dislodged railing in the
first floor bathroom. There were tacos in just about every corner of the
house, which provided us with the
prolonged scent of tacos mixed with
the usual fragrance of beer and BO.
There was also pee everywhere: puddles in the elevator, a cup filled in the
basement and mysterious stains in
the hallways.
Additionally, we heard an interesting tale of a couple consummating their love for togas through performative sex in the coat closet. We
found more evidence of friendly activity in the Mahogany Room: a lovely used latex product in the middle of
the floor boards accompanied by its
blue wrapper (shout out to the

rugby player who had to clean that


up). Another shout out to the owner
of the taco truck who not only aided
everyones stomachs with tacos
but also helped a distressed
student who appeared to be
napping on a tree just outside
the doors of Ladd around 2
a.m. (real hero right there).
The real show started when
I found myself awake at 6
a.m. and watched some lost
students make the trek back to
their residences after interesting
night-time activitiestoga on
or in hand.
Although minor accidents
were inevitable, we did everything we could think of to prepare for the night. We knew we
had to be proactive about was ensuring the safety of the students attending Epicuria. Ladd house member Tessa Epstein 19 took the lead
in planning a consent-awareness
poster series the week before the big
night. In the enddespite the wall
damage and the various concerning smellsthings could have gone
much worse. Its amazing that this is
the second large-scale campus event
in a row (the other one being Ivies),

distance implied by the difference


need not be insurmountable.
In the solitary setting of a beach or
forest, it may be natural to step into a
more active, inquisitive mindset. But to
assume the posture of a birder in our
crowded human habitats is a spiritual
challenge. Its one thing to realize we
share a planet with people and things
with inner lives as rich and vibrant as
our ownin theory or in momentary
glimpses in the woodsbut its another, much thornier thing to adjust
ourselves according to this knowledge.
To wake up and find our mundane
surroundings solid and pulsing with
meaning. This opening of ears and eyes
seems to ask for a lot of heart.
But we dont have to talk abstractly
about what has practical implications
and examples close to home. You dont
need to dwell on last years frustrating
campus dialogue about race to begin to
suspect that we arent good listeners:
I think about any time I let prodding
personal stress keep me from following
a class discussion, having a conversation with an author or understanding a
friend; or how fear of awkwardness and
discomforttruly self-centered concernsshackle all modes of discourse.
There is clearly a difference between
ideas you listen to and noises you hear,
just as there is between seeing a living
thing and feeling yourself in its eyes.
Good listening is like questioning: a
pursuit of truth, valuable whether or
not you get an answer. It should move
us. In a community of bad listeners,
my peers become a collection of background noises and decorations.
Last February, Marc Lamont Hill
gave a talked titled Fighting for Freedom in an Hour of Chaos to a small
Kresge audience. He talked about glob-

where there were no


transports. As house
members and the proclaimed social leaders
of the campus, we should
continue the trend of happy and healthy fun at Bowdoin.
Long live Epicuria.
Amber Orosco is a member of the
Class of 2019.

al politics, Black Lives Matter and our


campus, which was struggling to make
sense of itself at the time. I gather that
we all want to feel safe and somewhat
ordered. We want to know whats happening and especially where we are going. Most of us plan courses of life on
a clean piece of paper, letting our lives
fall into place around a few formal activities. We even pencil-in Ivies: binge
drinking and hookup culture are not
distractions from but rather natural
extensions of resume culture. Waxing effusive at meals about the weeks
work or the weekends social chores,
its easy to ignore the soft uneasiness in
each others voices or sadness behind
the customary cheer. Our lives are rigidly structured and our community
unstable. Last year had many people
questioning whether or not Bowdoin
even is a community. At least last year
people were questioning.
Its possible that the way we order
our personal lives has made the community ill; and its possible that below
the C.V. and the hard athletic bodies,
we are not so healthy and secure.
Hill prescribed radical listening to
our ailing nation and our wavering
campus: only by seeking knowledge
through others perspectives and vigorously questioning our own could
we become a community. This, he
implied, is the sort of knowledge that
diversity and a liberal arts education
offer, but hardly guarantee. It cannot
be honestly pursued on the way to
something else.
Now my point has barely fledged,
but Ive said more than enough: a refuge is a good thing, but its far from a
home. Birds belong in conversation.
Ben Bristol is a member of the Class
of 2017.

ALEX WESTFALL

friday, september 30, 2016

SPORTS

the bowdoin orient

11

Middlebury ends field hockeys bid for perfect season


BY ANJULEE BHALLA
ORIENT STAFF

Last Saturday, Middlebury dealt


the field hockey team its first loss this
season in a brutal 3-2 defeat. The loss
knocked Bowdoin to the No. 2 spot
nationally, falling behind Messiah
College but staying ahead of Middlebury at No. 3.
The Polar Bears controlled most
of the game, leading the Panthers in
shots on goal 13-7 as well as penalty
corners 7-4. However, an inability to
take advantage of scoring opportunities as well as some defensive mistakes helped Middlebury take a lead
that Bowdoin could not overcome.
We didnt convert on our chances
and had a couple of defensive breakdowns that [Middlebury] took advantage of, said Head Coach Nicky
Pearson. Thats what happens when
you play a good team. If you dont
take your opportunities and then
have some defensive breakdowns,
theyre going to make you pay for
that, and they did.
This isnt the first time Middlebury
has ruined the Polar Bears attempt at
a perfect season; the Panthers beat
Bowdoin in the NCAA Championship Final in 2011 and 2015, putting
an end to the Polar Bears extensive
win streaks both seasons. However,
this matchup is the first time the
team has lost to Middlebury in the
regular season since 2012.
The two programs are consistently
at the top of the NESCAC and national rankings, which led to three
regular and postseason showdowns
last year. This years close-fought
matchup sets the stage for a very
competitive postseason should the
two teams face off again, but the Polar Bears are confident in their prospects should that happen.
In Saturdays game we actually

LIAM FINNERTY, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

OUT OF THE BLUE: Forward Elizabeth Growney 20 dodges a Wellesley defender as the Polar Bears secure a decisive 4-0 victory over the Blue on Wednesday. Coming o a disappointing loss to rival Middlebury last
Saturday, the team bounced back quickly, dominating both the oensive and defensive sides of the game with a 21-1 shot advantage. The win is the fourth shutout for Bowdoin this season.
controlled more of the game than we
had in those two [postseason] games
last year and limited their opportunities, said Pearson. Thats probably
what was frustrating for us, but we
learned and took many things from
the game.
While Middleburys talent highlighted some necessary areas of improvement for Bowdoin, the game
also showcased the young teams
strengths and progress so far.
As a team, one of our goals is to
practice the way that were going to
play and to implement a lot of our
drills into our games, and that was

our second goal against Middlebury,


said captain Emily McColgan 17.
We take the positives and negatives
from that game and that was a huge
positive. Something that we worked
on in practice was directly translated
into our game play.
The teams determination and
drive havent wavered as it looks
ahead to the rest of its season.
Every time we go into a game,
our goal is to win, said McColgan.
So coming out from a loss, we didnt
reach our goal for one game, but we
still have the potential to reach our
goal for the rest of our season, keep

on our path and try to win every other game that we play in.
The team bounced back on
Wednesday when it faced Wellesley
at home, defeating the Blue 4-0. With
a strong focus on offensive opportunities, the Polar Bears dominated the
game with a 21-1 edge in shots on
goal and a 14-1 advantage in penalty
corners. The teams last faced each
other in the 2015 NCAA Regional Final where a 3-0 shutout sent the Polar
Bears to the Final Four.
Even after facing two top-20 teams
in the same week, the team hasnt
let rankings or predictions alter

its approach.
Our preparation is consistent,
said Pearson. We dont want to be
a yo-yo team where we feel like we
have to raise our game for this because its a more important game
than this one or this is a non-conference game so its not as important as
a NESCAC gamethats a dangerous
game to play and we really stay away
from that.
The Polar Bears will continue their
campaign with three home games
next week, starting off with a matchup against the University of Southern
Maine at 6 p.m. on Monday.

Womens soccer extends win streak to five, rises in NESCAC rankings


BY ANNA FAUVER
ORIENT STAFF

After losing to Amherst in their


second game of the season, the womens soccer team has come back with
a five-game winning streak, most recently beating the University of New
England 1-0 at home on Tuesday.
A key victory against Middlebury
last Saturday helped Bowdoin improve to No. 2 in the NESCAC, tied
with Connecticut College and just
behind defending NESCAC Champion Williams.
The game against UNE began with
a quick goal by Morgen Gallagher 20
shortly after the minute mark. Despite
this early lead, Anna Mellman 17
does not believe the team played to
the best of their ability.
We were able to hold them off for
the rest of the game, but we couldnt
put another one in the net, Mellman
said. [It] was definitely not our best
performance but were learning from
it and were ready to come out strong
on Friday.
As the team looks ahead, goalkeeper Rachel Stout 18 believes that
the women need to make sure that
they are always playing to their fullest potential.
Theres been a couple games
where at half time or beginning of

SHANNON DEVENEY, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

NOTHING IN OUR NET: Taylor Haist 17 and the Polar Bear defense kept the University of New
England scoreless on Tuesday in the teams fifth shutout of the season.
the half we dont come out 100 percent and then it takes a while to get
into it, Stout said. Just being able to
put together a full 90 minutes is what
we need to be able to do.
While the team continues to focus
on improvement, their early success

this season is undeniable. The key to


the womens strong start, according
to Stout, is team cohesion both on
and off the field.
We usually have very solid team
chemistry but from the start this year
I think part of the reason that were

doing so well is because off the field


we can get along so well, Stout said.
The large first year class and the
loss of six seniors to graduation last
spring could have posed a large obstacle to the teams chemistry, yet the
new players acclimated to the new
environment quickly and have already made a positive impact on the
teams performance.
[The first years success] comes
from both sides, Head Coach Brianne
Weaver said. I attribute it to both the
upperclassmen for making them feel
welcome and certainly to the first
years who were in a new environment.
They embraced it and they were willing to find out what this team was all
about from the beginning and find
ways to contribute to it.
Mellman sees the young roster as
a unique opportunity, rather than
a challenge.
They bring so much energy and
fire to the team because of their love
for the sport, she said.
The senior turnover included the
loss of All-American goalkeeper
Bridget McCarthy 16, yet Stout, the
current goalie, has had a strong start
to the season with five shutouts and
only three goals against her.
It definitely was [hard to find
confidence] because I had only
played one full game and otherwise

had just gotten in some minutes, she


said. But I had done the training and
put in all the work I could so, at that
point, there was nothing else I could
have done to prepare so I just had to
see what happens.
In order to stay strong, Weaver believes the team needs to take every
game, even non-conference games
such as the one against UNE, seriously.
We look at every game whether its
a conference game or non-conference
game as an important game and one
that we have to bring our very best to,
Weaver said. If we have post-season
aspirations, we know there is not a
game that we can walk into and say
Oh okay guys, this is an easier game
and we can take it off today.
Although the team isnt content
with its performance this week,
Mellman said the strong start early
on has made its goal of winning the
NESCAC tournament and beating last years champion, Williams,
seem realistic.
I am so excited to play Williams,
Mellman said. If we keep playing
the way weve been playing and keep
working as hard as weve been working
I think we stand a very good chance of
taking them down this year.
The team will travel to Boston to
face MIT in their next game on Friday, September 30.

12

sports

the bowdoin orient

friday, september 30, 2016

Mens rugby opens season


under new head coach
BY EMILY COHEN
ORIENT STAFF

Gary Devoe, the assistant mens rugby


coach for 30 years, has stepped into the
role of head coach this fall. Rick Scala,
who was the head coach for all of Devoes
time as assistant, remains on staff as an
assistant coach. So far, this shift in the
teams leadership has been well received
by players as they head into a game
against Bates this weekend.
Its been a smooth transition since
[Devoe] has been coaching us the whole
time, said captain Ellis Palmieri 17.
Before coming to Bowdoin, Devoe
coached several other collegiate teams,
including Bates and Colby, as well as the
Portland mens and womens teams. He
discovered his love of rugby after playing football for over a decade and has not
looked back since.
In particular, Devoe cited the camaraderie of the sport, even between opponents, that makes rugby unique and
keeps him involved year after year.
The way the sport is playedyou
play hard, you play uncompromising,
but fair, and you meet [the other team]
after the game. You go and sit and talk
with your opponent, said Devoe. [That]
doesnt happen in a lot of other sports.
Players expressed similar feelings of
unity about the team. Since many players have never played rugby before they
step onto the field at Bowdoin, most
are drawn to join for the teams balance of competitive spirit and sense
of community.
We work with our first years to make
sure they feel comfortable. Not only in
the field but in school [too], said captain
Jaime Quirante 18.
Thats sort of the beauty of rugby
that everybody has to play, everybody
has to be a good teammate, said Devoe.
And the nice thing about this group
is theyre also good teammates off the
field And the younger guys know that
they can look to the older guys to find
some help if they need it.
The players are hoping to continue to
develop their chemistry in order to come
back from a disappointing loss to Colby
in their first league game on September
17. Palmieri believes that once the new
players have played more, the team wont
face the miscommunication errors that

STERLING DIXON, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

TAKING CHARGE: Gary Devoe enters his


first year as head coach after 30 years with the team.
cost it several plays in the game.
You have to be able to read whats going on in the moment and know where
you have to be as a result. So its kind of
hard to teach that in practices, he said.
It comes with experience.
The team is looking forward to its
match against Bates this weekend and
hopes to retain the Lindbergh Cup.
Named for the late Greg Lindbergh 91,
the cup is awarded to the winner of the
Bates v. Bowdoin matchup every year
and has been won by the Polar Bears for
the past five years.
Despite the Polar Bears previous success against the Bobcats, Bates is having a
successful year so far. The team beat the
University of Maine at Farmington, who
finished second last season in the National Small College Rugby Organization
Champions Cup, and lost by one point
to UMaine Orono, last years first-place
team. Though the match will be hardfought, the Polar Bears are still optimistic.
Im hoping that Bates is coming into
that game a little overconfident, given
that we lost our first game and that we
can hopefully surprise them and come
away with the win, said Palmieri.
Looking to later in the season, Quirante and Palmieri hope the team will return
to the playoffs. However, Devoe is more
concerned with teaching new players
and watching them improve.
Its nice to win, said Devoe. But I
dont care what the scoreboard says if
theyre playing better than they did the
week before and executing better than
they did.

Blowout win starts off


womens rugby campaign
BY PETE BULL

ORIENT STAFF

The womens rugby team opened the


season with a dominant 57-17 win over
Molloy College in their first game since
leaving the New England Small College
Rugby Conference (NESCRC).
The team started the match off
strong, gaining an advantage of 24-0 in
the first half. However, the second half
showed that the team could not grow
complacent as Molloy came back after
the intermission with three tries and a
conversion to cut down the lead. From
there, the Polar Bears were able to regain control and score 26 uncontested
points to close out the game.
The team started mostly newer players because of scheduling conflicts, yet
the lack of experience didnt hold them
back at all.
Because so many returning players couldnt make the game, we started
many younger players, said captain
Cristina Lima 17. It proved a great

opportunity, with the young squad


scoring five tries within the first half.
It was a long way to go for such
a young team, but it led the newer
players to take command, said Head
Coach MaryBeth Mathews.
While the match proved the mettle
of the team outside their previous conference, the challenge will be far steeper for the impending game against
Saint Michaels College this weekend.
However, Mathews is undeterred.
The expectations are the same.
We have smart kids; they listen, work
hard and learn quickly, said Mathews.
I will admit, of all the seasons to leave
a comfy conference for a more challenging one, its an interesting one due
to the fact that we graduated so many
seniors and two of our best players are
abroad. Our team is young, but there
is energy, camaraderie and enthusiasm. We will be challenged, but thats
why were here.
The Polar Bears will take on Saint
Michaels at home tomorrow at 2 p.m.

friday, september 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

features

13

14

the bowdoin orient

OPINION

Scheduling Sabbatical

For the 2017-18 academic year, more than 50 professors are eligible to take leave. In
the last five years, no more than 34 professors have been on leave at one time.
Sabbaticals are a key element to maintaining an intellectual community at any institution of higher education. A year of leave gives faculty the opportunity to conduct intense,
high-caliber research and continue to refine expertise in their area. As a result of new
research, faculty can become better professors and bring new ideas into their courses,
which helps develop a more dynamic curriculum. Moreover, strong faculty research can
bring more grants to Bowdoin, as well as attract distinguished faculty and more highly
engaged students. Investments in sabbaticals pay off.
Sabbaticals provide a net positive for any learning community. However, they are not
without negative ramifications for students. When professors go on sabbatical, the College has to replace them with visiting professors to fill the voids within departments.
While visiting professors can provide the same quality of teaching as their full-time
counterparts, its difficult for students to form long-lasting connections with them due to
the temporary nature of their positions.
One of the advantages of a school like Bowdoin is the relationships students build
with their professors, as both teachers and mentors. Since visiting professors cannot officially serve as advisors, the opportunity to be a formal mentor throughout a students
Bowdoin career is lost. Even when informal mentor relationships are developed, a visiting professorship lasts only a few years at most.
Though such inconveniences pale in comparison to the overall benefits of sabbaticals, the disruptions are amplified if such a large number of professors are absent from
campus. Small departments suffer when such a high proportion of faculty are awayit
places a burden on both the students and the department as a whole.
The administration has a responsibility to better regulate sabbatical leave in a way
that benefits everyone. At the very least, the College should make sure that individual
departments do not disproportionately feel the impact of professors on sabbatical leave.
In addition, more regulations should be placed on the faculty with regards to delaying sabbatical leave. This academic year, 14 of the 45 faculty eligible for leave chose to
postpone their sabbatical, which drastically increased the number of professors eligible
for the 2017-2018 school year. The administration should place a cap on the number of
professors that can postpone their leave in a given year and be more diligent about the
future impact of the number of postponements.
Faculty and administration should be more transparent about long-term sabbatical
plans. The administration is aware of the schedule for eligibility and there is no compelling reason why it is kept hidden from students. This would be valuable information for
students planning their academic careers at Bowdoin. Releasing the information would
come at no cost to those involved but would have a positive impact on both students
and departments.
Sabbaticals help a learning institution thrivethere is no question about it. But the College should maintain as much stability as possible for students by trying to keep the number of faculty on leave at a consistent level and being transparent about eligibility for leave.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orients editorial board,
which is comprised of Marina Affo, Julian Andrews, Steff Chavez, Grace Handler, Meg
Robbins and Joe Seibert.

friday, september 30, 2016

Racial dialogue: tough but necessary


BY HARRISON DUNNEPOLITE
OPED CONTRIBUTOR

At first I was very reluctant to


write this column. In our current
environment of confusion and discord regarding racial matters, sharing my opinions could compromise
relationships with classmates, especially because I play basketball
for Bowdoin. Getting along with
your teammates is essential in every
sport; unity and uniformity are usually recognized as positives. But on
the Bowdoin College Mens Basketball team, I am one of only two students of color and the only AfricanAmerican. While I dont necessarily

conversations I was avoiding, I was


also preventing discussions that are
necessary for progress. If we are not
at a point where we can comfortably
have a conversation about racea
subject that when not properly understood has historically led to severe conflictthen we are not where
we need to be. The only way to make
it to that point is to start getting
comfortable talking about it, even
when the conversation is difficult.
There are ways to have civil discussions about race and many people do, but it requires compliance by
all parties involved. This summer
a coworker and I had an extensive
conversation about Black Lives

Being of color is such a sensitive topic;


a simple disagreement could make the
locker room awkward.
feel culturally isolated, I do recognize that my experience, exposure
and connection to various communities and cultures may be very different from many of my teammates.
Therefore our sympathies and opinions may differ as well. Being of color is such a sensitive topic; a simple
disagreement could make the locker
room awkward. Id rather not be in
an uncomfortable situation all year
long, so I decided it was best to just
keep my insights to myself. However,
in hindsight, the decision I made to
be mute indicated that I in fact had
to share my opinions. Because I was
so afraid of the consequences of the

Matter. We heavily disagreed on a


majority of points presented and he
even said a few things I perceived as
rather offensive, but I didnt revolt
because I knew he wasnt trying to
be. All he wanted to do was explain
how and why he came to the conclusions that he did. So I listened, and
then he did the same for me. At the
end of our talk there was no feeling of relief for making it through
another discussion about race alive;
the stress wasnt there. We understood each others perspectives better and we actually made progress,
not because we agreed, but because
we allowed each other to explain our

competing thoughts in depth. I have


no sympathy for bigotry, but I do
find it problematic that many people are afraid to express themselves.
Prejudice and other forms of unwarranted bias are not to be tolerated,
but if we cant identify these issues
(because we force them into hiding)
then how do we expect to address
them? If we cant or simply refuse to
listen to those who disagree with us,
then how do we expect them to listen to us? Instead of having heated
racial debates, we should aim for
constructive racial dialogues. This is
not a competition. There is not one
winner or loser but rather group (all
of us) success or group failure. It is a
simple concept, but it is one that we
cant seem to grasp.
This past year we witnessed the
reassertion of racial tension all over
the country and even here on campus. We were poor communicators
to say the least, but more specifically, poor listeners. If we as a community can be more mature about how
we approach controversial topics
such as race, the increased dialogue
can have a positive impact on our
growth as a community. However, if
we fail to have the necessary discussion in an appropriate manner then
we will continue to create barriers
between us, especially social ones.
It is in the best interest of not only
each other and ourselves, but also in
that of our education, for us to make
it a priority to get comfortable talking about race.
Harrison Dunne-Polite is a member of the Class of 2019.

Breaking up with the treadmill,


making dates with weights
SAVANNAH HORTON

BACKGROUND NOISE

Here is a fact: there are some environments in which I feel less comfortable
than others, on and beyond campus.
Some of this discomfort is based in reality, while some, I admit, is due to my underlying insecurities and/or narcissism.
Over the past three years, I have accumulated a catalog of places I take extra care
to avoidfor example, Baxter House.
Until last year, the weight room of Buck
Fitness Center topped my list, forbidden
for countless reasons, most of which related to my gender and athletic ability.
By the time I was a first year at Bowdoin, I had fostered a lengthy and destructive relationship with the treadmill
(its complicated). Four years of cross
country and food-based anxiety had inspired an unhealthy devotion to cardio.
College meant trying something new. At
the time, something new meant wearing eyeliner and having guy friends and
alsoif I summoned the audacity
picking up a dumbbell.
I tried on multiple occasions to visit the
basement of Buck. Once or twice, I made
it halfway down the stairs before freezing
and turning around (there is a particular
step where you can survey the space and
retreat to the elliptical before anyone at the
squat rack sees you). Dismayed, I spent
the next two years familiarizing myself

with the main floor: rekindling my cardio


flame, sprawling on the blue mats and the
foam rollers when I didnt know what else
to do. I was afraid of weight lifting and
how it would shape my body, but I was
also afraid of walking into the room.
I gave lifting a second chance the
summer after my sophomore year. That
spring a Crossfit box had opened up in
my town. I knew enough about Crossfit
to laugh at it every time I drove by, but I
was also secretly interested. My dad decided to sign up because he was athletic
and because he felt like it. I also signed
up because I felt like it, though I assured
everyone outside of my family that I had
joined against my will. I spent the summer learning how to throw weights over
my head without breaking my shoulders. I also met a variety of kind, strong
women who could clean more than their
bodyweight (I was just using the bar).
At Bowdoin, my anxiety with Buck
sometimes feels silly. Female athletes are
abundant, brilliant and respectedyet
for someone who is not an athlete, the
weight room can feel off-limits. These
insecurities may seem like petty me
problemsand of course to an extent
they arebut gender does play a role
in the gym. According to psychologists
from Amherst College and Swarthmore
College, weight lifting is a form of exercise that is specifically beneficial for
women but often avoided by them. Even
today, the perceived masculine body
ideals prescribe strength, while feminine

body ideals prescribe


thinness. These divergent
gendered body ideals demand divergent exercise
regimensWeight lifting
seems to be highly gendered.
As an adolescent, I saw
weight rooms packed
with men. I saw rows of
women reading magazines on the elliptical. Of
course there were and are
exceptions, but the overwhelming implications
from my surroundings
and the media seemed to
scream you dont belong
in the weight room!
Growing up, I developed warped notions of what it meant
to be fit. My high school cross country
team spent a total of one hour in the
weight room over a span of four years.
We worked with a nutritionist who told
us 1,200 calories a day could sustain us.
We didnt know the benefits of strength
training, how lifting weights improved
not only metabolism and bone mass but
also mental health. Studies show that
only seven percent of women use free
weights as part of their exercise routine.
Studies also show that fears of bulking
up through weightlifting are largely
unfounded. But even if they werent,
why should women fear strength?
It is impossible to know what is healthy

ALEX WESTFALL
BROOKE GODDARD

and realistic when fitness trends change


arbitrarily. I am not certified to give anyone advice about anything, but neither are
most people on the Internet. According to
Gwyneth Paltrows trainer, women should
never lift more than three pounds. By this
logic, a woman should avoid lifting her
own child for fear of bulking up.
I dont know what is right or wrong
when it comes to exercise, but I do know
that it should be enjoyable. I also know
that discomfort should not prevent me,
or anyone, from trying something new.
We spend time and energy at war with
our bodies when they simply need us
to love them. In the basement, I feign
confidence; I play my music loudly and

remind myself to be kind to my body,


to be patient and satisfied. These are
small things, but sometimes small things
are important.
If you are even considering branching out at the gym, I suggest you do it. I
have learned that people are much more
focused on themselves than anyone else.
Maybe you will drop a weight on your
foot or stare at a machine for 15 minutes before you understand how to use
it. Maybe your phone will fall off the elliptical and your neighbors will watch as
you maneuver your way back to it. This
is all fine. Make mistakes, loud mistakes.
I guarantee the person next to you will
be more concerned with her cameltoe or

friday, sptember 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

opinion

15

ALEX WESTFALL

Assessing the significance of one of Bowdoins core values


Despite the super-abundance of appeals to this lofty ideal, my fellow first
years and I have entered our time at Bowdoin with just as tenuous a grasp
on this mystical concept as when we first received our letters of admission.

BY IAN WARD

OPED CONTRIBUTOR

Aside from just outside of Boston and I want to study environmental studies, too!, the phrase
most often inundating the ears of
us untested first years is: Bowdoin
has a commitment to the common
good. In truth, the common good is
everywhere: applicants can choose
to write a supplement essay about
what the common good means to
them, recently accepted students
receive a poster emblazoned with
cooperate with others towards
common ends and while signing up
for pre -orientation trips, first years
might notice that many of the trips
are organized by the Joseph McKeen Center foryou guessed it the
Common Good. And this is all before even arriving on campus.
Once on campus, the deluge of
common good-ness only continues,
making an appearance in nearly every welcome address, in classes and
during floor meetings. Only three
weeks into the semester, students,
faculty and staff alike descend on
Farley Field House, wielding shovels
and paint brushes to participate in
Common Good Day, a day of service
and community-minded fun.

Despite the super-abundance of


appeals to this lofty ideal, my fellow
first years and I have entered our
time at Bowdoin with just as tenuous a grasp on this mystical concept
as when we first received our letters
of admission. The average first year
probably knows that a commitment
to the common good entails some
involvement with volunteer organizations; the particularly inquisitive
one might have discovered that the
phrase is drawn from Joseph McKeens speech at the Opening of the
College in 1802.
Yet a brief stroll around campus
or a browse through the Orients
archives confirms that this problem
is not unique to first years; in truth,
there appears to be no real consensus on what the common good really means. Just two weeks ago, two
students criticized Common Good
Day in a Talk of the Quad in the Orient for giving members of the Bowdoin community an easy sense of
gratification while overlooking the
deep structural inequities that the

College perpetuates. The authors,


urging students to engage more
critically with the Colleges ideal,
prompted readers to reflect upon
their personal commitment to the
common good. As the writers themselves point out, [these words] can
be used to justify almost any action.
Given that the common good is
just thatcommonperhaps we
should be asking not what the common good means to each individual,
but rather what it means to us, the
Bowdoin community as a whole.
If we hope to rescue this powerful
ideal from the grasps of inarticulacy,
we ought to attempt first to unearth
its origin, beyond its emergence in
President McKeens address. As the
philosopher Charles Taylor argues
in his 1989 book, Sources of the
Self, the language of common goods
first surfaced among a circle of 18th
century thinkers known as the Deists. Often seen as the middlemen
between theology and modern science, Deists eschewed the notion
that God acted continuously on the

Bowdoin Orient
The

ESTABLISHED 1871

The Bowdoin Orient is a student-run weekly publication dedicated to providing news and
information relevant to the Bowdoin community. Editorially independent of the College and
its administrators, the Orient pursues such content freely and thoroughly, following professional journalistic standards in writing and reporting. The Orient is committed to serving
as an open forum for thoughtful and diverse discussion and debate on issues of interest to the
College community.

Julian Andrews
Editor in Chief
bowdoinorient.com

orient@bowdoin.edu

Meg Robbins
Editor in Chief
6200 College Station

Brunswick, ME 04011

Rachael Allen
Managing Editor
Managing Editor Cameron de Wet
Sarah Drumm
Managing Editor
Jono Gruber
Managing Editor
Managing Editor Emily Weyrauch
Eli Lustbader
Associate Editor
Nickie Mitch
Associate Editor
Louisa Moore
Associate Editor
Joe Seibert
Associate Editor
Allison Wei
Associate Editor
Grace Handler
Web Editor
Alex Mayer
Creative Director

workings of the world, arguing instead that God, having created the
world to operate by certain principles, let it be. We can discover
those principles, the Deists argued,
through the methodology of the
natural sciences. Reverence for God,
then, comes not from his constant
involvement in the world, but from
his benevolence: the knowledge that
he created a world, as Taylor puts
it, in which the purposes of the
different beings inhabiting it...so
perfectly interlock. The world was
designed so that each in seeking his
or her own good will also serve the
good of others. This goal of harmonious ends is the common good, or
as Deist philosopher Matthew Tindal wrote, the common Interests,
and Mutual Happiness of [Gods]
rational creatures. James Bowdoin,
himself a prominent man of science,
would certainly have been familiar
with these ideas. The writings of
Arminians and Deists...filled Bowdoins library shelves, wrote Bowdoins biographer Frank Manuel.

James Little
Layout Editor
Jessica Piper
News Editor
Anjulee Bhalla
Sports Editor
Features Editor Amanda Newman
Surya Milner
A&E Editor
Julia ORourke
Opinion Editor
Eleanor Paasche
Page 2 Editor
Rohini Kurup
Calendar Editor
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Sr. Photo Editor
Hannah Rafkin
Photo Editor
Ezra Sunshine
Photo Editor
Marina Ao
Copy Editor

Although many, if not all, in the


present -day Bowdoin community
have left behind the Deists providential theology, there is nonetheless something important to be
learned about our sense of common
good from this genealogy. What is
praiseworthy, even divine, for the
Deists is that personal goods, when
structured correctly, can serve the
goods of the manythat we must
not deny our own good in order to
serve the goods of others.
Absent the hand of providence,
this aim is still possible through
the proper institutional structures. Within these structures, it is
through ones own particular excellence, not by stepping outside of it,
that an individual can contribute to
the common good. The math major
need not take up a shovel, nor the
environmental studies major a frying pan, in order to serve the common good.
Within a community of exceptionally talented and exceptionally
bright individuals, this, I believe,
is a sense of the common good,
which could, once again become,
well, common.
Ian Ward is a member of the Class
of 2020.

Copy Editor
Sarah Bonanno
Copy Editor
Calder McHugh
Copy Editor
Liza Tarbell
Sr. News Reporter James Callahan
Sr. News Reporter
Ste Chavez
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Data Desk
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Data Desk
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Business Manager Maggie Coster
Business Manager
Vivien Lee

The material contained herein is the property of The Bowdoin Orient and appears at the sole discretion of the editors. The editors reserve the right to edit all material. Other than in regard to the above editorial, the opinions expressed in the Orient do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors.

16

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

friday, september 30, 2016

the bowdoin orient

FRIDAY 30
SYMPOSIUM

"Across the Divide: Intermediality and


American Art"

The Symposium will explore the ways different types of


media interact in art. Presentations will be followed by
comments from a discussant.
Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center. 8:45 a.m.
SEMINAR

Tales from the Grove: The Chemical Story


of Olive Oil

Patricia O'Hara, professor of chemistry at Amherst, will speak


about the chemistry of olive oil, focusing on its molecular
structure.
016 Druckenmiller Hall. 3 p.m.

SATURDAY 1
ANN BASU, THE BOWDOIN ORIENT

DANCE IN TRANCE: Aleksia Silverman '19 and Bella Tumaneng '17 participate in an interpretive dance as part of hypnotist Paul Ramsay's
show on Saturday, September 24th. The show was comprised of several short segments where audience members were invited on stage.

EVENT

Paint Night at the Pub

Instructors from the Bowdoin Craft Center will help students


create their own paintings.
ORIENT
Jack Magee's Pub and Grill. 8 p.m.
PICK OF THE WEEK

SUNDAY 2

EVENT

EVENT

Representatives from over 80 schools will speak to


students about graduate and professional options.
David Saul Smith Union. 3:30 p.m.

Students interested in public health will have the


opportunity to meet with Anita Ruff MPH, executive
director of Oasis Free Clinic.
Mitchell South, Thorne Hall. Noon.

Graduate School Fair

FILM SCREENING

The 19th Annual Manhattan Short


Film Festival

Frontier will host screenings of short films. After, viewers


can vote for their favorites as part of a national festival. The
finalists will be eligible for the Oscars.
ORIENT
PICK OF THE WEEK
Frontier. 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

LECTURE

As part of Latinx Heritage Month, Prisca Dorcas Mojica


Rodriguez, founder of Latina Rebels, will speak about
the Latina experience and how she uses the social media
group to empower Latina women.
Shannon Room, Hubbard Hall. 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 5

EVENT

LECTURE

"Queer Strategies, Queer Tactics"

To celebrate the opening of a photo exhibit about identity


and disability on campus, there will be a panel of students
sharing their own stories about what it means to be a
disabled student.
Lamarche Gallery , David Saul Smith Union. 7:30 p.m.

EVENT

Homecoming

EVENT

Homecoming

L.J. Roberts, a Brooklyn based artist who works with textiles,


will discuss the ways LGBT identity can be expressed through
the visual arts.
Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center. 7 p.m.

EVENT

Homecoming

10

Lunch with an MPH

LECTURE

Woke Brown Girl

MONDAY 3
"I Am: A Conversation About Dis/Ability
at Bowdoin & Beyond"

THURSDAY 6

TUESDAY 4

11

"Ad Nauseam: Political Advertising in the


2016 Presidential Election"

Associate Professor of Government and Legal Studies


Michael Franz will discuss the role of advertising in the
upcoming presidential election, increasing effectiveness
of advertising and the funds dedicated to pay for ads.
Main Lounge, Moulton Union. 12:30 p.m.
EVENT

The Birth of a Nation

The Student Center for Multicultural Life will sponsor


a trip to Portland for a film screening of "The Birth of a
Nation," which tells the story of Nat Turner, an enslaved
preacher who endures and witnesses the horrific treatment of slaves and starts an uprising to fight for freedom.
Tickets are $5 from the Smith Union Info Desk.
30 College Street. 5:30 p.m.

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