Parents and Families

Port of St. George's, Grenada

People living in eastern coastal Grenada have seen their shoreline gradually disappear into the sea, “a result of destructive practices such as the extraction of sand for construction and ferocious storm surges made worse by climate change,” the Associated Press reports. Farmers complain that crops are getting damaged by the intrusion of the salty water, and fishing families may have to relocate farther up the hillside, away from their source of livelihood.

What is happening in Grenada is a small preview of what many fear could happen in the rest of the 15 nations that make up the Caribbean Community bloc. Rising sea levels and surge from more intense storms will bring enormous economic and social costs. “The tourism-dependent Caribbean is thought to be one of the globe’s most vulnerable regions,” the AP reports.

Bowdoin’s 17th annual Honors Day recognizing the academic achievements of students and faculty is to be held Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Kanbar Auditorium, Studzinski Recital Hall. If you’re unable to make it to campus, the event will be streamed live beginning at 7 p.m. Watch it here and look for coverage of the event in Thursday’s edition of the Bowdoin Daily Sun.

Cristle Collins Judd

A grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation is helping the  College launch an ambitious cross-disciplinary initiative encompassing various facets of the humanities. Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd writes of the opportunities that await students in three inaugural course clusters.

During these last busy days of classes as we gear up for final exams and commencement, we are also hard at work preparing a number of exciting new opportunities for students when they return to campus in the fall.

With a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bowdoin is embarking on an initiative that will support thematic instruction across the humanities.

Together these activities will enrich the experience of students across traditional disciplinary boundaries and nurture a stronger intellectual community among faculty and students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Through this initiative, areas within the existing curriculum will be coordinated as multi-year “course clusters” connected by a common theme (for example, the “Civil War Era”), creating collaborations that provide a path for students to explore such a theme from many perspectives over the course of their Bowdoin education, in conjunction with—or alongside—their majors and minors.

Each cluster of courses will offer new opportunities for students to engage with faculty research, provide support for independent student research, and incorporate symposia and lectures involving distinguished visiting speakers. Together these activities will enrich the experience of students across traditional disciplinary boundaries and nurture a stronger intellectual community among faculty and students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

The three inaugural clusters, The Civil War Era; Mediterranean Studies; and Medieval–Renaissance–Early Modern Studies, are described below. Chosen earlier this year through a competitive review of proposals from faculty, each of these course clusters reflects shared research and teaching interests among faculty from a range of disciplines and departments.

The Civil War Era

Bowdoin enjoys enormous respect for its historic connections to the American Civil War, and we have a number of faculty members whose research and teaching focus on this critical period of American history and central event in the national experience.

Gen. Oliver Otis Howard (Bowdoin Class of 1850)

This cluster includes faculty and staff from the departments of art history, English, Africana studies and history, as well as the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

In addition to many course offerings and a series of invited speakers, the Civil War Era cluster will include a summer research trip for students who are interested in developing this research as advanced work through seminars, independent studies or honors projects.

Students and faculty will to travel to Washington, D.C., and its environs for a two-week research trip that will include exploring the holdings of various national archives, visiting historic battlefields, and touring critical points of interest.

Student researchers will also have an opportunity to undertake a scholarly textual editing project with materials in Bowdoin’s special collections, such as the Horatio Fox Smith Civil War Journal and Letters.

Faculty coordinators for this course cluster are Patrick Rael and Tess Chakkalakal. (Alumni and parents who would like a taste of the opportunities this course cluster will offer are invited to join this summer’s Alumni College, The Afterlife of the Civil War, August 8-11, 2013.)

Mediterranean Studies

The Mediterranean, a crossroads and meeting point for many cultures and religions, is a region that has generated vibrant and dynamic research.

The limestone cliffs of Bonafacio, a commune on the southern tip of the island of Corsica in the Corse-du-Sud department of France.

Our Mediterranean Studies course cluster will foster intellectual exchange among faculty and students and will explore many aspects of Mediterranean cultures—contemporary and historical—and their central importance to the liberal arts.

Faculty participants come from the departments of classics, Romance languages, film, art history, music, philosophy and religion.

In addition to drawing together many existing and new course offerings, this cluster will generate student research projects and capstone presentations alongside a program of associated exhibitions and film screenings.

Goals of this cluster include greater integration of students’ study-abroad experiences with their Bowdoin courses and a broader context for their engagement in the cultures of the Mediterranean.

Faculty coordinators for this cluster are Barbara Weiden Boyd and Davida Gavioli.

Alumni may also get a taste of this experience through a cruise with Associate Professor of Classics and Associate Curator for the Ancient Collection Jim Higginbotham June 10-20, 2013, titled Ancient Lost Cities of the Mediterranean: A Voyage From Barcelona to Dubrovnik.

Medieval–Renaissance–Early Modern Studies

This cluster will introduce students to the diverse offerings the College provides in the history, literature, art and culture of Europe from the Middle Ages through 1800.

Over the last decade, Bowdoin has assembled an exceptionally strong group of faculty who specialize in pre-modern European topics.

Denys Calvaert, "Annunciation," c. 1595, oil on copper, from the collections of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

They regularly organize reading groups, mentor postdoctoral fellows, and lecture in each others’ classes.

The “Med-Ren-Early Modern” course cluster provides greater structure to this intellectual collaboration, coordinates and strengthens the range of courses offered in this area, and creates new opportunities for increased student participation.

In addition to courses, lectures, performances, and individual student research projects, faculty will create a series of workshops for faculty and students on topics of shared interest, such as paleography.

There are also a number of projects already underway to further integrate resources from the Museum of Art and the Mitchell Special Collections with this thematic area of the curriculum.

Participating faculty are drawn from the departments of art history, classics, English, history, music, religion and Romance languages. Faculty coordinators are Dallas Denery, Aaron Kitch and Meghan Roberts.

In preparation for these clusters, a number of faculty groups will be working this summer to develop new curricular offerings and strengthen existing ones along with creating other associated programming.

There has been strong interest by the faculty in each of these course clusters, and we anticipate that we will continue to add new clusters to this initial set over the coming years.

We are excited by this development in our curriculum and look forward to launching a website this summer illuminating these and other opportunities for student study and research in the humanities.

President Barry Mills '72, educator Geoffrey Canada '74 and investor Stanley Druckenmiller '75 amid their discussion, “Generational Theft: How Entitlement Spending is Stealing Opportunity from America’s Youth,” May 7, 2013, in Pickard Theater, Memorial Hall.

President Barry Mills moderated the discussion “Generational Theft: How Entitlement Spending is Stealing Opportunity from America’s Youth,” among educator Geoffrey Canada ’74, investor Stanley Druckenmiller ’75, and members of a packed Pickard Theater audience who posed questions to the duo.

Watch the discussion in its entirety:

View the Powerpoint presentation used during the discussion:

Canada’s and Druckenmiller’s visit to campus follows 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.

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.

Baseball: The Bowdoin baseball team concluded their regular season with a split against Middlebury in a non-conference doubleheader on Saturday afternoon. Middlebury shut out the Polar Bears, 2-0, in the opening game of the series before Bowdoin battled back with a 9-0 victory in game two. Bowdoin concludes the regular season with a 23-13 record, while the Panthers carry a 10-18 mark. The Polar Bears extended their season by qualifying for the NESCAC tournament that will be played next weekend at Wesleyan.

Softball: Casey Correa doubled in the fifth and sixth innings to spur Bowdoin to a 5-1 come-from-behind victory over Middlebury in game five of the 2013 NESCAC Softball Championship. The victory put the Polar Bears into the finals on Sunday. Trailing 1-0, Bowdoin (30-13) scored three runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth to earn the win. They will face host Tufts in game six of the NESCAC Championship at 10 am on Sunday. The Polar Bears will need to win twice to take the title.

Women’s Tennis: Winning two of three doubles matches and its first three singles pairings, the second-seeded Williams women’s tennis team notched a 5-1 victory over third-seeded Bowdoin to advance to the title game of the 2013 NESCAC Championship. With the victory, Williams improved to 17-4 on the season and will play Amherst in the NESCAC title match on Sunday. The Polar Bears fell to 14-4 on the year and are expected an NCAA Tournament bid when selections are announced on Monday.

Track and Field: Coby Horowitz came away with a New England title as the Bowdoin men’s and women’s outdoor track teams competed at the New England Division III Championship Saturday at Colby. Horowitz claimed the crown in the 1500 meter run (3:48.77) to take the lone first-place finish for Bowdoin at the meet. The Polar Bear women finished eighth among competing teams while the Bowdoin men placed ninth overall.

Students gathered outdoors at the Brunswick Apartments on Friday for a celebration featuring student performers, face painting, art, and some more terrific springtime weather.

Photos by Dennis Griggs

This story is a follow-up to an earlier preview about the trip.

The students in Nadia Celis’ Spanish class who traveled to Colombia over spring break came back with more than just a deeper academic understanding of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.

Although the focus of the trip was to explore the historical and cultural context of García Márquez’s work, Celis said students gained another lesson. They also developed a new perspective on their identities as foreigners and Americans.

Read the full story here.

Andy Palmer ’88

Andy Palmer, Class of 1988, has received the Angel Investor of the Year award from the New England Venture Capital Association’s first venture capital awards ceremony, the Boston Globe reports.

Palmer is a serial entrepreneur who has helped start, fund or found more than 25 companies in technology, health care and the life sciences. Most recently, he founded Koa Lab, a shared workspace in Harvard Square for promising start-ups. He also co-founded Data Tamer with MIT professor Michael Stonebraker. Previously, Palmer was co-founder and founding CEO of Vertica Systems (acquired by Hewlett Packard), and before that was a member of the start-up team and the SVP and CIO at Infinity Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INFI).

Andy earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1994 and his undergraduate degrees in English and history (with a computer science minor) from Bowdoin College in 1988.