There’s more to Nikhil Dasgupta ’16 than blazers, khaki pants and barber shop tunes. A member of Bowdoin’s oldest a cappella group, the Meddiebempsters, Dasgupta has recently released an extended play (EP) recording.“It might be a little precocious to call it that,” said Dasgupta.Instead, he called the recording “more [of] just a collection of thoughts over the past years, so it’s not like anything specific. It’s more like what’s been going on in my head.”This summer Dasgupta and his roommate Zach Albert ’16 decided to get into the studio together and record an alternative folk EP, which they plan to share with people who are interested in their music. Albert played the drums and Dasgupta played all the other instruments for the recordings.The Circus, Dasgupta’s band at Bowdoin, mostly covers other bands, but also writes and performs some of its own original songs.  The band consists of Dasgupta and Albert, as well as juniors Harry Rube, Chris MacDonald, Simon Moushabeck, and Shan Nagar.It all started two years ago with a group of friends who lived in same first-year dorm. “We got together and started playing,” said Dasgupta.The band likes “doing [its] own interpretation of songs…like old rock [and] songs that are upbeat and would work at a party,” said Dasgupta.Dasgupta has lived in many different places and went to high school at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India, but now calls Dover, Mass. his home.Currently a mathematics major, he plays guitar and has played piano since age eight.He decided to continue his musical journey all the way into college, and auditioned for the Meddiebempsters as a first year. Dasgupta said he likes the different approach the Meddiebempsters take to collegiate a cappella, which tends to be very pop-oriented. The Meddiebempsters instead incorporate old-fashioned barbershop arrangements, and Dasgupta said he enjoys getting to take a break from the music he hears elsewhere every day.His participation in the Meddiebempsters has defined his Bowdoin experience. All of his closest friends are from the Meddies, and Dasgupta finds it “musically very fulfilling as well.”In the future, Dasgupta hopes to continue with music by working as a sound engineer or by working for a record label.“I always wanted to go somewhere with it, [but] that probably doesn’t mean playing in a band on stage,” he said.Dasgupta said he loves the feeling he gets when performing on stage with his band.“It’s easy to feed off the audience getting really excited,” he said.“Some of the most fun I’ve had at Bowdoin has been on stage.” Dasgupta says that performing with the Meddiebempsters is different because of the dynamic of the large group. “We are all sort of supporting each other in a sense,” he said.“It’s like we are just hanging out and making jokes with ourselves and singing.”Although Dasgupta’s schedule can be hectic—with mathematics and computer science courses taking up much of his time—he enjoys keeping busy.“It’s dangerous for me to not have something to do,” he said.

Miranda Hall ’18 began writing music at the age of 13 and has since become an accomplished and passionate singer-songwriter. 

“Some people need to play sports. Some people need to paint. I need to sing,” she said. “I wouldn’t be completely living if I weren’t singing.” 

When she was younger, Hall also taught herself to play the acoustic guitar with help from her father.

While Hall has been writing for a long time, she has always been nervous to perform her music.

This summer, however, Hall tested her courage by performing on the streets of Seattle. 

“When I first started writing I would show [my songs] to my friends, but I was too nervous to perform in front of people,” she said.

 “Performing on the street this summer was a challenge that I gave to myself. I wanted to see if I was brave enough to perform for people who had never met me.” 

Hall stood on the streets and opened her case, hoping to pique the interest of those passing by.

“It was never to make money, it was just to be brave,” she said. “If you are genuinely pouring your heart out to someone with words you wrote, there is no way people won’t stop and listen.” 

One of the most memorable moments of her summer came in the form of a gift from a young fan.

“I was singing “Alice”—a song that I wrote about “Alice in Wonderland”—to a little girl, and I could tell that she was really listening to me,” she said. “Afterwards, she came up to me a gave me the stuffed animal she was holding, and I still have it.”

Another one of Hall’s favorite memories is when a man asked to join her performance. “I was singing ‘No Diggity’ and a jazz musician came up to me and started playing with me,” she said.

Hall loves to write music, whether she is writing a song for herself, for someone else, or is just inspired randomly. She said she tries to capture and show a feeling through her words.

“Singing allows me to capture the beautiful moments in life. The first song I wrote was when I was looking out the window in California and it was raining. I just wanted to capture how calm that moment was,” she said.

Hall’s favorite musician is Ed Sheeran because she said he completely enchants his listeners. “Whenever he sings you can tell he is just sharing himself with the listeners.” she said. “I went to his concert when I was 16 and I waited for four hours after the concert to meet him. He signed my purse and I made friends with his security guard while I waited.” 

At Bowdoin, Hall is involved with the Bowdoin Music Collective (BMC) and is interested in bringing singer-songwriters together. 

“The BMC puts on music events and performances,” she said. “I have performed at Unplugged and pop-up open mic nights, as well as the Baxter Coffee House.” 

In addition to the BMC, Miranda is a part of the Bowdoin Outing Club, the Salsa Club and the Bowdoin Art Society. 

Hall is releasing a new single on November 1 called “White Car.” She has already released an EP named “Kingdom” that can be found on iTunes and Spotify. 

“I’m not signed with any label, but I think that if you have a passion, the only thing holding you back is self-doubt,” she said.

Hall ran a Kickstarter to raise money for her musical endeavor. She promised to write songs for people if they donated.  

“I got an email from a man in Afghanistan asking me to write a song for his wife, and I was so excited,” she said. “There was a great response.” 

Hall said she truly believes in following her passions and sharing them with others. “If you love something and you are genuine, people will respond,” she said.  “I’m going to keep singing and putting myself out there. If all else fails, this is something I’ll do in my dorm room on Monday nights.” 

Check out Hall’s EP “Kingdom” on iTunes and look out for her new single “White Car,” which will bereleased November 1.        

WIRED UP: Stevie Lane displays a wire sculpture that she is creating for her independent study.

It’s hard to believe that simple loops of metal wire can be transformed into complex forms like hands and feet, but Stevie Lane ’15 makes it possible. She is exploring the twists and turns of wire sculpture through an independent study with Sculptor-in-Residence John Bisbee.

Lane is using this semester to make a self-portrait out of black annealed rebar wire, playing off a similar project that she enjoyed in Sculpture II.

“Bowdoin doesn’t have [a sculpture course] after Sculpture II, so I spoke with Bisbee and asked if I could do an independent study with him in wire, since that was something I really loved when I did it in Sculpture II,” said Lane.

“Bisbee was really encouraging in terms of what I made [for that assignment], so that was really my kind of reason for wanting to continue to explore my ability to articulate shapes with wire and work with realism instead of the abstract,” she said.

The personal power of a self-portrait interested Lane.

“Self-portraits are so much a part of the tradition of drawing...I can’t draw well, but I see this as my own interpretation of the self-portrait assignment—just that it’s three dimensional and my “graphite” is the wire itself!” she added in an email to the Orient.

Lane hopes that this self-portrait—set in heroic scale, which is about one and a half times the size of her own body—will ultimately be free-standing. However, making a large structures like a full-body self-portrait and having it support itself will be a challenging task.

Since she doesn’t weld or solder the wire, “There’s potential for [the sculpture] to be a lot weaker,” said Lane. “You also have to come up with creative ways to attach things.”

Therefore, her final project, which will go on display in the beginning of December, may not end up being a fully-formed figure but instead a series of body parts like hands. To Lane, the final product is not her only goal for the independent study.

“You really get to learn...about your material,” she said. “By narrowing your focus, you have to push yourself to dig deeper...and [to see] what comes out of that.”

Lane is more familiar with the “hot” connections created by glue or soldering than the type of work she is currently pushing herself to explore.

“Ever since I was really young…[my mom and I] used to put down newspaper and get hardware like nuts and bolts and s-hooks…I used to make these little animals by hot gluing hardware together,” she said.

Lane is a Government and Legal Studies major with an English minor and hasn’t taken any visual arts courses outside of sculpture. However, she said Bisbee is one of her favorite professors.

“This independent study is just an excuse to get to work closely with him,” she said. “He, I think, is somehow able to get everybody to produce the best work that they possibly could and I don’t even know how he does it,” said Lane.

While she has at times considered a career in art, it seems that sculpting and metal-working will remain a serious hobby.

“I don’t really know how far I could pursue art. I don’t even know how I’d begin, but it’s definitely something that I’m always going to do on the side, something I do do all the time when I’m at home,” she said.

Lane’s involvement on campus extends beyond her sculpture. She also hosts a radio show, co-leads the volunteer program Book Buddies where students work with ESL students at local schools, contributes to the literary magazine The Quill, and pole vaulted on the varsity track team up until this year. Next semester, she will be pursuing an independent study in creative writing, her other artistic interest.

The Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin—formerly called the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship (BCF), which is no longer officially recognized by the College—recently celebrated the opening of the Joseph and Alice McKeen Christian Study Center at 65 Harpswell Road. The center is off campus but located near Farley Field House, and will serve as the venue for the fellowship to conduct bible studies, engage in weekly group discussions, and host guest speakers.

The space is named after Joseph and Alice McKeen—Bowdoin’s first president and his wife. According to Rob Gregory, one of the volunteer leaders of the group, McKeen worked to spread the gospel to Bowdoin students, and the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin aims to follow in his footsteps.

An open house was held at the center on September 27 and featured Owen Strachan ’03 as a keynote speaker. Other alumni of the fellowship travelled to Brunswick to attend the event.

The Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin acquired the off-campus property because it is no longer an officially recognized group at the College and therefore does not have the ability to book regular meetings in on-campus spaces. The fellowship had previously used the Chapel, Daggett Lounge, and 30 College Street for bible studies and other gatherings.

Bob Ives, director of religious and spiritual life, said that even though the fellowship is not an organized religious group at Bowdoin, it can still meet on campus—the spaces are just more difficult to reserve because College-affiliated groups receive preference. Ives said that he has offered 30 College Street for the group’s use and would like the fellowship to continue to contribute to spiritual life at the College.

At the end of last year, the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin chose not to recharter with Bowdoin Student Government (BSG), following a series of events that began in the spring. In February, the fellowship’s advisors—Rob and Sim Gregory—refused to sign the College’s Volunteer Agreement. The agreement contained a non-discrimination policy that they felt they could not sign due to religious convictions, specifically the Christian gospel’s interpretation of homosexuality.

After the Gregorys, who had been heavily involved with BCF for almost a decade, declined to sign the agreement, the fellowship was given two options—it could either recharter as a College-recognized organization and select new advisors who complied with the Volunteer Agreement or choose not to recharter and keep the Gregorys as advisors. Last year’s BSG Student Organization Oversight Committee (SOOC) chair Danny Mejia-Cruz ’16 and the Office of Student Activities worked with students in the fellowship to find a new advisor if they were interested in re-chartering, but the group decided it would rather keep the Gregorys as advisors. Harriet Fisher ’17, this year’s SOOC chair, said she has not received any interest from the fellowship in rechartering the group this year.

The house on Harpswell Road was purchased on April 14, 2014 for $250,000. Gregory declined to comment on where the finances to purchase the property came from, but it is listed along with the name Kirk DiVietro in Brunswick Real Estate tax documents. It is unclear whether DiVietro has a connection to the Gregorys or to the College. When the Gregorys acquired the building—a colonial-style house built in 1900—it needed “considerable repairs,” said Gregory. Ryan Ward ’17, one of the leaders of the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin, said that he believed at one point the building had been condemned.

With the help of other volunteers, the Gregorys worked many hours over the summer to restore the building so that it could be used by the fellowship at the beginning of the academic year. They also hired contractors to do some more extensive repairs.

“We put the time and effort and resources into making sure that it was fit for the purpose for which it had been set apart,” said Gregory. “And that was to do this kind of work for students who want to learn about the scriptures and study the scriptures on a location near the Bowdoin campus.”

The Christian Study Center consists of two units—the main house in the front and an apartment unit in the back. Altogether the center has five rooms, with an estimated housing capacity of five people. Ward said that although the fellowship is just using the space for bible studies, discussion groups, and speaker events right now, he eventually hopes residents will live in the house.

“Whether it’s a young couple who’s staying there to kind of see if things are working for students, or [students themselves], that’s the plan for the future,” said Ward.

Although the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin is no longer officially recognized by the College, its role in the Bowdoin community has remained fairly consistent with previous years.

“We still meet for bible studies; we still have other gatherings on Thursday nights,” said Ward. “We pretty much have done what we’ve always been doing, we’ve just shifed it over to this new space.”

“I don’t want to make it look like we’re separating ourselves from the campus because we’re definitely not,” he added. “But we also don’t want to entangle ourselves too much in the operation of the College.”

Some of the group’s responsibilities have changed, though. In the past, BCF selected speakers and organized programs in the College’s chapel, according to Ward. Now, Ives and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life is responsible for running the chapel.

Ives hopes to keep the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin active in campus religious life.

“Even though they’re not a formal, organized group through BSG, they are a religious group so I invite them to the [Bowdoin] Interfaith Council,” said Ives. “I certainly want to make sure that they are acknowledged.”

The Interfaith Council is made up of the eight religious groups on Bowdoin’s campus. Its first meeting of the year will take place on October 22. Ives has not received a response from the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin about whether they will participate this year and Ward and Gregory both declined to comment on the group’s plans.

“It’s still in discussion,” said Ward.

New group part of a consortium The Joseph and Alice McKeen Christian Study Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit that operates on grants, membership fees and donations, according to its website.

The fellowship is still connected to the national InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group, but with the acquisition of the physical Christian Study Center, it has also become a member of the Consortium of Christian Studies Centers. This consortium is independent from Inter-Varsity. Altogether, the consortium consists of over 15 established study centers throughout the country.

Many of the centers in the consortium are located in college towns and serve the students of the nearby colleges and universities in an unofficial way.

For instance, the Erasmus Institute at the Five Colleges in Amherst, Mass. is an established center in the Consortium of Christian Studies Centers that is unofficially tied to Amherst. Other established centers in the consortium include the Chesterton House, a Christian studies center at Cornell, and the Rivendell Institute at Yale.

Ives noted that Christian study centers are becoming increasingly popular around colleges and universities across the nation.

“Some of the leaders of InterVarsity have shared that they really don’t like to do this because they want to be on the college campuses—that’s their tradition,” he said.“But this is with a lot of changing mores and morality of different college campuses and their very vigorous feeling of faith about preserving the nature of marriage from their particular perspective.” 

Despite the changes the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin has undergone in the past nine months, the group seems to be happy with how things are going now.

“The changed venue really isn’t an issue for gospel work—it never has been,” said Gregory. “The work of Christian ministry isn’t dependent on one place, and while we enjoyed the seven or eight years we had to preach the gospel in the chapel on Bowdoin's campus, we’ll preach the same message wherever we have an opportunity to do it.”

“We’re really grateful that we’re able to continue to do the InterVarsity work in a place that’s convenient to the students,” he added. “That was important to them and it’s important to us.”

Ward expressed similar feelings of gratitude and a certainty that relations with the College will be nothing but cordial in the future. 

“So far I’m very pleased with how things have gone,” he said. “We don’t feel as though we’ve been pushed against our will to do this. This has been something that we think, from our perspective, is God’s will, and for the better in bringing the gospel which is essentially what our mission is and what we hope to do more of as we figure out how we’re going to use this space.”

This fall Bowdoin is offering a landscape painting course, in which students will have the opportunity to work in the open air at various locations. One of just a few courses at Bowdoin that takes students outdoors, it is taught by professional landscape painter James Mullen. The fall course is offered every two to three years.

“The weather in Maine is never more beautiful than in September and early October,” said Mullen.

Although there are other visual arts classes that spend time outside, Landscape Painting focuses specifically on the unique setting of autumn in Maine.

In fact, that was the main reason Mariah Reading ’16 took the course. 

“I’ve grown up in Maine my whole life and fall is my favorite season,” she said. “I thought, ‘how cool would it be to go outside and paint.’ It sounded like a dream.” 

Tess Hamilton ’16, an Earth and Oceanographic Science major, is also looking forward to the course. 

“Being able to communicate [the outdoors during this time] through a different form is really cool for me,” she said.

A visual arts background and the Painting I class were prerequisites for the course.

Mullen says that students will be going outside for the first few weeks. After that they have the option to continue to paint outside or move their work inside. If they move inside, they will have the opportunity to work from photographs they take, images from their imagination or smaller landscape pieces they will create in the first few weeks. 

“We’ll talk about a range of things and my hope is that everybody has got that thing that they respond to,” he said.

Mullen hopes to have each student complete six projects during the semester. The first project was to take a famous piece of landscape art and recreate it themselves. These pieces can be seen on the walls of the Robert H. and Blythe Bickel Edwards Center for Art and Dance. 

Next week they will be going to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art to view famous works of landscape art as inspiration. 

Another project will have students heading to Bowdoin’s Coastal Studies Center on Orr’s Island. Students will be hiking the trails and creating landscape paintings from what they view.Hamilton expressed her excitement about the “nuances that you wouldn't think of” when working outdoors. 

All of the students’ landscapes will be on display during the open house in the Edwards Center at the end of the semester. 

The committee searching for President Barry Mills’ successor shared the job description it is providing to applicants and issued a call for nominations in an email sent to members of the Bowdoin community last Friday. Over the summer, the committee hired the firm Isaacson, Miller to assist with the search and conducted information-gathering forums with students, faculty and staff, according to the email.

Isaacson, Miller is an executive recruitment firm that recently consulted for Amherst’s and Williams’ presidential searches.

The job description was written by the recruitment firm and the search committee—which consists of 10 trustees, three faculty members, two students, two staff members and a member of the Alumni Council—and was reviewed by the Board of Trustees.

The document begins with the writings of two former presidents of the College, William DeWitt Hyde’s “Offer of the College” and the portion of Joseph McKeen’s inaugural address that highlights the importance of serving the common good.

The rest of the document consists of a description of the College and a list of the challenges the next president will face.

“I think it is a document that tries to present the College first and foremost to potential candidates for the college presidency, but also to frame the discussion about the College’s aspirations and what objective the next president  might lead the College towards,” said Jes Staley ’79, the trustee who is serving as chair of the Presidential Search Committee, in a phone interview with the Orient.

The job description refers to Bowdoin’s upward trajectory five times, with the introductory section stating, “The College seeks a new president who can extend Bowdoin’s trajectory.”Staley said that based on conversations he has had with members of the committee and other members of the Bowdoin community, there is a shared belief that the College is in a good place.

“This is not a college that is in need of a major change because the school is in such terrific shape—the quality of the faculty, the quality of the students, the quality of the residential life, the support of the alumni—as the document underscores, people just want to make sure that we find the best possible candidate to continue what is a pretty extraordinary place,” he said.

The section of the job description titled “Qualifications and Experience” mentions the ability to lead a conversation about the curriculum, an understanding of college governance, and experience working with both faculty and board of trustees. Staley said that those preferred qualifications are not an indication that the committee is only considering applicants working in academia.

“We haven’t set out criteria that limit the range of candidates that the committee can look at,” he said. “Clearly there’s an appreciation by the committee of the value of finding an individual with a deep understanding of academic life and an appreciation for liberal arts education.”

The committee also laid out its expectation that the next president will be able to “engage effectively with the many constituencies of the college, skillfully negotiating different points of view” and “articulate the value of a liberal arts education in the twenty-first century.”

During an interview with the Orient last semester, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies Tess Chakkalakal, a member of the search committee, said that the second of these abilities is particularly important to her.

“What I’m looking for is someone who really has not just a commitment to the liberal arts in general, but someone who really is on the front line in the current debates regarding our college’s role in training young people to become active citizens and productive in the world,” she said.

The job description praises Mills’ administration for raising funds dedicated to financial aid and diversifying the faculty and student body, and calls on the next president to continue expanding access to the College.

“The new president should extend Bowdoin’s efforts to remain affordable to first-generation and middle-class families, continue efforts to diversify the faculty and staff, and address the academic and social needs of the student population to ensure that every Bowdoin student feels included in the campus culture and is positioned to thrive,” it reads.

Staley said that the committee would keep the College’s commitment to diversity in mind throughout the search process.

“The composition of the search committee tried to reflect the diversity of the Bowdoin community overall,” said Staley. “There’s a deep commitment by the College to embrace diversity, and I think that embracing diversity extends to how the search committee is going to handle its search.”

Staley said that in order to attract the most talented applicants, the committee has to keep the names of candidates confidential. Applicants do not want to risk losing their current jobs by demonstrating a public interest in becoming Bowdoin’s next president.

Withholding the names of candidates is common practice during a college’s presidential search, according to Staley.

The committee has already received nominations and will continue to receive them in the coming weeks.

“We have reviewed a very long list of potential candidates and we are going to be reaching out to dozens and dozens,” said Staley. “These are people that we’re going to be approaching, people that have been recommended to us, and people that have approached us. It is a long list and I’m sure it will be an even longer list as the fall moves forward.”

A set number of students are endorsed by Bowdoin coaches each year even though their high school grades and test scores do not necessarily meet the standards of the average accepted Bowdoin students. Admissions gives many of these students’ application materials early reads to alert coaches to the likelihood that the student-athlete will be accepted.

This system is not confined to Brunswick, and for the last decade, the entire NESCAC has used a process to ensure that its sports events are perenially competitive, enabling uniformity in the 11 member institutions and establishing a mutual understanding of how rosters are filled. 

“NESCAC institutions recognize the important role that athletics play on our campuses,” said Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan. “With that, a system has been put in place to help ensure that institutions are able to develop athletic programs that are competitive within the conference.”

Discussion of the role of student-athletes in liberal arts academia is a common conversation topic, but this admissions process is widely unknown. 

Though a set system has been in place since 2002 and admissions and athletic administrators are generally open to talking vaguely about it, access to the specific information remains guarded and there are few means through which laypeople can find explanations. Multiple Bowdoin coaches declined to comment to the Orient on the specifics of the process, and according to Ryan, school policy dictates that numbers not be distributed publicly.

The NESCAC’s highly regulated recruitment system was first widely revealed in a December 2005 New York Times article featuring Amherst’s dean of admissions and financial aid, Thomas Parker.

“The real danger was in not acknowledging that we give preferential treatment to athletes,” said Parker in the article. “It engendered a corrosive cynicism. When it was on the table exactly what we do, it wasn’t as bad as some faculty thought.”

Parker was integral in formulating the current NESCAC-wide system in the early 2000s. When he arrived at Amherst in 1999 from Williams—where he had held the same position—the conference’s recruiting was very different from what it is now.

“There was virtually no regulation or oversight of the relationship between admissions offices and the athletic departments,” he said in an interview with the Orient. He explained that Williams’ and Amherst’s presidents were both interested in re-evaluating the number of recruited athletes and their academic calibers.

“Amherst and Williams lined our athletes up and said, ‘We’re virtually identical schools academically, so our athletes should be identical,’” said Parker.

Implementing these new regulations conference-wide, however, was an arduous process. First, Amherst and Williams brought in Wesleyan, the third member school of the NESCAC’s so-called “Little Three.” Then the topic of these schools’ recruiting caps came up at a meeting of NESCAC presidents, who asked for admissions representatives from the whole conference to collaborate on reformulating the system. By 2002, a group of admissions deans had successfully modified the nascent system of the Little Three to be uniform across the league.

As explained in Bowdoin’s 2006 reaccreditation self-survey, the NESCAC’s target-based athletic admissions model aimed to “reduce the number of recruited athletes admitted…and raise the academic profile of athletes.” The overall volume and competition of D-III sports had increased significantly in the past few decades, which at Bowdoin brought about “legitimate questions about the opportunity costs of admitting athletes to fill 31 teams at the expense of other highly qualified applicants in the Bowdoin pool.”

According to Parker, each NESCAC institution is allowed a maximum of 14 recruits for having a football team, with an additional two per remaining varsity sport. He said that every NESCAC school currently subscribes to the process. For Amherst, that number is 66 recruits, or athletic factors (AFs).

“In those 66 cases, the athletic input controls the decision,” said Parker. “You have to say that in that group of 66 students, preference was given to them in the process, no question about it.”

Parker said that for teams that do not compete at the D-III level, an extra AF recruit spot is added every other year in order to attract higher caliber athletes. For instance, Bowdoin’s 31 varsity teams factor into an allotted total, but he noted that a sport like nordic skiing, which competes outside of the NESCAC at the D-I level, is awarded further support. Other examples include Trinity’s squash and Colby’s alpine skiing teams.

Following Parker’s formula, the number of allotted recruits at Bowdoin would be around 75, or about 15 percent of the incoming class. An Orient article last spring cited this number at 77, based on a speech by President Barry Mills at a faculty meeting, but further investigation has not been able to confirm this number.

Those recruiting caps of supported athletes are then subdivided into “bands”—sometimes referred to as slots—which separate recruits academically based on how they compare to the averaged statistics of accepted students. Students in the B band have scores slightly below the averages, while C-band recruits are lower. Parker said that schools cannot consider prospective student-athletes whose numbers would make them fall below the C band’s lower boundary. Students whose scores place them well within the averages fall into the A band, but these individuals are not factored into the athletic support numbers.

AFs are considered those prospective student-athletes in the B and C bands, though Parker noted “there’s only a very limited number of C bands that each school can take.”

At Bowdoin, an agreement dictates that the admissions and athletic departments “don’t talk about numbers or qualifications related to those bands externally,” according to Ryan.

As a point of comparison, Parker said in the 2005 New York Times article that the mean SAT score for that year’s freshman class was a 1442. The lowest band was for “students with strong high school records in challenging courses and with scores of 1250 to 1310 on the two-part College Board exam. The next-highest band required a very strong record and course load and SAT scores from 1320 to 1430.” 

“At Amherst,” the article continued, “the mean SAT score for athletes filling slots was 60 to 75 points below the mean for the current freshman class.”

Once the admissions deans fully understood the differentiation between the bands based on academic achievement, “we had to line up the other schools, which turned out to be a pretty big task,” Parker said.

Implementing the numbering system wasn’t inherently difficult; the challenge came in identifying where cut-offs for B and C bands occur across various institutions.

Some member institutions required no testing, some required subject tests, and there were significant gaps in average scores. After a few years, the deans standardized a system with modified test score and GPA averages depending on the means of each college’s student body.

This breakdown of banding isn’t set in stone. In 2005 Amherst admitted 19 C-band recruits, but Parker said that number is now down to 12. Additionally, the academic qualifications for the lower band recruits has been raised due to heightened academic competitiveness in admissions.

“But we’ve done that league-wide,” he added. “We’re not going to do anything unilaterally.”

“Since we’ve become a playing conference, recruiting and schools trying to identify and attract and have people enroll at their schools is as intense as I’ve seen it since I started here 30 years ago,” said men’s hockey head coach Terry Meagher. “It’s always been a part of what we do—for this program we’ve always recruited very extensively and we’ve had a thorough model—but across the board it’s as competitive as I’ve ever seen it.”

It would be impossible to field nearly any team using just two recruits per year, which is why the rest of the rosters are composed of A-band students no different academically from the other admitted students, who, said Parker, “would have made it under any conditions.”

“We hope that a few others are going to be able to get in on their own because we have to do it that way, but I think in general it works out,” said women’s soccer head coach Brianne Weaver.

“We have a limited number of people who we can talk to the admissions office about,” said football head coach Dave Caputi. “Some kids require a little more political capital than others—you have to pick and choose your battles. That’s constant across all sports. In a given year coaches may lobby a little higher for a really good player who’s in a position of high need.”

Just because each NESCAC institution may use a certain number of spots each year on athletic recruits with somewhat lower academic pedigrees, the way in which schools do this varies.

Though the overall allotment is based off an equal number of admittees per sport, each team does not use exactly two spots per season. Some coaches will sacrifice a spot one year for an extra recruit the next year. And depending on specific NESCAC schools’ preferences and traditions, some teams will consistently support more athletes in admissions than others.

“You want to adjust it according to the priorities [of each school],” said Parker. “There are probably some NESCAC schools that emphasize one sport over another for reasons of tradition or something else.”

Sailing coach Frank Pizzo said he understands that his program doesn’t hold as much gravitas as a sport like football or hockey, but recruits accordingly.

“We’re a sports team that doesn’t have a whole lot of recruiting pull,” he said. “I rely on a lot of kids to whom I’m like, ‘Hey, if you can get in through admissions, we’d love to have you.’”

Women’s rugby coach MaryBeth Mathews acknowledged a similar reliance on athletes admitted without a coach’s endorsement.

“I have a very limited amount of support,” she said. “One because it’s a participation sport that offers the non-recruited athletes a chance to play, but until other NESCAC women’s programs are varsity, the College doesn’t see the need.”

But students involved in less-supported athletic programs do understand the system’s engendering of inequitable support is “probably fair,” according to men’s swim captain Linc Rhodes ’14. Some teams, he said, “probably have a little more pull of people they can get in, but they’re also a way bigger influence on campus and they’re a bigger draw to people and alumni so they’re granted that.”

Softball pitcher Julia Geaumont ’16, who was named Gatorade Player of the Year—the top high school player—in Maine as a senior at nearby Saco’s Thornton Academy, still thinks it’s less than ideal.

“It’s kind of hard, looking at how some team gets a few more spots so maybe they can be a little bit better,” she said. “But, I mean, I think you’re going to find that any place.”

For those prospective students who fall above the B band—whose scores are indistinguishable from the average student at a given college—a coach can still be supportive in admissions.

However, this support will not be as strong, and in the words of Parker, “Would be no more helpful than the symphony director or the head of the studio art department. There’s a point at all the NESCAC schools when you can’t make any more academic distinctions because everybody is so good.”

Parker said that these students are referred to as non-athletic factors (NAFs). Just like students applying to Bowdoin with an interest in intercollegiate athletics, many students apply here with plans to participate in other extracurricular activities.

“You’re not going to come here and just be an athlete, you’re going to be involved in the theater or the arts or the newspaper,” said Ryan. “And that’s as important, if not more important, than your athletic ability.”

When choosing between so many highly-qualified A-band applicants, each student’s non-academic strengths are carefully considered to figure out how they could best fit at the school. At this point, some students will be recognized in admissions by their coaches for a vote of confidence, and others may be identified by musical directors or other extracurricular leaders.

But not having a conference-wide system in place for evaluating these activities makes it less clear as to how different schools support these types of students. Parker said that athletics is the most uniform because any NESCAC school knows or can easily find out what the ten other schools are doing, thanks to the structured process already in place for recruiting athletes.

Part two: an investigation of the recruiting timeline, including a look at “early reads” in admissions and the benefits of the athletic recruiting visit. In two weeks: examining the academic performance of athletes once they get to Bowdoin and being a student-athlete at the College.   

Benjamin Jealous, former president of the NAACP, opened his Common Hour speech last Friday by calling out Governor Paul LePage, who in 2011—while Jealous was still in charge of the NAACP—told the civil rights organization that they could “Kiss my butt.”    “You can look at his own family and see that he’s benefited from the work of the NAACP: the Governor descends from French Catholics, who were lynched viciously in the state in the early part of the twentieth century,” Jealous said. “He would not be governor of this state if it was not for our work, and he needs to show us more respect.”   Jealous’ speech, which concluded with a standing ovation by the roughly 450 community members in attendance at Pickard Theater, was titled “That One Big Thing,” and focused primarily on how Bowdoin students can motivate themselves to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing the world today. 

“It’s ultimately those acts of solidarity with our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans—no matter where they live or what status they have—that defines us as great to ourselves,” said Jealous in an interview with the Orient after his speech. “If I really was talking about anything today, I was trying to get people to focus on how to be a hero to themselves.”   A committee of faculty, staff, and students brought Jealous to campus to speak in commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy. Jealous’ speech came a month after spoken-word group Climbing PoeTree performed on campus for MLK day.

Jealous, a born-and-raised Californian with relatives who attended Bowdoin, first visited campus when he was 17 and touring colleges. However, he ended up attending Columbia University, where he began working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.    Jealous told a number of anecdotes to illustrate his path from young college student to head of one of the largest civil rights groups in the country. 

He spoke about his time in Mississippi, when he organized statewide protests against a decision that would close multiple historically black colleges in the state and convert one of them to a prison. Jealous recounted the story of meeting in a Waffle House at 2 a.m. with a group of his colleagues who had just been chased out of a rally by white supremacists in Starksville County. When an old white man approached them and asked if they were the men he had seen on the television, they responded yes, then grew uncomfortable as he set down his bag as if hiding a gun in his waistband.   “I just said, so now everyone in the restaurant could hear, ‘Hold up, let’s hear what he has to say,’ and they eased back, everybody watching his hand. He turns around and says ‘I just want to shake your hand, ’cause if I’d been born a nigger in this crazy state, I’d be mad as hell too! I’m so proud of you boys.’”   The man later joined Jealous and the others in helping to protest the school closures.   Jealous warned against easy assumptions of who your friends are and aren’t in activist circles. He recounted the story of a young woman named Jotaka Eaddy who he met while trying to repeal child capital punishment laws across the country. Eaddy—a former high school cheerleader and McDonald’s employee—convinced three state legislatures to outlaw death sentences for minors. One of her favorite tactics was to approach local pro-life organizations, which many people didn’t expect to cooperate with groups like the NAACP.   “You can’t afford to do that in a democracy, when you ultimately will need the will of the majority to secure the rights of the minority,” Jealous said in his speech. “You've got to be willing to extend the hand of friendship—or at least of partnership for that moment—to anybody who will receive it.”   After his talk, Jealous attended a luncheon with many campus leaders and activists, offering words of advice for how Bowdoin students can get out and make an impact.   “Einstein talked about his guilt of being at Princeton during World War II,” Jealous said. “It’s important when we’re in places of privilege to stay focused and engage in the world’s fight. I was inspired by students here who are on their way to D.C. to get locked up next week in a Keystone XL pipeline protest and other students who are really engaged in trying to ensure that Bowdoin stays on the path of being an increasingly inclusive campus.”   In his speech, Jealous talked about the myth that to change the world a person needs to be a famous leader. As the first president of the NAACP to be born after the Civil Rights Movement—for which the organization is so well known—Jealous worked hard during his tenure to make the group more than just a piece of history.   “In all these months—Black History Month, Women’s History Month—we put the great heroes on such high pedestals, often by omitting what was absolutely ordinary about them, like the fact that Martin Luther King’s classmates at seminary thought him so quiet they worried he might be an Episcopalian,” Jealous said. “We make their example seem unattainable, and in doing so, we sell ourselves short.”

Student reaction to Jealous’ speech emphasized the speaker's charisma, even though some felt the talk fell short of how-to advice.

“He was a great speaker, a great orator, storyteller,” said Jun Choi ’15. “I don't really know what I was expecting, but I thought it was going to be more instructional. It seemed more of a descriptive piece of his certain experiences...rather than this is how I did it.”

Others found more value in the anecdotal approach to his speech.

“I’d say I felt very motivated,” said Sam Shapiro ’14. “He made it seem as though there’s a lot of power in the voices of young people in that his stories involved him [as an] undergrad and then involved a young woman when she was high school age. He also talked about rallying college students and getting out student voices, so for me, as someone who’s 22, to have him put the center of power in the voices of young people and college students, was a pretty empowering experience.”

Jealous also commented on some of the topics raised in “What Does Bowdoin Teach,” a 360 page report by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) that among other things, questioned the College’s commitment to diversity and its lack of promoting American exceptionalism and citizenship.   “The role of the university ultimately is to train leaders for our country…and the world,” Jealous told the Orient. “Quite frankly, increasing training of people of all colors who can work effectively with people of all colors and cultures is critical. Groups such as the [NAS] are ultimately victims of their own nostalgia, and they should—rather than mourning the end of the past—be preparing for a more prosperous future. That’s what Bowdoin’s doing.”

Nicole Wetsman and Joe Sherlock contributed to this report.