Parents and Families

A Roman senate meeting in Michael Nerdahl’s class “The Republic of Rome and the Evolution of Executive Power” (Illustration credit: Abby McBride)

“All in favor?” says Lucius Manlius, surveying a sea of raised hands in the Roman senate. “Thus granted. Sweet.”

Manlius, a.k.a. Bowdoin senior Luke Lamar, was recently elected as consul by his fellow senators—otherwise known as the students of Classics 214, “The Republic of Rome and the Evolution of Executive Power.” The students are immersed in a month-long simulation of the Roman senate of 190-187 B.C., in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. As it happens, today’s biggest buzz is that the dreaded Hannibal was recently spotted in the east.

Taught by Lecturer in Classics Michael Nerdahl, Classics 214 might just be the world’s most lively history and government class. After spending an introductory segment learning the basics of Roman government, the students have been assigned Roman identities, complete with hometowns, ages, offices, family trees, patrons, and clients.

Read more.

Associate Professor of Government Michael Franz

Associate Professor of Government Michael Franz analyzes the record spending on ads for the 2012 presidential campaign—and what difference it made in the elections—in a guest post on The Monkey Cage. One implication is that Romney’s defeat could be related to his heavier reliance on advertising by outside groups.

Geoffrey Canada '74 and Stanley Druckenmiller '75 on "Morning Joe."

Tonight’s talk by educator Geoffrey Canada ’74 and investor Stanley Druckenmiller ’75, “Generational Theft: How Entitlement Spending is Stealing Opportunity from America’s Youth,”  will be streamed live on the Bowdoin Daily Sun, 7:30 to 9:30 pm. It will also be archived with other videos on Bowdoin Talks.

Following a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece in which they write of their shared concern that “government spending levels are unsustainable,” Canada and Druckenmiller, though from different backgrounds and with different political beliefs, have united to bring their message to the masses, appearing on CNBC’s Closing Bell and Squawk Box, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe. They warn that failing to reform an entitlement culture, reaffirm long-run objectives, and re-establish a common purpose will mean diminished opportunities for America’s youth.

Michael Bartini

WMPG 90.9 Southern Maine Community Radio, the station broadcast from University of Southern Maine, will be covering student financial aid in its evening program tonight from 8 p.m. to 8:30p.m. The program will be streamed live online.

Dale Robin Goodman, WMPG’s development director, will be interviewing Michael Bartini, Bowdoin’s director of student aid, along with other guests.

The topics they will may cover include the availability of federal financial aid funds and how this has changed in the past year or two; suggestions for families on how to pay for university without graduating with enormous debt; creative suggestions for seeking scholarships; ideas on negotiating with your school of choice for a better financial aid package; and what colleges think of students who take a gap year to earn money for college.

Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition (University Press of Kansas, 2012), the latest book by Jean Yarbrough, professor of government and Bowdoin’s Gary M. Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences, has won the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best book published on the U.S. presidency in 2012.

“I was thrilled that the awards committee chose a book that examines the political thought of one of our most iconic presidents,” says Yarbrough. “For anyone wishing to understand how the American political tradition has unfolded over the past hundred years, Theodore Roosevelt is a good place to start.”

The Richard E. Neustadt Award For the Best Book on the Presidency is among the most prestigious awards recognizing scholarly contributions to political science in the nation.

Bowdoin now counts three Neustadt award-winners among its ranks. Professor of Government Janet M. Martin was honored with the award in 2004; Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige won his Neustadt award in 2003.

The award is to be presented to Yarbrough at APSA’s annual meeting in Chicago in August.

Jean Yarbrough discusses her book with colleague Paul Franco, professor of government, here.

Maine baseball legend Mort Soule, Bowdoin Class of 1968, recited the famous ballgame poem by Ernest Thayer, “Casey at the Bat,” at Fenway Park for the Red Sox’s annual Maine Day on April 28, 2013. For the pre-game ceremony, Soule had to trim his recitation of the 52-line poem, which typically takes hime six minutes to complete, to three minutes. Video courtesy of the Boston Red Sox.

Mort Soule ’68 Performs “Casey at the Bat” in Fenway Park Ceremony from Bowdoin College on Vimeo.

Job interviews are not just about the employer learning about you. They’re also opportunities to learn if the position and the company are indeed good fits for you. Forbes shares important things to keep in mind if you discover halfway through the interview that the job isn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Ellis Ratner ’14 has won a Goldwater Scholarship

Since arriving at Bowdoin in 2010, junior Ellis Ratner has dedicated himself to robots. And his commitment and accomplishments in the robotics field have been recognized by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program, which has given Ratner one of its 272 scholarships this year to talented students in the United States who are pursuing careers in math, science or engineering.

Read the full story here.

Prospect received more than 10,000 votes from over 100 countries in response to its poll on the world’s top thinkers of 2013. “Online polls often throw up curious results, but this top 10 offers a snapshot of the intellectual trends that dominate our age,” Prospect concludes. The list includes Richard Dawkins, Ashraf Ghani, Steven Pinker, Ali Allawi and Paul Krugman.

Wikipedia is a bit of a boy’s club, according to some critics. “Around 90 percent of Wikipedia editors are men, and it shows,” New Scientist pointed out recently. At the moment, there’s an uproar over a Wikipedia editor’s decision to move female novelists out of the category “American novelists” and into the category of “American women novelists.” Joyce Carol Oates for one was not amused. She tweeted, “Wikipedia bias an accurate reflection of universal bias. All (male) writers are writers; a (woman) writer is a woman writer,” the New York Review of Books reports.

Gelato Fiasco on Maine Street in Brunswick raised $5,336 for the Brunswick Teen Center at its annual Scoop-a-thon.

The fifth-annual Scoop-a-thon was successful in large part because of Bowdoin students, according to Bobby Guerette ’07, Gelato Fiasco’s marketing director. “I’m estimating that more than 350 students participated,” Guerette said, thanks to organizers Michelle Johnson ’15 and Jesse Everett ’12, who works at the Teen Center. The event was held April 24.

“Celebrity scoopers” included the men and women’s swim teams, proctors and residential advisors from Residential Life, the men and women’s track teams, men’s rugby and the women’s ultimate Frisbee team.

Student musicians and a cappella groups sang, and “the most enthusiastic Polar Bear mascot I’ve ever seen” also made an appearance, Guerette said.