Bowdoin Magazine, Vol. 94, No. 1, Fall 2022

WHAT WATER TEACHES

20 The Responsibility Is Personal

Dean Claudia Marroquin ’06 talks about the challenges of her work, the importance of kindness, and the role her personal story plays in assembling a Bowdoin class.

26 Finding the Pieces

Ed Burton ’91 pieces together information in painstaking searches to make good on a pledge to leave no soldier behind.

44 Q&A

Eric Ebeling ’98 steers a shipping company through geopolitics and other heavy weather.

32 Larger Than Everything Water is all around us in the landscape at Bowdoin, but it’s also ubiquitous in a place you might not expect—the classroom.

Open to Possibilities: Denise Shannon balances work with music, acting, and more.

Dine: Salted pumpkin caramels from food writer and editor Christine Burns Rudalevige.

A Tiny Island: Professor Brian Purnell tells the story of New York City in a Bowdoin class.

Remembered: With help from Arctic museum scholars, a group of Inughuit explorers are recognized.

In Beauty, a Benefit: Abelardo Morell ’71 donates two special prints to raise funds for financial aid.

Honoring the Animals: In caring for a world of creatures, veterinarian Carl Spielvogel ’13 has learned a few things.

Webb ’68 on using a different lens.

For three nights before the start of their first semester, an Orientation trip from the Class of 2026 camped in the foothills of the White Mountains. Located in the northwest corner of Maine, the campsite is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Bowdoin in the remote Aziscohos Valley. They hiked, went paddleboarding, kayaked, and canoed, and then cooked and camped together—on this night under a sky full of stars.

Photo by Fred Field

Formative Days

Dan Covell’s piece in the spring/ summer edition brought back some terrific football memories. I graduated in 1965. I went to Bowdoin largely because of Sid Watson, then head hockey coach at the College. I was a hockey player at St. Paul’s School (SPS) in Concord, New Hampshire, when Sid saw me play and encouraged me to apply. Largely also because of him, I decided to play football at Bowdoin as well. I had been the captain of the soccer team at SPS and did not feel that I could change to football at St. Paul’s. I waited until I got to Bowdoin. Playing for Nels Corey and Sid in football was a great honor. As many know, Sid played professional football, and he was an outstanding teacher of the game. We were a pretty good team and went 6-1, beating Maine in the last game 7-0 in Orono my junior year. He was the backfield coach, and had he asked me to go barefoot up Mt. Everest, I would have gladly done it. Again, thanks to the editor and to Dan for bringing back fond memories of a meaningful and formative friendship for me.

MAGAZINE STAFF

Executive Editor and Interim Editor

Alison Bennie

Associate Editor

Leanne Dech

Designer and Art Director

Melissa Wells Design Consultant 2Communiqué Editorial Consultant Laura J. Cole

Contributors

Mary Baumgartner Ed Beem P’13 Adam Bovie Jim Caton Doug Cook

Cheryl Della Pietra Chelsea Doyle Rebecca Goldfine Scott Hood Micki Manheimer Janie Porche Tom Porter

On the Cover: Photographs by Bob Handelman

FROM FLEDGLING TO FLOURISHING

I was delighted to see the last page of your Spring/Summer 2022 issue devoted to the Maine Island Trail Association (MITA). I was recruited by Dave Getchell in 1991 to help the fledgling MITA, then part of the Island Institute, with its start-up fundraising program. In this capacity, I was present at the meeting a few years later when Horace “Hoddy” Hildreth ’54, who was then president of the institute, agreed to allow MITA to become independent. It has been a pleasure since then to see the organization flourish and, more selfishly, for me to enjoy the unique experience of visiting scores of the MITA-protected Maine islands. It should not be forgotten that MITA founder Dave Getchell had a bit of Bowdoin in him, having spent a year or two there before finishing at the University of Maine, Orono.

Charlie Graham ’55

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BOWDOIN MAGAZINE (ISSN: 0895-2604) is published three times a year by Bowdoin College, 4104 College Station, Brunswick, Maine, 04011. Printed by Penmor Lithographers, Lewiston, Maine. Sent free of charge to all Bowdoin alumni, parents of current and recent undergraduates, members of the senior class, faculty and staff, and members of the Association of Bowdoin Friends.

Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors.

Please send address changes, ideas, or letters to the editor to the address above or by email to bowdoineditor@bowdoin.edu. Send class news to classnews@bowdoin.edu or to the address above.

Bill Mathews ’65

Sid Watson, circa 1959

PHOTO: GEORGE J. MITCHELL DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES

DENISE SHANNON DIRECTOR OF PROJECTS AND PLANNING FOR STUDENT AFFAIRS

OPEN TO POSSIBILITIES

Music has always been part of my life. I started piano lessons at eight, and violin lessons when I was twelve. I have been playing with the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra for twenty years, and I feel fortunate to play with a group that continually challenges itself with different types of music. In a “small world” coincidence, my first boss at Bowdoin is also a violinist, and we played together in the symphony for a few years.

I’m currently in my fifth job at the College— supporting the dean for student affairs—which says a lot about opportunity at Bowdoin. I value the many friendships I’ve made here and the com munity. And I love the variety of events available on campus, having access to a great gym, and being able to eat at wonderful dining facilities.

I grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, where most of my family still lives. Being so far from home, it’s very important to me to keep in touch with family and friends. And while I am pretty busy, I always try to stay open to new possibilities.

Doing so led me to take a chance on voice acting. For the past four years, I’ve been playing the character of Rhonda Roupp on the Restless Shores podcast. We’ve recorded two hundred episodes so far for the show, which is about intrigue surrounding the billion-dollar Roupp Pharmaceuticals located in Gamote Point. That led to doing radio interviews before each concert with the orchestra—and narrating a piece with the orchestra this winter.

I love the challenge of voice acting and playing the violin because there is always room to grow. And when I’m not thinking up my next personal project, I love taking advantage of the gifts of nature that Maine provides, such as hiking, explor ing nature preserves, and relaxing by the ocean.

Denise Shannon has worked at Bowdoin in four different areas: human resources, career planning, alumni career programs, and the dean for student affairs office. Outside of work, her pursuits are just as varied. She’s a violinist and board member for the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, an actor, and a voice actor.

FROM BOWDOIN AND BEYOND

PHOTO: HEATHER PERRY

Alumni Life

MUTUALLY REVEALING

A new Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) exhibition juxtaposes the work of two artists, Helen Frankenthaler and Jo Sandman, who built on the legacy of the abstract expressionism in which they were rooted. “Growing out of a close study of Frankenthaler’s intimate engagement with printmaking over five decades, and enriched by careful attention to the allied artmaking strategies developed by Sandman, Helen Frankenthaler and Jo Sandman: Without Limits sheds light,” says museum codirector Anne Collins Goodyear, “on the new creative pathways pioneered by these remarkable artists from the 1960s forward.”

Although not personally acquainted, Frankenthaler and Sandman expressed interest in the question of artistic influence and the intercon nectedness of artistic vision among contemporaries across generations. In this exhibition, the BCMA places Sandman and Frankenthaler— through their works—in dialogue with one another and allows them to, as Goodyear writes, “mutually reveal the radicality of the experimen tation in which each was embarked.”

The exhibition, she goes on to say, can open up new questions for its viewers “about the creative potential available in any given moment, about the intersection and transformation of artistic paradigms, and about the push and pull of the ever-shifting background and foreground of history itself.”

Below: Deep Sun, 1983, Artist Proof 7/16. Color etching, soft-ground etching, aquatint, spitbite aquatint, drypoint, engraving, and mezzotint on paper, 30 x 40 1/8 in. (76.2 x 101.92 cm), by Helen Frankenthaler, American, 1928–2011. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Gift of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, 2019.28.6. © 2022 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, New York.

A Troubling Truth

AS A SPECIALIST in the history of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and genocide, Peter Hayes ’68 was among the historians tapped by acclaimed documentary maker Ken Burns H’91 in his latest three-part series for PBS. The US and the Holocaust examines the response of the US to one of the greatest human itarian crises of the last century and exposes the viewer to some uncomfortable truths about the extent of global anti-Semitism in the years leading up to the war. America experienced a xenophobic backlash, explained Hayes, who is a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University, as large waves of immigrants started arriving in the late nineteenth century— many of them Jews from Central and Eastern Europe.

“People tended to increasingly view nationalities as if they were breeds or species,” he observed. “To liken nationalities to breeds was a fundamental categorical mistake. The biological pool of human beings between Germans and French, Dutch and English, is nothing like the biological or genetic pool between poodles and German Shepherds.”

Another disturbing fact highlighted by Hayes was the admi ration shown by a young Adolf Hitler for the way America treated its indigenous populations: “Hitler saw the expansion of Germany into Eastern Europe as foreshadowed by what we had done in North America—the expansion of the white people of the United States across the continent from east to west, brushing aside the people who were already here and confining them to reservations.”

Peter Hayes ’68 was featured in Ken Burns’s new documentary about the Holocaust.

Peter Hayes ’68

Dine

Salted Pumpkin Caramels

Recipe by Christine Burns Rudalevige

It's a good thing this recipe yields over five dozen caramels, because you can't eat just one. The spice is subtle, the sweetness countered by a shot of lemon juice, and the soft center enveloped by the crunch of pepitas on one side and the crackle of salt on the other.

Place the pepitas in a skillet over medium heat and toast them until they start to pop.

Line the bottom and sides of an eight-inch square glass pan with parchment. Butter the parchment just on the sides of the pan. Evenly spread the toasted pepitas on the bottom of the pan, on top of the parchment.

In a saucepan, combine the heavy cream, pumpkin puree, and spices. Get the mixture quite warm but do not boil. Set aside.

⅔ cup unsalted pepitas 1 ½ cups heavy cream

⅔ cup pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 2 cups white sugar

½ cup light corn syrup ⅓ cup good maple syrup ¼ cup of water

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in chunks

1 teaspoon lemon juice ¾ teaspoon flaky sea salt

DID YOU KNOW?

The current record for the world’s heaviest pumpkin is 2,624 lbs. That’s the weight of a 1971 Ford Maverick! This gigantic gourd was grown by Belgian Mathias Willemijns in 2016. The heaviest pumpkin ever grown in the United States weighed 2,528 lbs. It was grown by Steve Geddes of New Hampshire in 2018.

In a second pan, one with a heavy bottom and with sides at least four inches high, combine the sugar, both syrups, and water. Stir over medium-high heat until the sugars are melted, then let it boil until it reaches 244 degrees (the soft ball point on a candy thermometer). Then very carefully add the cream and pumpkin mixture, reduce the heat, and slowly bring this mixture back up to 240 degrees as registered on a candy thermometer. This can take some time—maybe 30 minutes—but don’t leave the kitchen. Watch the pot carefully and stir the mixture more frequently once it hits 230 degrees to keep it from burning at the bottom of the pan.

As soon as it reaches 240 degrees, pull it off the heat and stir in the butter and lemon juice, stirring vigorously so that the butter is fully incorporated.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Let cool thirty minutes and then sprinkle the flaky sea salt over the top. Let the caramels fully set (at least two hours) before using a hot knife (dip it in hot water and wipe it dry before each cut) to cut them into one-inch squares. Wrap them individually in waxed paper if not serving immediately.

Christine Burns Rudalevige is a food writer who currently serves as the editor of edible MAINE magazine. She moved to Maine ten years ago with her husband, Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin’s Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government.

NYC was the first city in the world to structure itself into the future. Starting in 1808, a group of cartographers, geographers, surveyors, real estate speculators, and bankers laid out a grid that reached into areas where almost no one lived, planning out a grid for a city that did not exist.

Did You Know?

A Tiny Island

Telling the story of New York City in a Bowdoin classroom.

Illustration by Jakob Hinrichs

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Brian Purnell is teaching a class this semester on his hometown, New York City. Born and raised in Coney Island, Brooklyn, Purnell centers much of his scholarship on the legacy of racial activism in New York City, but Gotham: The History of a Modern City takes a broad look at what forces and moments made “the city so nice they named it twice” the global metropolis it is today. The class looks at the ways the city developed over four hundred years, exploring New York’s history from the time period when Algonquian-speaking people hunted, fished, and farmed throughout the region up to the present, when New York City stands as one of the premier metropolises in the world. Its nickname, Gotham, and the mythical legacy that evokes has become as much an alter ego as an actual reflection of the city at hand, and students in the class confront opposing narratives and realities that exist in New York’s history. We talked to Professor Purnell about what makes this tiny island such an outsized force in the nation, the culture, and the world.

Controversial urban planner Robert Moses redesigned how cities worked. He knew the law so well he was able to consolidate multiple commissionerships in one person him. Every bridge, beach, or park, every highway, tunnel, or playground is where it is in the city because Moses said so. Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, every highway in NYC and Long Island, the Throggs Neck and the Whitestone Bridge, Jones Beach, Orchard Beach all him.

Nineteenth-century writer Washington Irving referred to the city as “Gotham”—a term that dates back to medieval England folklore and means “Goat’s Town,” a mythical place filled with gullible, simple people.

New York City 1990s streetball style influenced the world of basketball—“Every point guard in the NBA now plays like a New York City point guard,” says God Shammgod, talking about NYC Point Gods, a 2022 documentary. Ballhandling, charisma, and swag all made their way from NYC streets to NBA courts.

In 1643, the Dutch West India Company gave Lady Deborah Moody, an English immigrant who had been branded “a dangerous woman” and excommunicated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the southwestern tip of Long Island, and she planned out Gravesend in what became Brooklyn. The settlement, the first to be run by a woman, was planned around a town square with estates extending from it like flower petals.

The indigenous Lenape people taught new settlers how to fish, hunt, and live. They enfolded them into their politically consolidated ways of interacting from the 1620s until wars broke out between the Indigenous and the Dutch/English in the 1640s. One was The Pig War, which started in Staten Island over a murdered pig.

Religious freedom was born in New York City. The Dutch settlements were the most tolerant in the New World, and when Peter Stuyvesant wanted to ban anyone who wasn’t Dutch Reform in the 1660s, he was overruled by the Dutch West India Company, which deemed such practices not just in violation of the freedom of conscience enshrined in the Netherlands but also bad for business.

NYC is a birthplace and important cultural hub for art and music: hip-hop, reggaeton, salsa, poetry, art.

Before New York, every major city had spread out to grow. When the grid ran out of room, a fortunate combination of electricity, the invention of steel, and— critically—the discovery that the city sat on granite led to New York growing by conquering the sky.

We know about the Battle of Gettysburg, but New York had its own skirmishes in the Civil War, with July 1863 draft riots, lynching, and violence against Black New Yorkers.

On the Shelf

Mental Health

Angel of the Garbage Dump: How Hanley Denning Changed the World, One Child at a Time Jacob Wheeler (Mission Point Press, 2022)

Jacob Wheeler has lived in and written about Guatemala, where HANLEY DENNING ’92 founded Safe Passage, and he and Hanley interacted a few times when he was there. Inspired by her story before she was killed in a car accident in Guatemala in 2007, he decided to write a book about her as he saw how her legacy continued to grow years after her death. “This is a story about the lives she changes, and the people she inspires to walk alongside her and carry on her mission, even after she’s gone,” he writes in the prologue.

Healthier Futures

The Unwanted PETER CLENOTT ’73 (Level Best Books, 2022)

The Power of Being Seen ROGER SAILLANT ’65 (Saratoga Springs Publishing, 2022)

Mental health is widely reported to be among the biggest issues facing college students today. Bowdoin is working to better understand the issues in an effort to help students successfully transition from high school to college to careers. As part of that effort, Bowdoin partnered with Bank of America in 2019 to launch an annual forum that brings together leaders to address a range of topics surrounding mental health, including this year’s event featuring US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. On-campus actions include:

Awareness: During this year’s Convocation, President Clayton Rose urged students “to not deal with the challenges, issues, self-doubts, or anxieties all by yourself. We are a community, we have each other, and we have among the best resources of any college to help you.” Those resources include a series called the “Elephant in the Room.” During the pandemic, Roland Mendiola, director of counseling services, started recording interviews with Bowdoin employees about ways culture, upbringing, and experiences may have influenced their mental and emotional well-being and their willingness to seek help and care. What started on Zoom out of necessity has now found its footing in the online format, and the series has grown to over twenty episodes. Watch the videos at bowdo.in/vi6.

Managing Psychosocial Hazards and Work-Related Stress in Today’s Work Environment: International Insights for US Organizations ELLEN PINKOS COBB ’80 (Routledge, 2022)

Laying Roots: Poems on Grief and Healing AMANDA SPILLER ’17 (Amanda Spiller, 2022)

Access: In addition to its counseling and wellness center, Bowdoin offers telehealth options, and students can leverage a network of providers. This year, for World Mental Health Day, the College introduced Togetherall, an online platform with modules, self-assessments, and an online forum where users can post questions and comments anonymously.

Prevention: Wellness classes and one-on-one coaching are available to teach students how to take better care of themselves mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, spiritually, and financially.

Remembered

One hundred and thirteen years after their journey, a group of intrepid Inughuit explorers are having their stories told.

IN HIS ACCOUNT of the 1908–1909 expedition to the North Pole, Robert Peary writes of the “quartet of young [Inughuit] who formed a portion of the sledge party that finally reached the long-courted ‘ninety North.’” Along with Black explorer Matthew Henson, that quartet would be among the first to reach the North Pole. Their names—Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ooqueah—are not as well known in Western culture as Peary’s or even Henson’s. But without their involvement, the journey would have been nearly impossible.

“Peary and Henson had learned from Inughuit, and they were both accomplished dog sledge drivers,” says Genevieve LeMoine, curator at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, which in 2023 will relocate and expand to the new John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies. “But by that point, Peary was kind of old. He’d lost most of his toes. He didn’t walk all that well. He personally could not have driven a dog sledge to the Pole by himself.”

Earlier this year, LeMoine and museum director Susan Kaplan participated in an effort sponsored by the Explorers’ Club to admit the four men into the Society of Forgotten Explorers. The goal of the society is “to honor unknown, lesser-known, or unsung explorers from underrepresented communities and ethnicities, and tell their stories.”

“It’s a wonderful effort for the Explorers’ Club to realize that they have overlooked a community of people that need and deserve recognition,” says Kaplan. “But I am always reminding myself that within those communities the individuals are often very well known. Ootah, for example, was this incredibly famous, revered man among the Inughuit people.”

According to LeMoine, Ootah led a long life as an accomplished hunter and was viewed as a leader in the community. “He was, for instance, one of the only people to voice opposition to the forced relocation of the community in the 1950s when the Thule Air Base was constructed and the Inughuit were forced off the land,” says LeMoine. “It didn’t do any good, unfortunately. They were still forcibly relocated. But he was a very well-respected member of the community.”

Kaplan and LeMoine are working to bring more recognition as well to the women and children who were also involved: seventeen Inughuit women and ten children journeyed as far north as the winter quarters.

“If Peary had left all those women behind, they wouldn’t have had anybody hunting for them, so they would’ve starved,” says LeMoine. “He had to bring them from that perspective. But even if they would’ve been perfectly fine left behind, he needed the work that they did for him—making clothes and boots, and processing the hunt.”

“Their participation was really the difference between life and death for Peary’s crews,” says Kaplan. “Whenever I look at a photograph of Peary’s crew, all you see are men in their fur garments. But if you’re in the know, you can see the women behind all of that. And that just has not been really recognized by Arctic historians.”

FOOD TRUCK FEVER

Above: In his book, The North Pole, Robert Peary included photos of Egingwah (left) and Ootah (right)—ages twenty-six and thirty-four, respectively—taken immediately after they returned from their 1909 trip to the North Pole.

Food trucks have been rising steadily in popularity across the United States in the last decade or so, and more and more have been seen in recent years throughout Maine. Many alumni will remember Danny’s on the Mall, which started selling hot dogs there in 1982, and other food vendors—including, for a time, some hot dog competition— have come and gone in that location. But food trucks can now often also be seen on Bowdoin’s campus. In the early days of the return to campus during the pandemic, when eating inside together was still unwise, food trucks allowed students to celebrate as a community in the time-honored way—by eating. They still offer a welcome way to eat outside, but they have also become beloved just because of the variety they offer: tacos, donuts, gelato, dumplings, pizza, cheese and charcuterie, falafel, meatballs, Nigerian and Colombian food, famous-in-Maine poutine, and (of course!) hot dogs.

Campus Life

Inclusion

Welcome Here

On the second day of the fall semester, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity hosted an Ice Cream Social on Coe Quad. The event was open to the entire community, and offices from across campus set up tables and held informal conversations about how they are furthering the work of inclusion and belonging. Hundreds of new and returning students, staff, and faculty turned out on a picture-perfect day for numerous giveaways, including T-shirts printed on site and on demand and ice cream (and frozen whoopie pie!) from five different ice cream trucks.

Benje Douglas, senior vice president for inclusion and diversity, has more in store—he’s also holding lunches and conversation with staff and faculty and planning a series of videos. Topics will range from feeling welcome in Maine to feeling confused about the work of inclusion—and all are welcome.

“We’ll only make progress as a community if we’re all invested in the idea that ‘diversity work’ is every one’s responsibility,” says Douglas. “It would be great to have some people who are all in on this work, and some who might be a bit more skeptical. I’ll leave it to you to decide what camp you might fall in, though in truth many of us may be in both camps depending on the day or the topic.”

In December, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity will take over Smitty’s Cinema to host a family-friendly movie night for all employees.

Game On Tennis Triumph

TRISTAN BRADLEY ’23 became just the second Polar Bear in program history (joining Luke Trinka ’16) to claim the Intercollegiate Tennis Association New England Regional Championship, which he did on October 2 in Brunswick. With the win, Bradley qualified for the ITA Cup in Rome, Georgia, on the weekend of October 15–16, where he advanced all the way to the title match before finishing as the men’s singles runner-up.

PHOTOS: (T-SHIRTS) JANIE PORCHE; (BRADLEY) BRIAN BEARD

Tristan Bradley ’23

Silk-screening T-shirts on demand.

TIM SOWA ’14

“All around the world, technology access and digital competency are markers of equity, working as either a tool to level the playing field or to further oppression,” says the economics major, who is working on a master’s in sustainable digital life at Tampere University in Finland and partnering with Gofore, a digital consultancy group, to enhance their ethical and sustainable practices. “I am very excited to apply what I am learning back into the world in a meaningful way.”

HANNAH SCOTCH ’22

The neuroscience major is conducting research on neuroplasticity at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain. “During development, there are crucial periods of synaptic growth and synaptic pruning, and if these do not occur correctly, major developmental problems may arise. Understanding what causes this plasticity to occur normally can help us understand why and how it goes wrong, providing potential avenues for treatment,” says Scotch, who became interested in the topic during her first neuroscience course at Bowdoin.

MAX

FREEMAN

’22

“I am fascinated by Israel’s traditions of remembrance,” says the English major, who conducted undergraduate research at Bowdoin investigating how digital technology has influenced our memory. The Illinois native is spending the year teaching English at Tel-Hai Academic College in Israel. “By listening to the stories of individual Jewish and Arab Israelis, I hope to learn more about the collective memories that connect us to our histories.”

SUSTAINABLE STYLE

Every year, Americans alone throw away 11.3 million tons of clothing—equaling around 2,150 garments each second, according to a recent report in Bloomberg. The fashion glut is leading to an environmental crisis, and a complementary ensemble of students— comprising the College House Cocurricular Committee, Bowdoin Fashion Club, and Bowdoin Sustainability—is working to do their part to reduce the global impact.

A recent clothing swap held in front of Quinby House allowed students to donate unwanted clothing in exchange for three items. The event combined a need to purge items that no longer spark joy and a desire to refresh one’s tired wardrobe with the goal of thwarting—or at least slowing down—the fast-fashion trend.

“A lot of people overconsume clothing and end up not using a lot of the items in their closet,” says Zerimar Ramirez ’25, one of the event’s organizers. “The swap produces a completely free and accessible way for people to be sustainable and intentional in the way that they engage with fashion and consumption instead of purchasing from fast-fashion brands or buying new clothes every other week.”

Campus Life

Academics

For the past two years, students at Bowdoin received more Fulbright grants than at any other baccalaureate institution. Here, three of this year’s nineteen recipients share how they’re using the competitive award to find solutions to shared global concerns.

The Meddiebempsters are often described as the third-oldest all-male collegiate a cappella group in America, after the Whiffenpoofs at Yale and a second-place finisher to…some other group. As with many things Meddie, no one quite seems to know for sure what group that is. It’s a sure thing, however, that Miscellania, also known as “Missy,” is the oldest all-women a cappella group at Bowdoin. And, as it happens, both groups celebrated major anniversaries at Homecoming this fall. Congratulations, Meddies and Missy!

Common Good Campus Life

Harvest

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, the Bowdoin Organic Garden offers various ways for students to taste the crops, learn preservation techniques, and get their hands dirty.

“College, especially at a place like Bowdoin, is so cerebral,” says Lisa Beneman, garden supervisor. “I think sometimes students come to the garden to breathe in the fresh air and the smell of the dirt and the smell of the leaves and have their feet and their hands on solid ground. It’s an exercise in mindfulness in some ways and meditation in some ways— and a way to get grounded in reality.”

As they—and any gardeners in the northeast— get ready to put all the plants to bed for the winter, we asked Beneman and Bowdoin head baker Joanne Adams to share a few ways to stretch out the fall harvest.

DRIED FLOWERS

Throughout the summer, the garden grows statice, lavender, globe amaranth, strawflowers, hydrangeas, poppy pods, and ornamental grasses, and the gardeners offer workshops to teach students how to properly dry flowers and to create wreaths to hang

in their dorms, bring home for the holidays, or give away as gifts. The trick, according to Beneman, is to clip the flowers when they’re at their optimum color, strip off the leaves, bundle the stems, hang them upside down until they’ve dried, then wrap them in paper and store them in a cardboard box until you’re ready for a cheer of color.

PICKLED VEGGIES

Students are invited to try their hands at refrigerator pickling, including harvesting cucumbers, carrots, green beans, radishes, and peppers from the garden and bringing them back to the kitchen for washing, chopping, and jarring in their choice of brine. “Vinegar is a powerful preserving agent, and the cold temperature of the fridge means you don’t have to worry about canning,” says Beneman. “It typically takes about a week or two for them to develop their flavor, and they’ll last for at least up to six months.”

PUMPKIN PIE FILLING

This year, the garden produced 200 pounds of sugar pumpkins, yielding sixty-three pounds of puree and thirty-five cups of seeds. The key to a good pumpkin puree, according to Adams, who has been cooking at Bowdoin for nearly twenty years, is to be sure to remove all the water. Adams typically steams the sliced pumpkins on a sheet pan with water for an hour and a half, refrigerates them overnight, scoops out the pulp, lets them sit overnight again, and then creates a puree, which she strains at least two more times. “If you don’t remove all that water, it ends up in the batter or pie filling and won’t thicken when it bakes,” she says.

FROZEN BASIL CUBES

“Pesto is an ever-popular menu item here at Bowdoin,” says Beneman. “We grow tons of basil all summer, and as we’re bringing in big basil harvests [fifty pounds at a time], dining services blends and freezes the basil with oil.” Olive oil is the classic choice, but any oil will work depending on the flavor you’re after. The combination allows for that fresh basil flavor year-round, and Beneman does the same thing at home, preferring half-pint jars to the more popular ice cube trays, and more of a paste than a liquid. “I have a heavy hand with pesto, so I like a thicker, larger quantity.”

GETTING OUT THE VOTE

“Bowdoin College had among the highest undergraduate voting rates in 2020, thanks to the way student leaders promote the tradition of civic engagement,” says Wendy Van Damme, associate director for public service at the McKeen Center for the Common Good, which administers the program.

Continuing that energy this year, Bowdoin Votes fellows Samira Iqbal ’23 and Lucas Johnson ’23 trained a dynamic team of more than twenty student volunteers. “Those volunteers have popped up all over campus this fall to encourage students to vote,” says Van Damme.

As Iqbal and Johnson pointed out to students in an email, the electoral stakes were high this year, with some 435 US House seats up for grabs, along with thirty-five senate seats and many governorships and other key state offices.

Bowdoin Votes provided students with information about registration, voting locations, deadlines, and absentee voting. The program also helps students learn more about what’s on the ballot and how to be involved in civic action during and between elections.

PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON; ILLUSTRATION: JING JING TSONG

Flowers drying in the Bowdoin Organic Garden barn.

On Stage

Our Town, Any Town

Theater department embraces universal themes in its adaptation of a Thornton Wilder classic.

OUR TOWN is a “simple but profound” play that explores universal themes that speak to all of us, says Professor of Theater Davis Robinson. Written in 1938, Our Town is set in the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover’s Corners in the early years of the twentieth century, following the lives, loves—and sometimes the deaths—of a number of characters as time passes.

“When I first encountered the play, I saw it as a quaint New England tone poem about life at the turn of the last century,” says Robinson. This impression changed, however, when he went to a lecture by the playwright Edward Albee.

“Albee described Our Town as the best American play ever written, which shocked and surprised me. So, I went and reread it in a new light, and it really struck me how simple yet profound the play is.” Wilder explores universal human themes by checking in with the same group of characters over a twelve-year period, said Robinson—themes like love, loss, and the ephemeral nature of our existence. “The play prompts us to consider our everyday lives against the universal indifference of the stars and asks how much of our world will be here a thousand years from now,” he adds.

Robinson says one of the aims of his production was to reflect the diversity of the Bowdoin campus and disrupt the idea that Grover’s Corners is seen as just a white space or a New England space. “It’s about ‘something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being,’ as Wilder says.”

College Life

SEASON TWO

The second season of the Bowdoin Presents podcast launched in October. After a first season that explored issues of democracy, the second season takes listeners back to the classroom, through a series of episodes featuring faculty and others talking about the work they do inspiring, teaching, and sharing knowledge with the Bowdoin community. Guests join journalist Lisa Bartfai in conversations ranging from art and oral tradition in central Africa to the volume of information and how it travels—and much more. The series, along with an archive of last season’s episodes, can be found on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Simplecast. Or go to bowdo.in/presents to listen.

Sound Bite

“The environment is not a passive backdrop for human lives. It’s not someplace over there. It’s all around us, an active force that has profoundly shaped us all, past and present—whether we realize it or not.”

—PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES CONNIE CHIANG, IN HER CONVOCATION 2022 ADDRESS “CULTIVATING OUR COMMON NATURES”

Student Life

CLOSE TO HOME

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February, more than a million Ukrainians have landed in Germany after fleeing their homes. Lionel Welz ’24 felt compelled to help alleviate some of the despair and displacement and spent his summer vacation volunteering for Münchner Freiwillige, a nonprofit organization that helps refugees find housing in his hometown of Munich.

As part of his assignment, the neuroscience major spent ten-hour shifts calling German families asking if they would take in Ukrainian refugees for a few days, weeks, or even months. While he could not always understand the Ukrainian refugees he was working with, he did eventually pick up some important phrases, such as: “Do you have a passport?” and “What’s your ID number?”

He also picked up several stories of violence and mourning. The most memorable involves a newly orphaned ten-year-old boy who fled his war-torn country with his uncle. Welz spoke with the boy, who had begun learning German on the language app Duolingo upon arriving in Deutschland and managed to enroll himself in school.

“It was very difficult for me to see this boy who had just lost everything,” Welz said. “He had to mature within two weeks. He had to figure out life for himself and his uncle, while simultaneously coping with [the fact that] both of his parents had been killed a couple of days apart.”

Now back at Bowdoin, Welz is grateful for the three years he has spent studying Russian, which he was able to put to the test, and for the Russian department at Bowdoin, for openly talking about the war and promoting the study of Ukrainian cities and cultures in the classroom.

In Beauty, a Benefit

To celebrate his 50th Reunion and help raise money for a Bowdoin scholarship, renowned artist Abelardo Morell ’71, H’97 has donated two works that depict ordinary campus scenes—a tree and a vase of flowers—in unique and arresting ways.

The prints are being limited to an edition size of 150, ensuring their value in years to come, and can be purchased at the Bookstore or at bowdo.in/morellprints. Last April, Morell and his wife, Lisa McElaney ’77, visited Bowdoin seeking inspiration for the artworks. They explored familiar places like Hubbard and Massachusetts Halls and the College archives. But when they returned for a second time in May, Morell settled on a subject not on their original itinerary. He was drawn to the Bowdoin Pines, a preserved old-growth forest behind Federal Street. To make his striking image of a pine tree, Morell used a “tent/camera,” a device he invented that can project nearby scenes via a periscope onto the ground of a light-proof tent.

Morell’s other new work for sale, “Flowers for Bowdoin,” is reminiscent of his well-received series Flowers for Lisa. For this piece, he made several exposures of shifting flower arrangements. “When put together, these disparate views form wonderful explosions of color, texture, and painterly abstraction. I think that this photograph contains feelings of celebration and exuberance—not unlike the sort of joy surrounding many reunions,” Morell said.

Morell was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948. He and his family left the country in 1962 and settled in New York City.

Above: “Tent Camera: Tree Trunk in the Bowdoin Pines” (left) and “Flowers for Bowdoin” (right) by Abelardo Morell ’71, H’97.

COURTESY LIONEL WELZ ’24; (PRINTS) COURTESY HOUK GALLERY, COPYRIGHT ABELARDO MORELL

Common Good

Lionel Welz ’24

Honoring the Animals

In caring for a world of creatures— from exotic pets to penguins, from snowy owls to sea lions— veterinarian Carl Spielvogel ’13 has learned a few things.

I KNEW I wanted to become a wildlife and aquatic veterinarian in high school. I spent summers volunteering for the New England Aquarium animal rescue team and interning at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and was inspired by veterinarians who used their talents to help animals.

I loved my time at Bowdoin. I was a bio chemistry major but took classes in the history of the Civil War and music classes in audio pro duction. Through a connection in the Bowdoin network, I spent a summer in China studying an invasive tree species on the Wolong Giant Panda Reserve—one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life.

I remember a biology class where Professor Bruce Kohorn used his nondominant hand to draw cellular structures because he had acciden tally shot the other one with a nail gun. He taught me and so many Bowdoin students so much.

My friends included students from all back grounds, ethnicities, and sexual orientations— people with a variety of interests, opinions, and career aspirations. During an average meal, I would sit at a minimum of three tables, chat about classes and social life, talk curling with my team I helped found, and do some pepper flipping (if you know, you know).

After graduating, I took a year off before applying to veterinary school, and then moved to Montana to work the night shift at a cattle ranch called the IX, where I helped manage a group of pregnant two-year-old Angus heifers and assisted in their deliveries in temperatures as cold as twenty below. At IX I learned that good ranching involves a significant amount of data collection and analysis. The ranchers monitored soil nutrient levels and considered

the genetics of cows and bulls used to rear new cattle. They monitored birthing outcomes and complications, and they graded the mothering abilities of cows to help guide the genetics of the fathering bulls. We even did our own cesarean sections because the nearest veterinarian was a multiple-hour drive away.

The cowboys I worked with followed a strict moral code and taught me the importance of maintaining appropriate welfare for their

cattle and working horses. Despite being one of the largest ranches in the Americas, they did not use motorized vehicles like ATVs to herd cattle, saying that ranching with horses is more honorable and less stressful for the cattle. The wildlife appreciated that too; during cattle drives through the mountains, elk and deer would travel with the herd and sometimes seem close enough for me to touch. The ranchers taught me to shoot high-caliber rifles, and I

learned the necessity of staying on your horse, especially when you are crossing a river in freezing weather.

Near the end of calving season, I woke up in the machine shop where I slept and checked my email, finding a congratulatory message from the dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. I finished up at the ranch and started veterinary school in 2014.

Vet school was unlike anything I had ever experienced—even at Bowdoin. There were so many species and biological systems to learn, and we had to know the exact mechanisms by which medications are absorbed and metabolized differently between species or even differently between breeds. We had to learn which medica tions are safe for different animals, breeds, and age groups, and anatomic differences detected on X-rays or differences in laboratory test results between animals.

I was awarded a scholarship to perform research at the New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital on the use of ventilators in cold-stunned sea turtles and delivered a presen tation on my research, which I later finished and published, at an International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine conference.

That conference was the first I ever attended, and at the opening dinner, I sat next to Juli, the woman who would much later become my wife. Juli remembers me talking a lot about shrimp farming.

I left vet school with a degree and a license to practice veterinary medicine, a cat my classmate found on the street named Snoopy, and a kitten from a Philadelphia dumpster that another friend had rescued, named Woodstock. Together, we moved to Massachusetts, and I started work at

a one-year internship in a specialty and emer gency animal hospital outside of Boston.

As part of my internship, I spent a month at the New England Wildlife Clinic and the Aquarium of the Pacific. At the clinic, I performed my first-ever surgery on a wild bird and got my first experience as a doctor treating a variety of exotic and wild animals. At the aquarium, where Juli and I had the opportunity to work together, I gained experience caring for animals ranging from penguins and sharks to seals and sea otters.

After my internship, I was accepted to a residency in Buffalo, New York, where I worked in a private practice specializing in the care of birds and exotic species. There I learned to treat parrots, snakes, turtles, frogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, emus, falcons—you name it. I also worked for a wildlife hospital, where one of my favorite patients was a wild female snowy owl whose wing I repaired after she was hit by a car.

I also worked part-time, on my days off, for the Aquarium of Niagara, initially helping care for their penguin colony. By the end of my residency, I was providing care for their entire collection, and I’m now also in charge of their animal welfare and research. I also work as an emergency vet for dogs and cats at the Greater Buffalo Veterinary Emergency Clinic.

I now know a great deal about animals and birds. But I’ve learned that my work is not just about their care—it is as much about their humans. I have treated eighty-plus-year-old parrots that have been with their now-elderly owners since they were children. I have worked with police dogs and their canine handlers, who rely on each other to safely execute their duties, and I know an army medic who owes his life to a dog that shielded his unit from incoming bullets in Afghanistan.

As an emergency veterinarian, I am regularly confronted with difficult, sometimes combative owners. Many don’t understand that an easy and cheap fix is not always possible. Some animals don’t get the care that they need, whether their owners can afford it or not. I also see owners who struggle to make ends meet and yet take out thousands of dollars in loans to prolong the lives of their animals. I face moral dilemmas on a daily basis, and it can be difficult for me to distance myself.

Extreme staffing shortages amid an unprec edented increase in animal ownership means that I regularly work twelve- to fifteen-hour shifts as the only doctor at the emergency room. I perform critical care and surgeries on very sick animals while dealing with an ER often bogged down by noncritical conditions or diseases that could have been prevented by routine care and vaccinations. I also have to euthanize animals on a regular basis. There is a cumulative toll to the sorrow and difficulties that we encounter.

But the positive aspects far outweigh the neg ative, and writing this column reminded me of people who helped me choose my path and pur sue my dreams. I am grateful for my friends and family, and the many professors, scientists, and animal care professionals I have learned from.

First table-mates and then colleagues, Juli and I got engaged on a beach in California, and I managed to convince her to move to Buffalo. We were married in September 2021 at her parents’ home in Durango, Colorado, in what was my first reunion with many of my Bowdoin friends. We now work together at the aquarium. We bought a house this year and are expecting our first child (a boy) in March. I am so excited to be a father, and I have been spending every minute of my free time scraping, hammering, or painting, making the house perfect for our new baby. We love western New York and enjoy camping, kayaking, fly-fishing, and hiking along the many rivers, gorges, and waterfalls in the area. I can’t wait to introduce my son to the many creatures who share this world with us.

Carl Spielvogel ’13 works at the Greater Buffalo Emergency Veterinarian Clinic and the Aquarium of Niagara. At Bowdoin he majored in biochemistry and founded the curling team.

I now know a great deal about animals and birds. But I’ve learned that my work is not just about their care—it is as much about their humans.

Claudia Marroquin ’06 is a Bowdoin success story. A first-generation student who came to the US from Guatemala with her mother and sister when she was young and grew up in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles, she joined the Office of Admissions in the fall of 2010, became dean in 2021, and along the way has worked to reduce the barriers that exist around access to higher education. We spoke with Marroquin—the first Bowdoin graduate to lead the office of admissions in more than thirty years— about the challenges of her work, the importance of kindness, and the role her personal story plays in assembling each Bowdoin class.

INTERVIEW BY DOUG COOK PHOTOGRAPHS BY SÉAN ALONZO HARRIS

BOWDOIN: Why is it important to convey your personal story when you interact with prospec tive students?

MARROQUIN: It’s been important to share my own experiences, my background, my upbringing— partially because students may not envision someone in leadership to have had the same experience. It’s easy for students to be afraid, and they might feel like they’re the first ones going through this. For me, there’s an ability to connect with students around that, but it’s also important for those who may not share any of my experience to know that they will end up interacting with folks who have a very different lived experience.

BOWDOIN: What would be the most surprising thing readers might learn about the admissions process here at Bowdoin?

MARROQUIN: Counselors often ask if we actually spend time getting to know these young people. I think there are assumptions about the work, that there are formulas, that it’s mechanical, that we go through so much so quickly. Yes, we do a lot of work in a finite amount of time, but we all care not only about the College, but also about these young students and about getting to know them as best as we can. I think the thing that surprises people the most is that I’ll remember things about them, especially when I welcome them at the beginning of the academic year. Over the years, the admissions office has prided itself on the fact that it’s not just a process for us. We take it personally. We treat everyone with respect, and we try to learn about their lives. We feel a responsibility to

connect with students and also to see them for who they are.

BOWDOIN: What informs the process for assem bling a class? What is the College looking for in a student and in a class as a whole?

MARROQUIN: Part of our review process is looking for students who are prepared for the academic experience. We know that college is going to be hard, and they will experience moments of failure. But at the end of the day, we really want them to grow and be successful during their time at Bowdoin. So we are looking to make sure we have students who are prepared for the rigors here, and who also want to be in this type of environment—who know that when you’re in a class, you can’t hide and you’re going to be expected to share your ideas. And that’s not every student we’re reviewing. I also think a formula for success at Bowdoin has a lot to do with the intangible qualities that a student brings. You can be incredibly smart and still struggle at Bowdoin if you’re not motivated, if you’re not willing to take risks, if you’re not willing to be in a really engaged community. We also often have conversations about upholding the values of Bowdoin, while giving ourselves the space to really create a new Bowdoin—to help the College move in the direction that it’s looking to go in the next few years. This can be both in terms of diversity at the College, and also the “intellectual fearlessness” and ability to embrace uncomfort able ideas and concepts that Clayton [President Rose] talks about. Yes, academics are always really important, but so are the character pieces around how a student is actually going to take advantage of everything here and what they will put into the experience. Those matter quite a bit for us.

BOWDOIN: What is the most important advice you have for young people as they think about applying to the College? When should that process begin?

MARROQUIN: I always tell students they’re going to get asked tons of questions from people they know about where they’re applying, what they want to major in, what they want to have as a career, and so on. As they’re thinking about

“We treat everyone with respect, and we try to learn about their lives. We feel a responsibility to connect with students and also to see them for who they are.”

those questions, they should really be thinking about what brings them joy and fun and plea sure, because they’re going to end up spending a lot of time pursuing their goals. If they want to become a doctor, they’re going to spend a lot of time in a lab. They’re going to be spending a lot of time studying, and they have to actually really love not only the chemistry and the biology pieces of it, but also the human interactions. I always tell students to not just think about the title, but also about the activities that are actually bringing them joy. Because when you start to mix those two together, that’s where you end up being successful not only in your academic space, but also hopefully as an adult in day-to-day life, when things can be really hard.

BOWDOIN: Bowdoin talks a lot about character and kindness as among the important qualities it looks for in an applicant. How do you measure these?

MARROQUIN: There aren’t necessarily rubrics to measure kindness. The way we seek it out and evaluate it in the applications is really in the empathy and awareness students have—they can see beyond themselves and recognize that whatever they might be struggling with or facing in their current life, their viewpoint isn’t the only one. I keep coming back to these same pieces that demonstrate a student who has kindness, that they can see the failings and weaknesses, but also the strengths of others. And they can have these poignant moments of recognizing that someone who they had preconceived notions about is actually a human being. That is at the core of kindness—having empathy and seeing beyond yourself.

BOWDOIN: You’ve become a champion of removing barriers for students who might not otherwise consider Bowdoin an option—things like dropping the application fee for first-gen and aided students, in addition to need-blind, no-loan admissions. This is personal for you.

MARROQUIN: It is, and I think it’s been not only a mission of mine, but for everyone who works at Bowdoin. We see ourselves as being able to provide opportunity, even when a student may not have considered an experience like this for

themselves. I think about my own experiences growing up when I read applications and recruit students. Without financial support, I would never have been able to even dream about college. I remember when I was seventeen working with an organization in L.A. and being encouraged to apply to ten schools that were outside of California, along with the California schools. The cost of each of those applications easily added up to $700, if not more, and my mom made about $28,000 a year. There was no way I would’ve been able to apply to the schools that I did, had I not been provided fee waivers or had someone tell me I could actually get a fee waiver. For me, it always does go back to thinking about how I navigated this process and some of the assumptions that I made, and thankfully having advisors at that point who told me, “Actually, no, there are other ways.” To change a process or a policy to make it more inclusive and to allow students to dream a little bit is definitely a personal thing for me.

BOWDOIN: The College announced this summer that it was expanding need-blind admissions to international students. Why is this important?

MARROQUIN: At the College, we are constantly talking about equity and making sure that we are looking closely at longstanding policies and really questioning them. Extending need-blind admission to international students was one policy that several of us in the office had wondered about over the years, and it became even more of a top priority for admissions as we looked at how interconnected the world is, the challenges international students faced during the pandemic, and how college can truly be an international experience. Trying to ensure that we treat all of our students the same in the admissions process really became a focus for me this past year.

BOWDOIN: Access and equity are priorities of From Here, the College’s ongoing comprehen sive campaign. That’s got to be a big boost for admissions.

MARROQUIN: There are so many conversations and articles around the cost of college and how

unaffordable it is for so many families, and how it’s becoming more and more unaffordable. We’ve always prided ourselves on having tremendous financial aid for students and their families who need it. Whether they’re very low-income or middle-income families trying to make things work, the work of the campaign allows us to continue to educate students from all walks of life. The promise of a Bowdoin education has long been that if you have the motivation and the willingness to put in the effort and have earned your place at Bowdoin that we’ll be able to support you. I think the other big piece around equity is that the experience students have on our campus should not be limited by their own personal backgrounds. One way we’ve tackled that is to remove the summer earnings requirement for students under a certain income level. We know that they’re already working incredible amounts, often to support their families, and we don’t want to burden them with an extra responsibility. Support from the campaign helps us expand what we are able to do.

BOWDOIN: Comprehensive aid is another part of the campaign. How does that help?

MARROQUIN: When students and families think about the cost of college, it’s usually tuition, room, and board. The things that they’re going to be billed for. But we know that college is about so much more than that, and compre hensive aid can help with things like allowing our students to take unfunded or underfunded internships, to pursue fellowships, to have the ability to study abroad and know that the cost is not going to limit and prohibit them from pursuing an important academic interest. It also extends to emergency situations where a student may need to go back home because of a family member’s unexpected surgery. Comprehensive aid means they don’t have to choose—they can actually do that. It is about the opportunities that prepare them for success beyond Bowdoin, but also for life experiences.

BOWDOIN: You mentioned earlier that the pan demic was especially difficult for international students, but of course, it impacted students

everywhere. Are you at all concerned about students’ preparedness for college, given the challenges they faced in high school during the pandemic?

MARROQUIN: Yes, absolutely. I think there are a couple of concerns. There’s the inequality in different school systems. There are some students who spent two years completely in a virtual space where they may not have been able to interact with their teachers and peers very much, and where the curriculum just had to be truncated to get them through and meet the requirements. But there’s also the personal loss students may have experienced, the insecurity, the anxieties, and the ability to be a kid and to have fun. Every year something happens in

the world that forces students to grow up a lot faster. I think this generation of high school students had their entire high school experience upended, and that’s going to continue for years as elementary and middle school students enter high school. Students who were transitioning into middle school, missed out on some social interactions that might really be valuable, or may have lost a parent early on in life. Preparation for college isn’t just about the academic piece. It’s really more about the amount of risk-taking a student is willing to take, given all that they’ve had to take on in the last few years.

BOWDOIN: On an institutional note, another result of the pandemic has been that many col leges and universities that previously required

Marroquin talks with biology major, education minor, and admissions office student worker Rory Kliewer ’24.

standardized tests have suspended or elimi nated that requirement, something Bowdoin did fifty years ago. How has that changed the admissions landscape?

MARROQUIN: In some ways it’s made things more complicated, but I also think it has made people realize that who you are as a person matters way more than the numbers. This past year in particular, we saw—even in our pool—students actually being more open and more vulnerable in their applications. There was a lot more expression of curiosity and thinking about larger issues that were taking place both in the world and in their own lives. I think there’s this tide that has finally changed, or is changing, where students recognize that who they are matters way more than a number, and that there’s only so much a test score can do for you.

BOWDOIN: Traditionally, Bowdoin and other New England colleges have drawn most of their students from the Northeast, a region where demographers expect a decline in young people. How is Bowdoin adapting to that reality?

MARROQUIN: Thankfully, we adapted to that reality years ago. We travel across the country and the world to recruit students, never forget ting, though, that we are an institution in Maine. We have two admissions officers who cover the state of Maine and encourage incredible, bril liant young people to stay within the state. We need them, but we also realize that, as a liberal arts college, we are designed to recruit students from all over. Most of our admissions officers have had a little bit of New England territory, but everyone has territory beyond New England. That makes us really flexible and adaptable and

truly versatile in the ways we can talk about the experiences that students are having at Bowdoin and understand what students are experiencing in their own communities.

BOWDOIN: What is Bowdoin doing about the trend of young women outpacing men in appli cations to college?

MARROQUIN: When we’re going out and recruit ing at different schools, we try to target places that we know have more male enrollments. Part of that is that young men sometimes aren’t, in some communities, given the opportunity to really think about education because they are focused on supporting their families and going into the workforce. But there’s the other piece too of the tables having turned. Bowdoin was an all-male institution until the ’70s, and there was intentional work to recruit women at that point. At the end of the day, we are looking to have the best students for Bowdoin here, and the amazing talent within our female applicants cannot be ignored. College-going trends are something we constantly think about, and it is worrisome that there are far fewer males applying to college. And it’s not just to Bowdoin, obviously. It’s a higher-ed issue, and it’s something to keep an eye on.

BOWDOIN: What is the most rewarding part of the work?

MARROQUIN: Getting to meet the students—by far. This year, I’m super excited because I’m going to be a Cub Connector. It’s a new program that residential life has introduced. So I will have that opportunity to get to meet with a floor of students more regularly and get to know them. Students are what make this work so rewarding

and bring me so much joy. There are many alumni now who have become friends as well. They were students I recruited, and I know so much about their lives and their families now. Being a part of their lives has become something that’s just really important to me.

BOWDOIN: What are your near- and long-term goals for admissions at Bowdoin?

MARROQUIN: Last year, I would have said to steady the ship coming out of the pandemic, and there’s still a piece of that happening. A lot continues to change in the world. This upcoming year, there are changes with financial aid and debt forgiveness that was just passed. We’re all waiting to see what happens with the Supreme Court decision with Harvard and UNC. So there will be the things that are out of our control that we are shifting and adapting to and trying to uphold Bowdoin values in the way we do our work in a new reality. As an alumna, I am fiercely proud of this place and so proud of the things Bowdoin has done for students. I want Bowdoin to be known even more across the country, across the world. People should know about institutions that are striving to make education more accessible, so there’s the aspirational goal of wanting Bowdoin to be a household name. Then there’s the fine-tuning of things. Every year we learn from our students about the world they’re going into and how their needs are changing. So we look at how we can continue to best meet those needs while continuing to grow and evolve as a leading college in the twenty-first century.

Doug Cook, director of communications, manages media relations and oversees content on the Bowdoin website and the College’s official social media channels.

“To change a process or a policy to make it more inclusive and to allow students to dream a little bit is a personal thing for me.”

Ed Burton ’91 pieces together information in painstaking, promise-fulfilling searches for the soldiers who never came home from war.

BY DAN CARLINSKY ILLUSTRATIONS BY GREG BETZA

GROWING UP with parents who were longtime faculty at the University of New Hampshire, Ed Burton ’91 knew he’d go to college and then to graduate school, because what else would he do? He figured his field would be history, but that’s about as detailed a plan as he could have pre dicted, since, as it turned out, there were a few zigs and zags along the way. Happy zigs and zags.

True to his very rough forecast, Burton grew up to become a historian, the kind who extols the joys of spending days burrowing into boxes of long-dormant, sometimes fragile files in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland— which some call “the nation’s memory,” but which he calls “a Disneyland for historians.” Still, his unplanned road to the work he vari ously describes as “cool,” “incredibly fun,” and “the most amazing job anyone can ever have” was anything but direct.

“My parents were mathematicians,” he begins, “but in our house, history books always outnum bered math books. I knew I wanted to major in history or government in college. I remember, in my senior year of high school, sitting on the living room floor with pages from The Fiske Guide to Colleges ripped out and sorted into piles: highly ranked history departments and highly ranked government departments. Bowdoin turned up in the categories I wanted most.”

He focused on Latin American history, then ancient history; he wrote an honors thesis on the First Crusade. When his Bowdoin classmates were spending a semester or two abroad, Burton stayed in Brunswick. Today, he mock-gripes about missing out: “My roommate, my friends—everyone was doing something exciting but me.”

To make up for that, he enrolled in a mas ter’s program at Lund University in Sweden. (One selling point was the cost of tuition: $12 a term.) He had a Swedish-American grandfa ther, so, he says, “when my household watched the Olympics, once the American team was knocked off, we rooted for the Swedish team.” But he had never been to the country and didn’t know the language.

“I copied an entire Swedish-English dictio nary onto flash cards with an inkjet printer: nine shoeboxes of four-by-six index cards, each holding 1,250 cards,” he recalls. “For four

months after graduation, I spent between four and ten hours a day in the front yard, listening to Radio Sweden on the shortwave and flipping flash cards. I always think anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” As it turned out, the over doing came in handy.

Burton explains: “Lund was thinking of start ing an English language history master’s pro gram—I was their guinea pig. But by the end of my time there, most of what I had to read for courses was in Swedish. Plus, I could manage in the grocery store. I think the time I put in with all those index cards was well spent.”

AS THE ONLY AMERICAN in the department, Burton says, “I was others’ exotic foreign exchange student.” By default, he became the resident expert on American history, but he studied Scandinavian history and wrote a master’s thesis on neutral Sweden’s relationship with NATO during the Cold War (“closer than anyone cared to admit at the time”). When he was done, he stayed in Sweden and entered a doctoral pro gram at the University of Gothenburg. There, he again switched his academic focus, thanks to a chance event.

“One day I was in the hallway, opening my mail,” he recalls. “I heard the chairman: ‘Burton! We have a problem!’ It seems a lecturer had gone to Jerusalem, had a religious conversion, and decided not to come back. They needed some one who could talk about nineteenth-century US history for a few hours. I had never studied American history at Bowdoin, but I did the lecture, it went over well, and the department’s leadership decided to use me again.

“A lot of the faculty were students in the 1960s, pretty far to the left—some raised money for the Viet Cong—so the chairman insisted that I teach a class on the Vietnam War. I was nominated for a university-wide prize for best lecture. Nobody in the department had been nominated before, so the department leader ship was happy. I was nominated again. And again. And again. I gave that class something like seven times.”

So, having become something of an acciden tal expert on the Vietnam War, Burton chose as his dissertation topic how Swedish-language immigrant newspapers in America reported and

commented on that war. As part of his research, he visited an archive at the Swedish Foreign Ministry and read letters sent to the Swedish gov ernment by Americans during the Vietnam era.

“I sat down in one of those little carrels,” he remembers, “and they brought me three large carts packed with file after file of letters from worried moms and dads from across the US. Each one was a variation of ‘Dear Mr. Prime Minister, We understand your country is opposed to what our country is doing’—Sweden had just opened relations with Hanoi—‘Can you tell us what happened to our son?’ Hundreds, if not thousands, of letters. I became really interested in prisoners of war and the missing in action. I think it’s impossible to read letters like those and not be terribly moved.”

Swedish academics, according to Burton, take their time with PhD programs (he spent eight years on his) and take the dissertation very seriously. “In Sweden,” says Burton, “if you’re ABD—all but dissertation—you’re at the starting gate. You’re nowhere. The dissertation is everything. At my defense, there were three hundred people in the audience. And after you’re approved, you’re expected to put on a banquet for everybody. I was an American, so I served hot dogs.”

After earning his degree, Burton did what most PhD recipients do: He scouted around for teaching jobs. He first lectured in American his tory at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, then came home to teach at UNH, Franklin Pierce, and the University of New England. In 2009, he saw a listing for a historian position with an office in the Department of Defense (DoD), a forerunner of his current employer, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), which is the US government bureau that searches the world for military personnel who didn’t return from war.

THE DPAA COUNTS more than 81,500 Americans still missing from conflicts stretching back more than eight decades, including nearly 1,600 from the Vietnam War, some 7,500 from Korea, and a sobering 72,000 from World War II. More than half are thought to be lost in deep water and thus nonrecoverable, leaving about 38,000 for possible pursuit. They may have died in a plane crash, their remains now hidden or scattered. They may have been killed in a ground battle or POW camp and simply left in a makeshift grave, now overgrown, whether in a Vietnamese jungle or in a German forest. They may have been buried in an American military cemetery as “unknown.”

The goal is to locate and identify them all— for their families, for the country—to make good on a pledge to leave no soldier behind. Thus the DPAA’s motto: “Fulfilling Our Nation’s Promise.”

The agency is headquartered in Virginia, near the Pentagon, with a large forensic identi fication lab in Hawaii. It has satellite operations at Air Force bases in Nebraska and Ohio and calls on other DoD facilities, including the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Delaware. With a staff of 725—half civilian, half military—the DPAA sends teams around the globe to methodically sweep sites with metal detectors and to sift soil, first for a piece of a plane wing or a parachute buckle, then possibly for human remains to be returned home and analyzed in hopes of identification.

The work relies on a wide variety of special ists, among them forensic anthropologists and odontologists, archaeologists, mountaineers, divers, explosive ordnance technicians, combat medics, translators, genealogists, and—to set each case in motion—historians, who search out every record, every clue, every bit of data findable, in the hope of leading to recovery and identification of those who never came home.

DPAA historians scour unit records, mission reports, individual deceased personnel files, missing air crew reports, witness statements, cemetery records, and other archival docu ments. They search the internet and read old newspaper stories, memoirs, and oral histories. They communicate with families of the missing and with amateur researchers and local officials in battle and crash zones around the world.

Over time—often years—as information is painstakingly gathered, the historians con stantly churn through everything again and again, looking for the piece of new information that will make a dossier that can warrant the exhuming of a war casualty buried without identification or, in cases of the missing, an overseas investigative mission and a possible all-out recovery effort. Cases once considered beyond hope are revisited repeatedly in light of improvements in DNA technology, isotope analysis of bones, and other lab processes.

For Burton, with his unplanned specialty in the Vietnam War, the job seemed a fine fit; he signed on. But the agency was looking to beef up its efforts to locate and identify service members lost in World War II, so he switched his focus to the earlier war. Today, World War II remains his main area of concentration. He’s assigned to a group that searches for Americans who died in Germany and other central European countries.

“MY FIRST WEEK ON THE JOB,” Burton remembers, “my supervisor said, ‘Find an unresolved case and see what you can do.’ I ran across the case of a B-17 that crashed very close off the coast of Sweden in 1944, so of course I had a personal interest in that one. A lot of aircraft landed safely or crash-landed in southern Sweden, but this was the only case where crew members died and were never recovered.

The goal is to locate and identify them all— for their families, for the country—to make good on a pledge to leave no soldier behind.

“I wrote to the Swedish war archives and started digging. The plane was nicknamed ‘Stinker.’ Of the crew of nine, eight were killed; two were washed ashore, and a Swedish coast guard vessel picked up the survivor.”

The wreckage of “Stinker” had never been found. For several years, Burton regularly revisited the file, but could find nothing that would clinch the case. Then, in 2015, a fisher man pointed two local divers to a spot where he caught riveted aluminum parts in his net. The two found the underwater crash site and Burton promptly went to Sweden to investigate.

“We had it all mapped out and were trying to decide how to proceed,” he says. “The plane was in tiny fragments, the seabed is very rocky, and the site had spread. Should we just hoover up everything on the seabed or be more selective?

Meantime, the two divers went to the local press, and it became the lead story on Swedish televi sion and on the front page of Expressen, the big newspaper, with a headline saying the Pentagon demands the remains of the dead crew members returned. The story spoke about ‘the corridors of power in the Pentagon’ and quoted me. Of course, when people met me, they said, ‘This kid is not in the corridors of power.’”

The divers found all four of the plane’s engines and other parts, but not the six missing crewmen. The wheels of the DPAA can grind painfully slowly; seven years after the find, with efforts to locate the crewmen so far unsuccessful, the case is still pending. Yet Burton is hopeful. “It’s a pretty good case,” he says. “I think some thing will happen with it.”

Another of his early cases was resolved last summer with a serendipitous assist from a classmate.

Burton had been tracking the case of three WWII POWs who died in 1944 in a German prison camp known as Stalag Luft 6, in what is

now Lithuania; they were buried by their captors in unmarked graves. “They were among the very few Americans lost in the former Soviet Union,” he says. “One contracted diphtheria. The Germans really made an effort to save his life—they knew that the Americans held a lot of German prisoners, so it was to their benefit to treat our captives well. The other two were shot by guards.”

After the war, the camp was in the Soviet occupation zone, so it was off-limits to the Americans charged with recovering the remains of the war dead. Eventually, in 1954, the three were declared nonrecoverable. Even after Lithuania declared independence in 1992, opening up access to the area, nothing hap pened. “Really, we never thought we could ever get those guys,” says Burton. “The Germans used that camp for thousands of Red Army soldiers, and after the war, the Soviets turned it into a gulag for Lithuanian dissidents. There are human remains everywhere. For a long time these three were back-burner cases, but still on the stove, always on our radar. Some cases you stick with, like a great white whale.

“Then one night I was having dinner with Yunhui Mao Singer ’91, and I was telling her about the case. Her husband had recently served as a Foreign Service officer in Vilnius. He put in a call to the Vilnius embassy, and they put me in contact with an American archaeolo gist working in the Baltic states. We asked him to look at the site with the latest information I had put together. He found nothing, but with that effort Stalag Luft 6 came off the back burner and went front and center.

“I got in touch with a Lithuanian archaeo logical group, and we partnered with them to do an excavation in the summer of 2021. We found an old aerial image from 1944, blew it up, and saw a strange anomaly around where people said

the burials had taken place. We performed a ground-penetrating radar scan, and it looked as though there were objects about five feet long spaced regularly, about three and a half feet below the surface. We asked the Lithuanians to dig right on that spot. Easiest recovery ever. Two still had their dog tags on. One had a gold Eighth Air Force ring.”

After laboratory confirmation this past sum mer, families of the airmen were notified, buri als were arranged, and the three were moved to the accounted-for list. Says Burton: “I’m proud and happy to have been a part of that one.”

TO HELP WITH FIELD WORK on such cases, the DPAA has partnership arrangements with dozens of universities and other institutions with special skills, and keeps in touch with hobbyists in for mer battle zones who search on their own. For the official government agency, freelancers can present a difficult balancing act. Local research ers can be valuable helpers and very passionate, but sometimes that passion can make trouble.

“There are groups all over Europe with fan cy-sounding names, and it sometimes turns out it’s three guys with a metal detector and a back hoe—World War II cowboys,” says Burton. “In a lot of places, metal detector work is illegal. A backhoe can disturb evidence. And then these guys can find something and put themselves on Facebook holding a skull and smiling. Do we try to rehabilitate them, bring them inside the tent? It’s a constant question for us.”

Burton’s job, like that of a homicide detective or an investigative reporter, is to find and tie together all the parts of a story until he gets to a conclusion that warrants a field mission. It is, he says, “like trying to fit together the pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle, and you don’t know what the picture is going to look like.” In his nearly thirteen years with the DPAA, he’s been on a few

He tells you about the day the letter arrived, and their mother cried. It’s as raw as it was in 1943. Time doesn’t heal those kinds of wounds.

missions himself, but, he says, he’d rather toil with musty paper in archives than with a metal detector in a muddy field. “I’m a historian,” he says simply.

He speaks about the National Archives, that “Disneyland for historians,” with genuine awe and affection. “It’s a bottomless well,” he says, “and almost all of it is paper—just a tiny, tiny fraction is in digital form. If you lined up all the boxes in that building side by side, they’d wrap around the equator I don’t know how many times. Just when you think you know the National Archives, you find something else. And

a lot of the war crimes files, you can tell no one has opened them since 1946. You’re the first.”

To help compile his cases, he meets in cities across the country with families of the missing to explain the program and share information. “They get in touch with us because they want to know what happened to Grandpa’s brother,” he says. “Or we invite them because we’ve located some remains and they may have information that will help us make an identification. Most of the dead were very young, usually with no children, so we have to go through nieces and nephews. Or, these days, it’s great-nieces and

great-nephews. Our genealogists are pretty good at tracking them. A family member’s DNA can be very helpful in confirming our work, so we ask people to give a cheek swab for the cause.

“About half the time they have only a vague idea of who we’re talking about—he’s just a faded photo on the wall. The other half, you’re introduced to an eighty-five-year-old guy and it’s his big brother, and he turns into a six-year-old boy again. He tells you about the day the letter arrived, and their mother cried. It’s as raw as it was in 1943. Time doesn’t heal those kinds of wounds. At some point during every family meeting, tears will be shed.

“Over the past three years, all our family meet ings have been over Zoom. We’re trying to get back to in-person meetings. Face-to-face contact is important. We’re historians, but in many cases, we’re almost serving as grief counselors.”

When the DPAA was created from a consolida tion of earlier DoD agencies in 2015, Congress gave it a goal of accounting for the remains of 200 missing service members a year. The tally had been rising yearly, surpassing the target in 2018 and 2019. Then COVID-19 struck, outside work almost stopped, and the number of iden tifications for 2020 sank to 120. With recovery teams starting back in the field, last year’s count reached 142. This year, the agency is on track to do noticeably better as Burton and his colleagues chip away at the thousands still to be identified.

Burton grants that, once the historical record is prepared, it’s expensive to send a team out in the field. “Each mission probably costs half a million dollars,” he says. “Every once in a while, someone will raise an eyebrow and say, ‘Gee, that was a long time ago.’ But I’ll tell you, you meet some of these families—a daughter who may never have known her father. I do it for her. But even if there aren’t families looking for them, they gave their lives and that absolutely ought to be remembered and honored. As we say, in our office every day is Memorial Day.

“If there are people who aren’t sure it’s worth it, well, they don’t understand.” He pauses. “I understand.”

Dan Carlinsky’s byline has appeared in magazines ranging from Seventeen to AARP, in major news papers, and on many books.

Maine’s rivers and streams cover nearly forty thousand miles, and the state’s iconic coastline measures more than three thousand miles. Water is everywhere at Bowdoin—including in what we learn.

BY ALISON BENNIE PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB HANDELMAN

LARGER THAN EVERYTHING

WATER.

IT COVERS about 70 percent of the surface of the earth and makes up about the same percentage of the human brain. Its chemical formula is known by almost everyone. It’s the most common substance on our planet and it’s vital for survival.

It’s also a mystery and a beauty and an inspi ration. And sometimes the bearer of disease or destruction. It’s powerful, and it has no respect for boundaries. It seeks its own equilibrium. It’s serene and soul-settling one moment and dark and disquieting the next.

It’s also everywhere you look at Bowdoin. It’s not just Maquoit Bay and Simpson’s Point to the south and the Androscoggin River and Merrymeeting Bay to the north; it’s a destina tion on an Outing Club paddling or whitewater or camping trip and the field of competition for rowing and sailing and even skiing.

Because it’s all around us in the landscape, we can—because we are human and we are espe cially good at spotting differences and ignoring things that stay the same—stop noticing it.

shape health and sickness in the late medieval and early modern period. As one example, she cites physician John Snow’s conviction in the mid-1800s that the cluster of cholera cases around the area of London’s Broad Street water pump indicated that cholera was not, as was thought, caused by “bad airs” or vapors. It was a waterborne disease. And, she says, “Water also comes in implicitly as a way that people are moving around the world. They’re crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, and that causes a major transmission of disease—European colonialism in general is very much facilitated by ship travel in that period, and colonialism is very significant for spreading disease from place to place.”

Opening spread: Looking west from Popham Beach, Phippsburg.

Opposite page: Morning on the Kennebec River, Bath Iron Works on the left.

We might especially not notice it in an area where it is actually ubiquitous—the classroom. Marine science and oceanography are the obvi ous disciplines, of course, and Bowdoin draws many students eager to be on the coast to do that work firsthand with accomplished faculty in the fields of marine and environmental science, biology, oceanography, and geology. But water is also embedded in courses you might not expect: architecture, art, literature, history, education. “As a metaphor, it’s so rich,” says painter and Professor of Art Jim Mullen. “It’s transportation, it’s transformation of space—it has a flexibility and a richness.”

In the course she teaches about the history of western medicine, Assistant Professor of History Meghan Roberts says water is a critical factor in understanding the social and cultural forces that

Like Roberts, Jill Pearlman, a senior lecturer in environmental studies who specializes in the history of architecture and urbanism, teaches about London and cholera in addition to a host of other ways water is connected to urban development. “In pretty much every class I teach, water comes up,” she says. “Every major city we study, from Paris to Chicago, they are where they are because of water.” She describes teaching about how the Great Stink in London—when the mid-nineteenth-century Thames was so polluted by human and industrial waste that a hot, dry summer created a stench so horrifying that it disrupted parliament and dominated daily life—prompted legislation and, Pearlman says, “completely changed policy and changed the relationship between politicians and people.”

But water is a force not just when it is dangerously unclean. As oceanographer Collin Roesler says, “Water plays a really huge role in the livability of this planet—it is the reason that it is livable. It comes down to the fact that we have ocean, which modulates temperature, and we have water in the atmosphere, which helps trap heat in the greenhouse, in the good sense.”

“IN

“THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT WHERE THE LAND MEETS THE OCEAN THAT FEELS TO ME LIKE THAT’S THE GAME—IT’S THE TRANSITION ZONE FROM TERRA FIRMA TO MYSTERY AND EXPANSIVENESS.”

—JAMES MULLEN, PROFESSOR OF ART

As one of the first experiences in her Ocean and Climate class, Roesler takes her students down to the Schiller Coastal Studies Center. “Having the ocean right here and having the coastline of Maine be so complex that it pro vides us with models for all of the ocean and all of the world—I can take them there and I can show them, and they can make measurements and they can figure it out. I want them to get a really intuitive feel for the power of water and how it shapes the world—physically, in terms of climate, and in terms of biology.”

Roesler describes oceanography as a “fresh young field where fresh young eyes and obser vations that you make as a student can actually contribute to knowledge, even for people like me, who have been at it for thirty years.” She uses that lens to inspire her students to observe, consider why something looks the way it looks, and determine how to use that information to think about how it might look in the future.

Students in Mullen’s landscape painting class spend the first weeks of the semester outside, learning plein air techniques and, like Roesler’s students, learning to look. “In a digital age, to be asked to slow down and have prolonged attention on something—that generosity of attention reveals things they never thought they would come to understand, or see,” he says. “As simple as that is, it tends to blow them away.”

“When there’s water in a landscape,” he says, “it’s no longer static, because it’s constantly flowing or settling or moving, or in the process of changing, whether it’s a river, the ocean, or even a pond. It’s always doing something.”

English painter David Hockney called paint ing water “an interesting formal problem … because it can be anything—it can be any color, it’s movable, it has no set visual description.”

Mullen has firsthand knowledge of the challenges of painting water, which he describes as “one of the toughest things to paint,” but says he is drawn to it again and again regardless. “There’s something about where the land meets the ocean that feels to me like that’s the game—it’s the transition zone from terra firma to mystery and expansiveness. Water just feels like it’s larger than everything, and it ties to everything.”

And water is not just a feature of the land scape—it determines it. As Roesler says, “Water tells us so much about the geologic history. Topography is driven so much by the flow of water and rivers and the retreat of glaciers and the coastline and sea level—all of it. I can’t even look at a landscape without seeing the influ ence of how water has made it look the way it looks. And the more we look, and the smaller the spatial scale, and the smaller the timescale, the more processes we see. And the challenge for oceanographers is to go from that scale to a global ocean changing over millennia.”

As an educator, she likened that challenge to one that an artist, whether as experienced as Mullen or as new to the task as one of his firstyear students, might face. “If you said to some one, you have a minute to paint me an ocean, they’d be like, ‘Okay,’ and they would just cover the surface with blue. And in fact that’s a really great average picture of the ocean. And if you said, ‘I’m giving you an hour,’ then you might find some variation in color, maybe some wave surfaces. But if you gave someone different tools and a very long time, you’d get every facet of the surface with a different reflection of the sky and land around it, and it’s not blue anymore.

Opposite page: End of an August day, the Atlantic Ocean, Phippsburg.

Top: Receding tide, Popham.

Top: Water play, Payson Park, Portland.

Opposite page: Conduit, south of Brunswick.

That’s what I try to do with science—give them the broad brush and then give them the details. Maybe you can’t paint the entire ocean in high detail, but you can paint a little part of it that way.”

Focusing on an inch-by-inch frame can allow artists to paint a more detailed portrait, scien tists to better understand an entire ecosystem, and even writers to best describe a character omnipresent in every story: the place. Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Muther, who is teaching a class on Maine writers and the envi ronment for a course-module in the Bowdoin Marine Science Semester, says, “In Maine, you can’t separate the water from the rugged land scape and its geohistory, its cultural history, its identity.” She describes how she lived and worked in Maine for a number of years before really understanding how central the rivers and lakes are. “I experienced it in going places. I gradually got to understand better the geography, the way the rivers run—I feel that if you understand the water systems in Maine you really understand a lot about this place. The history of what Maine is is so thickly written onto the landscape.”

In addition to teaching Maine writers, Muther asks her students, who take the course while they are in residence at the Schiller Coastal Studies

Center, to become Maine writers themselves, devel oping first a personal narrative piece centered in Maine and then an advocacy essay, in which they locate themselves within an issue like ocean tem perature change, research it, and write with a spe cific audience or publication in mind. “They’re changed by being at Bowdoin,” she says. “They actually are of Maine in some profound way.”

The syllabus for Muther’s class includes works that celebrate Maine and its community, like Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs, but also complexities like loneliness, loss of water rights, and anti-environmentalism. Not all is safe and beautiful in the Maine environment. Professor of Education Charles Dorn, who is teaching a course this semester about the history of environmental education, says, “We have in our minds this very firmly established link between healthy childhood development and education and access to nature and the natural world.” But in his class he teaches that not only is the assumption unproven in terms of any sort of evidence-driven study, “if you go further back in time historically in the United States, the woods and the wild places were the bad places. That’s where the devil lurked, out in the woods.”

Professor Roberts covers similar ground in her history of medicine course: “In early modern medieval medical theory, the body is seen as kind of porous and very shaped by bad airs, which can spread disease, or people can go to spas and have a water cure. They don’t think of health and the body and the world around it as separate as we do today. The body is influenced and shaped in really dramatic ways by the environment, which is part of what makes the environment so scary.” She shares a specific example studied in class: “When English settlers came to New England, they brought with them sweet little English pigs. But when they set the pigs loose in the woods, pigs have very short generations, and they quickly became wild and their bodies changed very dramatically, which made the English settlers very anxious about what this new environment might do to them.”

Dorn’s history of environmental education class looks at how such ideas changed and were adapted over time, beginning with a major school reform, especially at the elementary school level, called “nature study.” He says, “We look at zoos,

“IF YOU UNDERSTAND THE WATER SYSTEMS IN MAINE YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND A LOT ABOUT THIS PLACE. THE HISTORY OF WHAT MAINE IS IS SO THICKLY WRITTEN ONTO THE LANDSCAPE.”

—ELIZABETH MUTHER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

natural history museums, aquariums, and at youth development organizations like Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts, 4-H—it’s not a coincidence that most of the Camp Fire Girls and Boy Scout camps are on a pond or a lake; they want kids to be in the water as part of that natural experience.”

The course also examines how popular culture influenced how people saw nature, and he credits much of that early effect to live-action nature documentaries produced by Disney after World War II called True-Life Adventures, which followed animated films like Bambi. “These are the films that established essentially the genre of nature documentary film that has since led to things like Blue Planet, March of the Penguins, any of the films that anthropomorphize animals— you can trace them all back to Disney.”

Other factors influence the role of nature in education. “All of this stuff is heavily influenced by race, class, and gender,” Dorn explains. “These youth development organizations all had the same core principle: if you want to be well educated in whatever particular way, you need to be out in nature. But who has had access to the outdoors, and what form has it taken?”

Roberts says that issues of race, for example, permeate class discussions of medical advance ments and how disease was spread around the globe by ships crossing the ocean in the slave trade—not just by transporting people over water from one part of the world to the other but also “because the conditions on the ships were deplorable, very unhealthy and cramped, and surgeons on board used their access to enslaved people to experiment, trying out cures and examining the course of different diseases” as the ships traveled.

In that way, the waterways and the journeys that took place on them allow students to imag ine people whose lives and histories we have lost or that were simply never recorded. Muther describes the ways Maine writers they read connect water to history, social development, and power. “I felt as though the writers we were encountering provided an interpretive lens for reading the landscapes of the state,” she says, “even removing the boundaries of this incred ible geoculture and allowing us to think more deeply about Indigenous histories and their manifestation in a range of texts.”

Top:

Bottom:

Opposite page: Reflections between Union and Widgery Wharfs, Portland waterfront.

This page:

In the water off the Swinging Bridge, Topsham side.

Androscoggin River, Brunswick.

—COLLIN ROESLER, WILLIAM R. KENAN PROFESSOR OF

AND OCEANOGRAPHIC SCIENCE

Those examples aren’t always taking place in the distant past. Professor Pearlman describes ways water issues intersect with urban develop ment and planning and are also affected by race and class, citing Hurricane Katrina and other recent examples: “Flooding, recovery from flood ing, where we build and how we build, how bod ies of water can separate communities by social class, how in relation to water social classes are placed in the landscape—it crops up all the time.”

The connections aren’t always focused on lessons we can learn from what water does or brings or even is. Sometimes the connection to water is simply aesthetic or serves as a symbol of what matters to us as people. In her class on Frank Lloyd Wright, a prolific architect most famous for his Guggenheim Museum building and for Fallingwater, a Pennsylvania residence built over a waterfall, Pearlman says water is both a real element and more than that. “He builds in water, but he also uses water as sym bols for ritualistic purposes. There’s a temple in Philadelphia with a big water basin in front of it that refers back to the washing of hands before one prays. The sound of water is important to Wright in a number of buildings, the smell of water—he uses it symbolically, ritualistically, and in a sensory way.”

Roesler recognizes that deep sensory con nection and wants to empower every Bowdoin student to have it. “One of the things I focus on as an advisor is, let’s make sure everyone can swim.” She wants to leave them, she says, with a view of the ocean as welcoming. But also to be careful. “The ocean is a friend,” she says, “but the tides are really strong, the currents are really strong, sharks live around here. It’s a friend, but be respectful of the friend, because the friend is really powerful.”

She also acknowledges the reality of climate change and ocean warming. “We do a lot of

stuff—pollution in the atmosphere; we dump everything in the ocean; we’ve heated every thing up. The ocean has absorbed so much of the heat it has protected us from ourselves on a big, giant, global scale. But there’s a limit to how much more it can do.” She says both her teaching and her students have adapted over time. “Ten years ago we were still in the situation of making sure that everyone understood what was happening,” she says. Now, Roesler explains, “I talk about the Earth as a system with feedback loops. We are going to lose sea ice in the Arctic, and, yes, it’s too bad that this is happening. But for our students there’s tremendous opportunity for thinking about adaptation.”

Mullen says seeing students make connec tions like these is deeply rewarding. He tells of a conversation with a student in his painting class who had spent the summer doing research at the Retina Institute. A neurobiology major with a deep interest in vision, she was eager to think about seeing in a different way. “They love being around the landscape and with nature. And then we start tying it together with their other classes, and they start having all these points of refer ence, and they see that it is all interconnected. And that just couldn’t be more exciting.”

Every molecule of water in the world has always been here. The water that bobs Bowdoin sailboats against the dock at Schiller, the spray from the hose that waters the organic garden and all the water we drink, the vastness of Casco Bay and the unfathomable ocean beyond—every drop is billions of years old. Through their ever-shifting existence, they connect everything, offering life, of course, but also lessons, inspira tion, and beauty. Because it’s not just the human brain that matches the world in the percentage that is water. It’s also the human heart.

Bennie is the magazine’s executive editor.

Alison

Opposite page: Low tide at Long Reach, Harpswell.

“WATER PLAYS A REALLY HUGE ROLE IN THE LIVABILITY OF THIS PLANET—IT IS THE REASON THAT IT IS LIVABLE.”

EARTH

As head of American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier (ARC)—a major cargo and freight company—Eric Ebeling ’98 is responsible for navigating everything from a supply chain crisis spurred on by the pandemic to global wars and geopolitics.

Steady Ship

People think of shipping fleets as moving consumer goods around the world. On a daily basis, what are the types of things being carried on your ships?

Our ships are roll-on/roll-off—or ro-ro—ships, essentially giant floating parking garages with twelve adjustable decks, each 600 to 850 feet long, and capable of carrying 6,000 to 8,000 autos or other configurations of what is referred to as “high and heavy” cargo for industries such as mining, construction, and agriculture.

What caused the supply chain crisis, and why is it so hard to fix?

It was a mismatch of supply and demand. At the outset of the pandemic, global trade fell off a cliff, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ships were laid up because there was nothing to carry. All of a sudden, consumer demand— largely driven by the boom in e-commerce and at-home online shopping—spiked, and demand reached levels that were impossible to predict and difficult to meet in an economy that was still largely shut down, especially overseas. It takes years to build a large commercial ship, and the global ship orderbook is now chockablock full through 2025 or so. It will take time to bring capacity online.

You do a great deal of work that’s critical to the US Department of Defense. What shape does that take? Why is that important?

The Department of Defense and the US gov ernment writ large rely on US-flag carriers to

support global operations. We move everything from privately owned vehicles and household goods for military service members and Department of State diplomats to M1 tanks, V-22 Ospreys, various types of helicopters, and other power projection equipment. We also move project cargoes such as locomotives, railcars, buses, generators, and satellites, as well as commercial autos, agricultural equipment, and construction and mining gear.

The dedicated transportation and logistics professionals that I’m privileged to lead have enabled ARC to support the DoD and its mission for over three decades—from the post–Cold War European drawdown and the Balkan wars in the ’90s to Iraq and Afghanistan post-9/11 and today as the world responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our services go well beyond just ocean shipping, encompassing terminal service, stevedoring, trucking and intermodal opera tions, and life-support services. The mariners employed by ARC and other US-flag commercial operators also provide the reserve manpower pool that crews government-owned ships in times of war and other national emergencies.

The US has been sending weapons and other support to Ukraine—is that the sort of thing you do?

Yes, we have been supporting the US and NATO response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In fact, we have been quietly doing so since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, which helped galvanize NATO out of its post–Cold War

malaise. We work especially closely with US Transportation Command, which is headquar tered at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Your fleet sails in some pretty challenging places. How do the geopolitics of waters like the Taiwan Strait and the Persian Gulf affect what you do?

As a US-flag carrier employing American citizen merchant mariners and carrying government and military cargoes, there are certainly chal lenges and opportunities that come with that territory. Piracy was a major issue off the Horn of Africa a decade or so ago, and we at ARC took the decision to put armed security guards on board to protect our crews, cargo, and ships.

A member of the Bowdoin swimming team and water polo player and now a leader in the shipping industry—are you at your happiest around water?

Many of my best friends to this day are from swimming and water polo at Bowdoin. I guess you could say I’ve always had an affinity for the water.

Eric Ebeling ’98 is president and CEO of ARC, a Florida-based shipping line that specializes in international transportation, shipping, and logistics. In addition to a bachelor’s in government and English at Bowdoin, he holds a JD and master’s in international relations from American University.

For more from this interview, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Whispering Pines

Longfellow captured succinctly the fleeting nature of student life and expressed admiration for the youthful energy that constantly reinvigorated the College:

What passing generations fill these halls, What passing voices echo from these walls, Ye heed not; we are only as the blast, A moment heard, and then forever past.

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Between Memory and Change

A nineteenth-century poet captures the essence of being connected to an ever-changing college.

IN HIS 1875 POEM “Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “O ye familiar scenes,—ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer mine.”

In seventeen words, Longfellow captured the bittersweet tension between memory and change that alumni often feel. Underlying the wistfulness is a clear-eyed realization that the College exists to encourage the development of character and intellect in undergraduates whose experiences, memories, and futures are distinct from those who came before them. It has been this way since the first class of seven students graduated from Bowdoin in 1806.

For Longfellow, the changes between 1825 and 1875 included a rebuilt Maine Hall (following an 1836 fire); Appleton Hall; the replacement of a wooden chapel with one of granite; the uncompleted shell of Memorial Hall; and Adams Hall, the home for the Medical School of Maine. Longfellow spoke from the pulpit of the 1846 church, which had replaced the building in which he had graduated. The house where he had lived as a faculty member from 1829 to 1832 had been moved and raised to accommodate a new Victorian first floor, and was now the home of President Joshua Chamberlain and his family. Since Longfellow’s day, the number of faculty had nearly tripled, the student body had grown from 133 to 167, and the curriculum was divided into classical and scientific departments. The 1874 student rebellion against military drill exercises was still a fresh memory.

Bowdoin’s oldest living alumni had been students on the eve of the Second World War; several had their college education interrupted by military service. The growth of the College in the immediate postwar years was driven by veterans pursuing an education afforded by the G.I. Bill, which in turn highlighted the need for expanded classroom and dormitory facilities. Bowdoin’s first capital campaign added Sills, Cleaveland, Gibson, and Moore Halls to the campus map.

The pace of change quickened throughout the 1960s. The Class of 1960 graduated before the construction of the Senior Center/Coles Tower, Morrell Gymnasium, HawthorneLongfellow Library, and the renovation of Winthrop, Maine, and Appleton—all features enjoyed five years later by the Class of 1965. In 1960, Bowdoin offered a “traditional New England education” to young men, but by the end of the decade sought to broaden the geographic and demographic composition of the student body and faculty. In 1970, Bowdoin became the first college in the country to make the reporting of Scholastic Aptitude Test scores optional, a high honors-honors-pass-fail grading system was in place, distribution requirements were relaxed, the John Brown Russwurm Afro-American Center was dedicated, and the first woman enrolled as a student that fall.

The trajectory established a half century ago continues to draw on the diverse talents and experiences of students and faculty. That path has had its ups and downs, with each student cohort experiencing segments of the journey in a unique way. Current students—most of whom were born after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—grew up with cell phones, social media, and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. They, like the generations before them, have been shaped by particular events and circumstances. However, like Longfellow, we salute those who “follow in the furrows that we tilled,” and we hope that the Class of 2023 and future classes will treasure the familiar scenes and experiences from their time at Bowdoin.

John R. Cross ’76 is secretary of development and college relations.

DIGITAL HUMANIST

Most people don’t connect digital assistants like Alexa and Siri with the labor of Black women. But I’ve been fascinated—and haunted—by that connection ever since my first year in the Screen Cultures PhD program at Northwestern University. I took a class called Science Fiction and Gender, and our professor showed us the first commercial for Amazon Echo, which featured Alexa. The commercial is narrated by a young girl, who says at the end of the ad, “With all the things Echo can do, it’s really become part of the family!”

That language called to mind the way employers often used to describe real and fictional Black female domestic servants as “like one of the family” and led me to an exploration of digital assistants and how they are programmed to function and respond, how they are depicted in popular media, the types of work they are designed to do, and how users interact with them. This exploration, which is the basis of my dissertation, revealed even more similarities to Black female domestic workers, who were often trained to behave in similar ways and perform many of the same tasks, both in the real world and on the silver screen.

Unpacking and analyzing these similarities sparked my interest in digital humanities work. I have a habit of doing work that others find unexpected, bizarre, or outright ridiculous, and being at Bowdoin helped me to become confident in myself and my work. I am still working on my PhD, but I am drawn to the digital humanities because I want people to look at and think about everyday items in ways that they otherwise might not. For more of our interview with Golden, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

not

ALUMNI

PHOTO: DAVID W. JOHNSON

When she’s

working, you might find Golden Owens ’15 practicing tae kwon do (she’s a fourth-degree black belt), singing a cappella, or reading—her tattoo says “so it goes” in a nod to Slaughterhouse Five.

GOLDEN OWENS ’15

1946 See Class of 1985 for a note about Cam Carey 1958 Reunion

Constantine Tsomides: “We [Tsomides Associates Architects Planners] are working on a new proposed project for The Cedars retirement community in Portland, Maine, whom we’ve been working with for the past thirty years. In 2008, we designed the new Osher Inn Assisted Living Facility at Cedars sponsored by Bernard Osher ’48, a fellow Bowdoin alumnus.”

John Lasker: “The 1955 class news of Harvey Stephens ’55 [from the Spring/Summer 2022 issue] reminded me of my introduction to Bowdoin. I was the guest of Harvey at the TD house as a prospective student. I stayed in Harvey’s room and the windows were open. That evening it snowed, and needless to say there was a bit of snow in the room. Harvey is a true polar bear! As to my ’58 classmate [Constantine] Tsomides, I think he’s trying to outlast the Parthenon! Keep on truckin’, Taki.”

1962 Danny Alvino:

1959

Martin Gray: “In 2019, I cofounded Ocean Visions (ocean visions.org), which was desig nated a United Nations Decade Collaborative Center in June 2022.” The Ocean Visions–UN Decade Collaborative Center for OceanClimate Solutions leads and supports collaborative processes under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to co-design, devel op, test, and ultimately deploy scal able and equitable ocean-based solutions to mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change.

“The current year, 2022, with the exception of an outstanding weekend at Bowdoin embracing the 60th Reunion of the Class of 1962, has been a relatively quiet one. Florence and I once again ‘wintered’ for three months in sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and then a month in Arizona—completely avoiding the winter storms of New England. Since returning to Rhode Island, I have continued to busy myself with various responsibilities within the Rotary Club of Westerly, and with my other volunteer role as a member of the board of directors of the fifty-year-old, UN-sanctioned climate control agency known as Reforest the Tropics (RTT). In the latter role, I serve as chairman of the education committee. As such I have successfully arranged for representatives of the RTT organization to provide climate change instruction at both Westerly High School and Westerly Middle School. Segments of the RTT curriculum provide exciting live video presentations conducted within the classrooms wherein students interact via the internet directly with foresters in Costa Rica as they demonstrate to the student classes the methods by which they measure the amount of CO2 captured by the trees—a process known as sequestration. The program is in its eighth year and continues to receive rave reviews from administrators, teachers, and students alike. The 60th Reunion weekend provided an excellent time to visit with and interact with so many former classmates, families, and their guests. It was truly enjoyable to be with so many friends, some of whom I had not seen since graduation. Additionally,

Steven Mickley ’67 with his two youngest grandchildren, two-year-old Hattie Mickley and fourteen-week-old Linus Mickley, both geared up to follow in their grandfather’s Polar Bear footsteps.

“Olde Bowdoin Grads” Hank Haskell ’56, Vicky Carpenter, Harry Carpenter ’57, Pat Haskell, Tina Hinckley, and Bob Hinckley ’58 met on August 24, 2022, a beautiful summer day at Pemaquid Point, Maine.

Cam Cary ’46 has been going to his summer place—which has been in the family since the 1870s—on an island off Milbridge, Maine, every year since he was three years old. This year, his sturdy Bowdoin chair, shown here as Cam’s family readies him for the voyage home, played an important supporting role.

Remember

The following is a list of deaths reported to us since the previous issue. Full obituaries appear online at: obituaries.bowdoin.edu

Guy W. Leadbetter ’47 July 24, 2022

Robert P. Friberg ’50 August 17, 2022

James V. Decker ’51 May 11, 2022

Everett E. Schmidt ’51 June 14, 2022

George C. Maling Jr. ’52 June 9, 2022

Douglas A. Chalmers ’53 April 4, 2022

E. Ward Gilman ’53 June 15, 2022

Nathaniel S. Clifford ’54 May 25, 2022

Joel H. Graham ’54 July 23, 2022

Ernest B. Johnson Jr. ’54 July 11, 2022

William E. George ’55 September 10, 2022

J. Curtis Brewer ’56 September 7, 2022

Stephen J. McCabe ’56 May 21, 2022

Thomas E. Needham ’57 August 2, 2022

Neil A. Cooper ’58

May 23, 2022

Donald C. Doele ’59 August 9, 2022

Soon Cho ’60, H’94 June 23, 2022

Walter A. Read ’60 May 31, 2022

Worthing L. West Jr. ’60 August 23, 2022

Robert W. Ferrell Jr. ’62 June 16, 2022

Lawrence A. Heald ’62 June 29, 2022

Charles H. Perrine ’62 May 7, 2022

Carl P. Von Mertens ’62 August 20, 2022

Rodney S. Peddrick ’63 July 19, 2022

Roderic A. Stevenson ’63 March 31, 2022

Aurele J. Violette ’63 June 9, 2022

William C. Whit ’63 August 2, 2021

Sargent Collier ’64 July 11, 2022

Frederick C. Copeland Jr. ’64 June 18, 2022

Michael G. Butler ’65 September 7, 2022

Charles A. Couillard ’66

January 16, 2022

Richard R. Fay ’66 September 1, 2022

J. Whitman Smith ’68 July 15, 2022

Peter C. Liebe ’69

June 11, 2022

Charles R. Roderick ’69 August 5, 2022

John F. Locke ’70 July 20, 2022

Frederick J. Brainerd ’75 June 21, 2022

Michael M. Frost ’76 July 16, 2021

Austin F. Leach III ’76 July 4, 2022

Katharine W. McKee ’76 August 18, 2022

John R. Skehan ’78 August 31, 2022

Kevin J. McCabe ’80 November 2, 2021

Jonathan D. Bush ’81 May 28, 2022

John B. Corcoran ’82 July 29, 2022

Sarah E. Dresser ’04 June 30, 2022

Truc T. Huynh ’05 June 18, 2022

HONORARY

Roger Angell H’06 May 20, 2022

FACULTY/STAFF

Gerald L. Boothby July 23, 2022

Patricia R. Grover June 28, 2022

Michael E. Reed August 1, 2022

John C. Rensenbrink July 30, 2022

Bowdoin obituaries appear on a dedicated online site, rather than printed in these pages. Updated regularly, the improved obituary format allows additional features that we can’t offer in print, specifically the ability for classmates, families, and friends to post photos and remembrances.

I continue to keep in periodic contact with my two former roommates, Dave Barron and Will Eastman, both of whom I cherish as brothers. Additional contacts with Peter Karofsky and Peter Webster, while less frequent, are pleasant and likewise always enjoyable. Last month my wife, daughter, and I all attended the Elton John Yellow Brick Road concert at Gillette Stadium. The tickets were an eightieth birthday gift in January 2020, but the concert was canceled for two consecutive years due to COVID. This performance was among his very last. The concert was worth waiting for: another huge check mark on the bucket list. For winter 2023, Florence and I have made plans to spend three months in Pelican Bay (Naples) and one month in Jupiter, Florida. We will probably miss our friends in Mexico, but we wanted to try a different setting for a change. For winter 2024 we have booked a small ship around-theworld tour with Viking that lasts 140 days, from December 23 to May 12. Hopefully, our health will allow us to make this journey. Thus, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We are definitely not getting any younger. We continue to enjoy our home that is part of a fifty-five year and older community—a lovely one-floor setting one mile from the beach. Please know that classmates and other Bowdoin friends are always welcome to visit whether you just happen to be in the area or whether the visit is preplanned. Just contact us.”

Ken Bacon: “Kudos for our class agent, Peter Webster, and the reunion planning committee for a fun reunion weekend last June. Good conversation, good food, and fun activities made it special. I am still working part-time providing

mental health counseling services for a variety of client issues. There was a silver lining to the pandemic, and that was the opportunity to practice remotely from home and to experience the benefits for myself and my clients, such as accessibility and convenience. As a result, I gave up my physical office and will continue to practice in this manner for the foreseeable future.”

Phillip Boulter: “I am trying to retire from several not-for-profit boards but can still find time for tennis, coaching several women’s teams, as well as golfing and skiing at our winter home in Waterville Valley. Recently I was selected for a four-year term on the Bowdoin Alumni Council. The council focuses on helping the alumni relations office engage with alumni by providing input, advice, and perspectives on plans and initiatives. If any fellow classmates have thoughts in these areas, please feel free to reach out to me as I would value any input.”

Fred Hill: “My coeditor and I have completed a composite biography of Senator Charles ‘Mac’ Mathias, a liberal Republican for whom I was foreign affairs director his last two years in office. Mathias of Maryland: A Lincoln Republican contains an outstanding preface by scholar Norman Ornstein on the contrast between moderate Republicans such as Mathias, Howard Baker, Bill Cohen, Jake Javits, and Richard Lugar, and today’s GOP leaders, and fifteen chapters on substantive achievements by Mathias, such as his civil rights activism, early opposition to the Vietnam War and Nixon’s Watergate behavior, leadership in establishing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and passage of the sanctions against

South Africa over Reagan’s veto, on which I worked with my thendeputy, Sen. Chris Van Hollen. We have excellent endorsements from former Secretary of Defense and Maine Sen. William S. Cohen, Ambassador Thomas Pickering ’53, Sen. Sam Nunn, and Col. Larry Wilkerson. Now seeking a good publisher for release in 2023. Terrific 60th Reunion—and pleased to report that Dexter Bucklin, Jeff Milliken, Jack Adams, and I fin ished ‘first but one’ (old Soviet term for finishing second in Olympics) in our reunion challenge vs. Class of 1963 led by John Lacasse ’63 We’ll get even next year!”

Peter Karofsky: “Kathy and I continue splitting our time between Wisconsin and Florida. We are still playing lots of tennis and trav eling (COVID being the limiting factor). Our last great trip was to Australia and New Zealand. Of course, we spent a couple of days at the Australian Open in addition to exploring both countries. Not a day goes by that I don’t consult for a friend or relative. Kathy boasts there isn’t a pediatrician with more knowledge about the prostate gland. The last two grandchildren have graduated high school. One, a grandson from Denver, is playing junior A hockey in New Hampshire. The other, a grandson from Madison, is pre-med and trying out for the football team at University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Our granddaughter from Madison just started law school at St. Thomas in Minnesota. And our Denver grand daughter is entering her senior year at Indiana University. It is hard to believe my children are empty nesters. What does that say about us? I continue to stay in touch with Paul Riseman, Danny Alvino, Tane Yamamoto, AM Goldkrand,

Peter Webster, Dave Shea, Fred Hill, and Charlie Garland. It was great speaking to a few other class mates before the reunion.”

Charlie Leach: “I have been in Maine all summer, but as you know, there were COVID spikes in the spring in several counties (Knox and Lincoln in particular), so I decided that, much as I would have enjoyed seeing you all, I just was not going to risk it. Melissa and I are both well, but we are somewhat vulnerable. It’s obvious that the organizing team did well. The thought does cross my mind that we are all starting to run out of years. I was happy to see that so many classmates attended the reunion, and I’m now thinking that my participation in a 65th Reunion is absolutely mandatory.”

Peter Mone: “After forty-five years in Winnetka, Sharon and I moved thirteen miles north to Lake Forest last November. We remain active by continuing to play golf, and we get away five to six weeks in the winter to La Quinta, California, our vacation spot for the last thirty-eight years. Our son, Peter, and daughter-in-law, Gaby, live fifteen minutes away, and daughter Kathleen and husband Kevin are forty-five minutes from us. Three of their sons are in college, and the fourth just commenced high school. It’s hard to fathom that we gradu ated over sixty years ago.”

Chris Potholm: “Really enjoying retirement, with grandkids, fishing, reading and writing, and sharing with Sandy. Had a marvelous time with Bill Cohen, Jed Lyons, and Peter Webster doing our book on Bill Cohen and his ‘walk of 1972’ [Bill Cohen’s 1972 Campaign for Congress: An Oral History of the Walk That Changed Maine Politics] for its fiftieth anniversary. My only regret is that we can’t all go back and do

Bowdoin all over again as students. The new courses and new perspec tives and new professors and staff have made the place even more exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling. Bowdoin was, and remains, a very special place. It changed all our lives for the better.”

John Rex: “I’m now in my second year living independently in a senior community in Getzville, New York, just north of Buffalo. Having lost much of my vision, I gave my car to my grandson in March. I regret missing our sixtieth reunion and being out of touch with Bowdoin friends. I’m still vertical and play a lot of bridge.”

Larry Schoenwald: “The happiest change in our lives has been our nine-months-young granddaughter, Jordan, who brings us unparalleled delight with her smiles, moves, and daily surprises. At almost eighty-two and eighty, Patty and I are so lucky! Cheers.”

Peter Valente: “Still practicing law as a partner in a big law firm in New York City, Blank Rome LLP, albeit mostly remotely.”

Peter Webster: “In January of 2021, I retired from the practice of law after fifty-six years in the same place with a Portland firm. To stave off the ravages of the aging process, I take courses at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a local program offered to people fifty-five years and older. This year I also began to take French lessons again, sixty years after finishing with Gerard Brault at Bowdoin. Chris Potholm and I were fortunate enough to be invited by Bill Cohen to the honorands’ dinner at Bowdoin’s Commencement in June. Bill’s wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, received an honorary degree based upon her lengthy career as a journalist and social activist pursuing racial

reconciliation. She and Bill have cowritten a book, Love in Black and White, a memoir of their experiences with race, religion, and romance. In addition, Bill is also the subject of a recent book, titled Bill Cohen’s 1972 Campaign for Congress, edited by Chris Potholm. It is a fascinating oral history of Bill’s walk through Maine’s Second District, which launched his highly successful politi cal journey! Both are great reads!”

1965

From Booktrib.com, Sept. 20, 2022

Roger Saillant’s new memoir, The Power of Being Seen, was featured in a review on the Booktrib website, where it was called “an unparalleled glimpse into foster care in the ’50s.”

A child of the foster care system for eighteen years, Saillant went on from Bowdoin to earn a PhD at Indiana University and to a career that included thirty years at the Ford Motor Company.

1973 Reunion

Excerpted from the author’s website.

Peter Clennott’s latest novel, The Unwanted, was released on July 28 by Level Best Books. It’s a World War II story about the Nazi eugenics program and their systematic attempts to euthanize those not achieving Aryan standards. In it, a fourteen-year-old child prodigy is being taken to be euthanized. Her arrival at the Hollenschloss Institute sparks something in a sixteen-year-old beauty who has graced the covers of German magazines as the blonde, blue-eyed female Aryan prototype and a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel. When “the unwanted” falls under suspicion for a postwar murder, she and “the noble” learn the only true homeland is family.

Catching Up

A DIFFERENT LENS

Drew Webb ’68 translated a childhood love of photography into teaching others how to use the art form for scientific purposes.

WHILE WORKING AT POLAROID, I was part of a worldwide group that developed products that complemented technologies used in the medical field, including ultrasounds and MRIs. I also founded the law enforcement products group, where I worked with an FBI special agent, Tom Diskin. Together we taught crime scene and evidence photography across all the New England states and their police academies. It was fun, and I felt that I was contributing to making the world a better place.

I HAVE BEEN FASCINATED BY PHOTOGRAPHY and image making ever since I saw one of my father’s photos being developed in my grandfather’s darkroom. I received a camera for my eleventh birthday and began taking, developing, and printing my own images. I still make a lot of images for my personal art and for the Mercedes Benz Club of America, for which I’m the director.

WHEN DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY began to take over the field in the 1990s, I was an early advocate. It has the same immediate feedback as Polaroid instant photography, but with more detail and control. It is also much easier to defend regarding crime scene and evidence photography because, contrary to popular belief, any alteration is easily detected.

For more of our interview with Drew, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Drew Webb ’68

1979

Leslie Anderson:

“My 2016 book [Democratization by Institutions] has recently been translated and published by Prometeo Libros in Buenos Aires. Prometeo is a small, exclusive academic press, and I am lucky to be on their list. My book is part of a very visible series. The series editor is Alejandro Tullio, and the name of the series is ‘Democracy, Parties and Elections.’ The book was originally published by the University of Michigan Press. Additionally, in July, Prometeo had a book launch, and it was recorded for YouTube. A book launch is a tradition in Argentina and Spain, but not so much in the US. For the publisher, it is a way to sell books and is like a ‘meet the author’ panel at an academic conference except it is international, by Zoom, and available subsequently on YouTube. The University of Florida has recently updated my website, and the link to the event is included there. I am sorry that I did not get this information to the Bowdoin community back in July to allow folks to listen to the book launch live. It has been a crazy summer with trying to get another book manuscript to a press. Better late than never.”

1980 Audrey Gup-Mathews:

1982

From an SVB Financial Group press release SVB Financial Group announced the appointment of Thomas King, former CEO of investment banking at Barclay’s, to its board of directors. King will also serve on the board’s Compensation and Human Capital Committee. “Tom’s proven leadership within complex global financial services firms makes him well suited to join SVB’s board as the company con tinues to grow,” said Kay Matthews, chair of SVB’s board of directors.

“Tom’s expansive knowledge of the financial services industry will con tribute to SVB’s ability to execute its strategy and deliver long-term value for stakeholders.” King began his ca reer at Salomon Brothers, which was later acquired by Citigroup. During his tenure at Citi, he held several senior roles, including global head of mergers and acquisitions. He earned an MBA from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

1985

Sarah

Carey

Denver-based

Todd Siler ’75

History of Conflict Resolution (top), now

says the artwork “aims to inspire progressive ideas and positive actions that everyone can take or make to improve the fragile state of the world...first, by understanding one’s connection with nature, the world, and each other.” Siler also created the public sculpture The Dream Tree: Celebrating the Wonder of Humanity and the Beauty of Civility (bottom), which includes ten statement-pictures woven throughout to, as Siler explains, “intimate how we, as global citizens, can keep our nation and world alive and well...by practicing and protecting the principles of democracy.”

“I’m currently working as a program associate at the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (NERRA), assisting with projects and writing grants on the side for area nonprofits: mainegrantconnect.com/about. My daughter, Castine, recently received her Maine K–12 art teacher certification. So excited for her and happy she’s starting her career here in Maine!”

Robinson: “We have a summer place on an island off Milbridge, Maine. It’s been in our extended family since the 1870s. There are over sixty related families that currently have ownership. It is dad’s [Cam Carey ’46] happy place, and he hasn’t missed a year since he was three. The problem is it is difficult to get to. We have no docks—landing by skiff on a cobble beach and having to transfer from skiff to motorboat. Dad was deter mined to go, and I wanted to make it happen. So a bunch of my relatives got together to make it happen, and a key component was his Bowdoin captain’s chair (which he sits in for every meal). Six of them carried him down the beach in it, transferred it into the skiff, and I rowed him out

artist

with his piece

available for viewing at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in the Leprino Family Atrium. Siler

Cynthia George Gilliam ’73, Susan Stearns Simmons ’76, Martha Seyfer Van Santvoord ’73, Glenn Bachman ’74, and Buzz Van Santvoord ’71 got together at Cynthia’s summer place in southern Rhode Island in early August to renew their Polar Bear friendships. Cynthia said, “It’s the Cundy’s Harbor gang, plus one.”

to a waiting lobster boat that had an open stern, making it easier to get him aboard. Without his sturdy Bowdoin chair, it would have been much tougher!”

1986Jill Bermingham

Isenhart: “In February of 2020, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went through about a year of chemo, major Whipple surgery, more chemo, and radiation. During the whole yearlong journey, friends from Bowdoin were incredible. Some Boulder friends of mine organized a weekly ‘healing’ call, where we had a Zoom meeting and I gave a quick update, and then someone led a mediation to focus on my healing. There were anywhere from thirty to sixty people on those calls, and many of them were a group of Bowdoin friends who participated each and every week. I am convinced that the way they (and others) showed up for me definitely helped my healing process. Last fall, when travel could resume a bit more, I came back east largely to see and thank these main Bowdoin friends who had been so supportive during my journey. That’s just one story. I probably visited and reconnected with close to fifteen Bowdoinites. I have photos with most of them, and I wanted to let them each know how important their support was to me during my cancer battle. For me, it spoke to the amazing friendships and the type of giving people Bowdoin attracts.”

Andrew Turkish: “My wife and I are proud to welcome our grandson Logan Alan Skow-Turkish into this great world, born on June 11, 2022. He joins big brother Bryce. The baby is doing well. I am still going strong in my thirty-third year of practicing law and my tenth year as a senior partner at Clausen Miller P.C. out

of our Florham Park, New Jersey, office. Best regards to all classmates and their loved ones.”

1987From the Kennebec Journal (ME), Sept. 23, 2022. Patrice Thibodeau joined HealthReach Community Health Centers in July. Thibodeau, who has more than twenty-five years of primary care experience serving patients of all ages, earned her MD from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago and completed her postdoctoral training in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Rochester, New York.

From Gordon Weinberger: “Mark P. Leeds and Gordon M. Weinberger, Bowdoin 1987 class mates and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers, spent a late August 2022 afternoon planning for a major motion picture based on Weinberger’s 1990 American Apple Pie Adventures. The six-foot, nine-inch Gordon, dressed in a crazy costume, visited thousands of grocery stores across America to sell his original apple pie recipe in a retrofitted old-school bus dubbed ‘The Forty-Four-Foot Piebus.’ Throughout his journey, Gordon never gave up, believing in the power of Infinite Persistence, the title of his 2005 book that told his story. Leeds and Weinberger are hoping to utilize the Bowdoin alumni network to tell the story and inspire others to pursue their dreams through determination, imagination, and persistence.”

1988 Reunion

Excerpted from The New York Times, June 30, 2022. Nick Peay was featured in a New York Times article showcasing Peay Vineyards, the winery he runs with his wife and

Greg Clark ’84 and Peter Gourdeau ’85 traveled together this fall to visit their first-year sons (Brodie Clark and Pete Gourdeau) at the University of Colorado–Boulder and attended the CU vs. UCLA football game. Clark called it “Polar Bear dads with their Buffalo sons.”

Bob Evans ’76 and his wife, Gretchen, in front of a mural created by schoolchildren in Bougas, Spain, to increase awareness of global warming.

In September, Bob and Gretchen walked the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage path that leads to the shrine of the apostle St. James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain.

Brett Buckley ’76 said, “Yo, Fitzie!” is how he greeted Jim Fitzpatrick ’76, a classmate he hadn’t seen in forty-six years.

In early August, Roger Clement ’86, Robin Raushenbush Koval ’86, Jill Bermingham Isenhart ’86, Jennifer Mahoney ’89, and Sean Mahoney ’86 gathered to do a weeklong loop road bike trip in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado—from Ridgway, Colorado, to Silverton to Durango to Telluride to Dolores to Ouray (about a 300-mile trip with lots of climbing). Jill wore a Bowdoin jersey sent to her by Joan Benoit Samuelson when Jill was going through chemo.

brother just three-and-a-half miles from the Pacific Ocean in the northern part of the West Sonoma Coast. The piece illustrates how the vineyard exemplifies that new American Viticultural Area—the appellations given to designated growing regions in the country—an offshoot of the original Sonoma Coast appellation. “For Peay Vineyards, the new designation comes as an acknowledgment, if not exactly vindication, that the area they pioneered twenty-five years ago offers distinctive qualities shown transparently in their wines.”

Mark P. Leeds ’87 and Gordon M. Weinberger ’87, classmates and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers, spent a late August 2022 afternoon planning for a major motion picture based on Weinberger’s 1990 American Apple Pie Adventures and posed after dining in The Square in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The brothers started out in 1996 by purchasing 280 acres 600 to 800 feet in elevation, lower than the standard of 920 feet and below the fog line, keeping the property cooler during the day. They began planting the vineyard in 1998, and in 2001, in time for their first vintage, Vanessa Wong—Nick’s wife and an experienced winemaker—joined the team. Peay’s initial wines were not in the dominant style of the time, but the aim was to show the characteristics and potential of the vineyard in wines that were intended to go with food. That required him to sell the wines virtually by hand. “Over the last twenty years, the stylistic pendulum of California winemaking has swung in Peay’s direction. Tastes are far more diverse, and the Sonoma Coast has come to be known as a source for fresh, balanced wines. Nobody said life working on the West Sonoma Coast was easy. The fog keeps rolling in and the wind will blow. But the wines are worth it.”

to Jake Thibeault, a senior at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, where Bland is the head of school. Thibeault was paralyzed in a hockey game during his senior year, essentially ending his dream to play college hockey. He found out he would likely never walk again when Bland went to see him in the hospital. Whether Thibeault got caught up in the moment or was simply in denial, he made a bold prediction that day. “I don’t remember much, but I vividly remember saying to him, ‘I will walk at graduation,’” he told CBS News. “In a moment like that, you want to be encouraging, but you don’t want to assure something that you’re not sure can happen,” Bland said. He simply responded, “That’s wonderful, Jake.” From that day on, Thibeault immersed himself in therapy, doing way more than was asked of him, hoping that one day he could walk across the graduation stage. He put in nine months of work to take thirty steps across that stage, with the help of a walker and leg braces, receiving a standing ovation. He says his next goal is to walk without support—and soon. Because although time may heal all wounds, Thibeault isn’t waiting. “It motivates me to just go harder than ever to beat this,” he said.

1993 Reunion

just two in that category held almost entirely out of sight of land.

1990

From a CBS News segment, June 17, 2022. Todd Bland was featured in an episode of CBS’s Steve Hartman on the Road, a segment dedicated

Jameson Taylor: “I am proud to report my public policy efforts in Mississippi are continuing to bear fruit. Earlier this summer, I saw the culmination of years of planning and work come to fruition with the rever sal of Roe v. Wade. I helped draft and engineered passage of the Mississip pi law that overturned Roe. In 2022, I also drafted and saw enacted an innovative business tax credit aimed at providing millions of dollars in funding for low-income women

Scott Hirsch ’90 and his daughter, Hollis ’25, back on solid ground after sailing together in the Newport Bermuda Race. The 635-mile biennial competition is the oldest regularly scheduled ocean race, one of

and families. This builds upon my previous success in generating tens of millions of dollars each year in donations to nonprofits working in the foster care/adoption space. I also recently started a new public policy group called the Center for Political Renewal (CPR). Our mission is to equip Christian lawmakers to cham pion policies aimed at renewing and strengthening families.”

Andrew Wheeler: “As one of the many individuals who started busi nesses in 2021, I launched Lincoln Leadership, a retained executive search firm serving mission-oriented organizations. I spent many great years at larger search firms and concluded that I needed a switch. It has been a wonderful journey the last fifteen-plus months, and I like being my own boss at fifty-one. I highly encourage anyone to be an entre preneur. The Bowdoin experience has prepared me well!”

Teacher of the Year for the Cheshire School District. A Cheshire High School English teacher, DeMeo has been with the district for twenty-four years, beginning in 1999 when she started as a long-term substitute teacher. She is also co-educator of the Black and Latino studies course and director of the spring musical.

1995

From a Blackbaud press release. Cloud software company Blackbaud announced Tom Davidson’s appointment to the position of executive vice president of corpora tions. “A twenty-year pioneer in the education technology and impact space, Davidson raised more than $250 million in venture capital from the world’s leading institutions and tech giants to build the first technology-enabled financial educa tion network in EVERFI. Davidson’s success in growing EVERFI from a startup to a global organization … speaks to his ability to partner with corporations in managing their corporate social responsibility and environmental, social, and gover nance (ESG) initiatives.”

1994

Christopher Chesley: “In 2020, I stepped away from a twentyplus-year career in education. With no plan for the future, we spent the next year in Colorado enjoying the great outdoors. After a few months of contemplation, my wife, Kierstin, and I decided it was time to move back to New England and let our kids (Elin, nine, and Leif, seven) grow up around family and enjoy all four seasons. So we bought the Sugar Hill Inn in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. I love working for myself, and we would love to see some Bowdoin folks come see us in the mountains.”

A

Stream

of Income

That Starts with a Gift

Excerpted from The Cheshire Citizen (CT), Sept. 15, 2022. Dawn DeMeo was named the 2022

1996

From Dave Best: “Former Bowdoin student-athletes and classmates Dave Best (Bowdoin football, 1992–1996) and Craig Vezina (Bowdoin basketball 1992–1996), were reunited while attending the Sustainable Digital Transformation Summit at Paris’s Chateau Longchamp. Although nearly three decades had passed since the two represented the Polar Bears on the gridiron and hardwood, the camaraderie was quick and natural both for the Bowdoin bonds and their shared passion for the inter section of sustainability, business, and technology. Best’s recently launched nonprofit organization, SustainableIT.org, is currently working to advance sustainability through technology leadership.

For more than three decades, Bowdoin has offered donors a reassuring stream of income for life with payments backed by the resources of the College. Charitable Gift Annuities can provide tax advantages for the donor and annuity payments quarterly for up to two people—that could be you and someone you care about. A gift from you can benefit Bowdoin and also flow to you.

Are you curious? Talk with Nancy Milam or Liz Armstrong in the Office of Gift Planning at 207-725-3172 or giftplanning@bowdoin.edu to learn more about how charitable gift annuities can be a part of your plans.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR BOWDOIN

THE REVIVALIST

Gabriele Caroti ’97 uses his encyclopedic knowledge of films and music in his work as founder of Seventy-Seven.

HELPING REDISCOVER ONE OF THE GREATEST NEW YORK MOVIES, Stations of the Elevated, by Manfred Kirchheimer, is one of my proudest accomplishments. He’s a true NYC auteur, and Stations is the first film about graffiti, a stunning elegiac word less experimental documentary and ode to New York, shot in the late seventies and set to Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin. We hosted Manny for the world premiere of the res toration at BAM’s Harvey Theater in front of a sold-out crowd of eight hundred people. We’ve been friends ever since.

SEVENTY-SEVEN REFERS TO THE YEAR my family moved to the States—to suburban Connecticut from Milan, Italy, in the fall of 1977. The name just stuck, especially because it’s an amazing year for movies. That year, we got Friedkin’s Sorcerer, Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, Allen’s Annie Hall, Altman’s 3 Women, Cassavetes’s Opening Night, Lynch’s debut Eraserhead—and a couple of low-budget sci-fi indies, Close Encounters and Star Wars

MY INSPIRATION FOR THE COMPANY can be traced to Bowdoin and WBOR. I will never forget watching all 207 minutes of the Criterion Collection laserdisc of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai in the basement of Sills on a rainy weekday afternoon.

For more of our interview with Gabriele, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Vezina’s impact education com pany, TheSpaceship.org, works with schools, NGOs, and socially and environmentally responsible busi nesses through its award-winning hands-on innovation, design, and sustainability programs.”

From Andrew Herring: Andrew Herring was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times for his work fighting the opioid epidemic. Herring runs an addiction clinic at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, where he promotes administering a shot of buprenorphine—sold under the brand name Sublocade—in the belly to provide a month of addiction treatment rather than prescribing oral versions that must be taken daily. For him, the shots’ longer-acting protection is a “game changer” and may be his only chance to help a vulnerable patient at risk of overdose. The piece details the challenges involved in dispensing the drug due to regulatory hurdles, which often cause potential providers to opt out of offering the treatment, but says that Herring has been able to cut through some of that red tape at his Oakland clinic by working with the hospital pharmacy to stock and distribute Sublocade. As soon as a patient agrees to an injection, he simply calls the pharmacy down the hall and administers it on the spot. He says he sees urgency—and opportunity—to increase the use of injectable buprenorphine as fentanyl use rises across California. Earlier in his career, Herring worked with Allison Binkowski ’03 and William Soares ’02 as an emergency physician at the hospital and created the Bridge Program, featured in The New York Times in 2018. Based on that success he founded the CA Bridge Program, which has expanded the model to over 150 hospitals in California.

1998

Reunion

From Business Wire, Oct. 4, 2022 New York Life announced the appointment of Michael McDonnell as the company’s general counsel. Since 2021, he has held the position of senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief insurance counsel. He joined New York Life in 2013. Previously, he was an associate with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he worked for ten years. He earned his JD from the University of California, Berkeley.

2002From NYU Press. Clare Forstie’s book, Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community, was published by NYU Press in October. “In this compelling examination of LGBTQ communities in seemingly ‘unfriendly’ places, Queering the Midwest highlights the ambivalence of LGBTQ lives in the rural Midwest, where LGBTQ organizations and events occur occasionally but are generally not grounded in longstanding LGBTQ institutions.

Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation, Forstie offers the story of a community that does not fit neatly into a narrative of progress or decline. Rather, this book reveals the contradictions of River City’s LGBTQ community, where people feel both safe and unnoticed, have a sense of belonging and persistent marginalization, and have friendships that do and don’t matter. These ‘ambivalent communities’ in small Midwestern cities challenge the ways we think about LGBTQ communities and relationships and push us to embrace the contradictions, failures, and possibilities of LGBTQ communities across the American Midwest.”

Catching Up

Gabriele Caroti ’97

2003 Reunion

From the artist’s newsletter. Todd Forsgren: “I’ve been putting a lot of effort lately into making some new artist books. I finished one in February, and the second will hopefully be done by the end of the summer. And there are several more in the works! Driving into the Sunset is a 160-page book with handmade elements full of black-and-white 35mm photographs that reflects on the American road trip and the divisions of our country. I made the photos in the book from 2015 to 2021 during visits to forty-plus states, while looking for a home and trying to learn how to be a good dad in an era of political division and pandemic.

Phase FAZE reconsiders a teahouse I created in the autumn of 2001, a personal moment of artistic awak ening in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Remade twenty years later, a bit like Japan’s famous Ise Shrine. I originally made the teahouse during a Japanese Architecture class I took in college. No photos, but 144 pages with dia grams and writing and handmade elements. I swear I’m going to finish it before my summer break ends!”

From the artist’s press release. Katie Semro’s audio art instal lation “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” was selected to appear at Sound Scene Festival, a sonic and sensory art event that took place at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, over the week end of June 4 and 5. The theme of the 2022 festival was “trust” and featured artists from around the world. Semro’s piece explores the impact of autoimmune disease on women in America. Through the layering and fragmentation of reallife stories from women across the country, “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” examines the struggles these women

face in their search for healing. The Hirshhorn is a leading voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a national platform for the art and artists of our time. Semro said, “I am delighted to have a piece at Sound Scene in the Hirshhorn. It’s a fantastic opportunity to share the stories of women like myself who’ve faced great difficulties trying to understand and alleviate their ill nesses. I hope that by bringing their desperation and overwhelm to light we can start to find a better way to help.” Semro’s audio work puts a spotlight on ordinary people telling their stories in their own words. She seeks to emphasize our shared humanity by using these stories to create recognition and connection.

Ed Sweeney: “Over the weekend of August 20–21, I competed in the World Bodysurfing Championship in Oceanside, California. [When I was] growing up, my parents were avid bodysurfers in the summers on the New Jersey shore, and they taught me and my sisters early on how to catch waves. However, 2022 has been my first year entering formal competitions, which has been really fun and a great way to meet other bodysurfing enthusiasts. For the Oceanside competition, I represented the unofficial Bowdoin bodysurfing club known as ‘Bodysurf or Die’ (the other team rider includes Daniel Jefferson Miller, who was not able to enter in this year’s competition). I placed fourth overall in my age group (thirty-five to forty-four), making it through three heats to get to the finals.”

2005Excerpted from the CourierGazette (ME), Sept. 21, 2022. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) in Rockland, Maine, announced four fall exhibitions

Chris Chesley ’95 with his wife, Kierstin, and children, Elin and Leif, in the great outdoors of Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, where they now own and operate the Sugar Hill Inn.

Ed Sweeney ’03 taking a break from catching the waves during the World Bodysurfing Championship in Oceanside, California. He placed fourth overall in his age group, making it through three heats to get to the finals.

Dave Best ’96 and Craig Vezina ’96 reconnected at the Sustainable Digital Transformation Summit at Chateau Longchamp in Paris. Despite the thirty years that had passed since the two were Bowdoin classmates and studentathletes, they remained connected through both their history together and their shared passion for sustainability, technology, and business.

Homecoming 2022

You are From Here.

that opened on October 1 and will remain on view through January 8. One of the four is Ian Trask ’s Mind Loops, “a new series of sculpture and installation works created with materials intercepted from the local waste stream. Emulating the critical role decomposers (like moss and fungi) play in reinvigorating natural ecosystems, Trask’s practice is a holistic system of recirculating man-made debris into remarkable artworks.” Trask has exhibited at Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Wassaic Project (New York), Cove Street Arts, Waterville Creates, and the Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine, among other venues. In 2018 he published his first artist book, Strange Histories: A Bizarre Collaboration, and he has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Portland Press Herald, and Brooklyn Magazine

nicely on Bowdoin. Perhaps it will inspire more Bowdoin students and alums to consider investing as well.”

Find

2009

From a Portland, Maine, Baker Newman Noyes press release, August 23, 2022. Darren Fishell has been promoted to business intelligence manager in the opera tions department in Baker Newman Noyes, a nationally recognized top 100 accounting and advisory firm. Fishell, who works in the Portland, Maine, headquarters, helps trans late data into useful answers for technical and general audiences across various business platforms. He joined the firm as a business intelligence analyst in June 2021 and is currently pursuing a master of science degree in data science at Northeastern University.

2010

Chris Bird: “My wife, Megan Doyle (Bates ’09), and I welcomed our son, Henry Doyle Bird, on April 17, 2022.”

2007

Caitlin Beach: “My first book, Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery, will be out from University of California Press in November 2022 as the winner of the Phillips Book Prize.”

2008 Reunion

Pei Huang: “Since Bowdoin, I’ve been in the investing business. Another Bowdoin alum, George Schultz ’05, and I were recently appointed to be adjunct professors in the MBA program at Columbia Business School. We will be teaching an MBA course this fall semester called Mental Models: Unconventional Idea Discovery. We are pretty excited, and it should be a lot of fun. While it is a class about applied investment research, it draws on many liberal arts themes (as sug gested by the course title). We are proud of our liberal arts education and it is something that reflects

Wedgwood, Hiram Powers, Edmonia Lewis, John Bell, and Francesco Pezzicar, Beach uncovers both the radical possibilities and the conflict ing limitations of art in the pursuit of justice in racial capitalism’s wake.”

2011

Robert Burkhardt: “I am happy to report that Kasie Gasparini and I were married on June 12, 2021, in Sonoma, California. We celebrated with family and friends, including Timothy Anderson, Carey Brown, John Cronopulos, James Dickinson, Billy Rohman, and Daniel Weiniger ’13

2014

Sam Roberts: “I got married to Katie Porter (Dartmouth ’10), now Katie Roberts! We got married on top of Stratton Mountain in Vermont—everyone took the gondola up in their suits and dresses. Couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.”

four fall exhibitions that opened on October 1 and will remain on view through January 8. One of the four is CALCIUM/Your Future Ex Squirrelfriend, a solo exhibition by Elijah Ober, featured in the Guy D. Hughes Gallery. Bringing together two ongoing bodies of work that center on the lives of two species often regarded as pests—snails and squirrels—“Ober’s engaging works uncover information about the lands on which we reside and the ways we utilize and relate to eco systems and resources.” A sculptor and animator based in Maine, Ober has attended residencies at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Monson Arts, and Gardenship (NJ). His work has recently been shown at the Portland Museum of Art, Cove Street Arts, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, and New System Exhibitions, and was featured in CMCA’s 2020 Biennial. Elijah is the recipient of a 2021 Maine Arts Commission Project Grant.

’09 are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Jake Rowan Friedlander, born April 26, 2022. He is happy to join big sister Emma, and is already on his way to becoming

2015

Theresa Faller: “Cody Peters (Chamberlain College ’15) and I got married at the Immaculate Conception Church in Salem, Massachusetts, followed by an epic reception at the Peabody Essex Museum on July 9, 2022. We were surrounded by friends, family, and quite a few Polar Bears! It was defi nitely a celebration for the books!”

From Sage Mikami: Sage Mikami and Tristan Van Kote got married in New Hampshire surrounded by family and friends. They now live happily in Philadelphia where Sage is completing her residency in OB/GYN and Tristan is working for a renew able energy company.

Excerpted from the Courier-Gazette (ME), Sept. 21, 2022. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) in Rockland, Maine, announced

2019Andrew Blunt: “I wanted to plug a fun story about a statewide campaign that I’ve been working on for the past year in Maine called Our Power. We are a ballot initiative to replace Maine’s corporate utilities with a new nonprofit consumerowned electric utility. At a time when climate catastrophe looms, energy costs are spiking with no end in sight, energy costs burden low-income folks is off the charts (especially here in Maine), and a handful of multinational corporations are squeezing and slowing our clean energy transition to rack up even higher record profits, our campaign offers an exciting, proven, and breakthrough solution to climateready, reliable, and affordable electricity here in Maine.”

Almost ten years to the day after meeting on their pre-Orientation trip, Katie Randall ’16 and Elena Schaef ’16 reunited on campus this August. They may have relocated to Seattle and Switzerland, respectively, but their friendship is still going strong!

Taylor Vail ’14, Sarah Trenton ’18, Melissa Haskell ’13, Ellie Brennan ’14, Emi Gaal ’15, Sophia Cornew ’14, Clare McInerney ’18, and Erika Sklaver ’17 celebrated Hailey Wahl ’16 at her wedding in July. They represented eight seasons of Bowdoin women’s volleyball, spanning from 2009 to 2017. Hailey’s father, Lee Wahl, joined the group for the photo. Hailey describes him as “BWVB’s greatest fan, wearing his Bowdoin tie!”

David Friedlander ’06 and Alexandra Smith

a future Polar Bear!

Celebrate

1. Marisa Browning-Kamins ’16 and Chris MacDonald ’16 were married on June 18, 2022, at their family home in Groton, Massachusetts. Pictured: Simi Harrison ’16, Anant Pathak ’16, Ryan Sanderson ’16, Jai Vaidya ’16, David Stone ’80, Ben Woo Ching ’16, Evan Eklund ’16, William Goodenough ’16, James Jelin ’16, Matt Gutierrez ’16, Sofia Llanso ’18, Pam Stone ’80, Meaghan Dwan ’15, Kelsey Gallagher ’17, and Marisa and Chris. Not pictured but in attendance: Nikhil Dasgupta ’16.

2. Sean Weathersby ’10 and Emma Fredieu (Reed College ’10) were married on May 7, 2022, in Frederick, Maryland. Pictured: Zach Rudick ’10, Matthew Schweich ’09, Andrew Sudano ’10, Jason Immerman ’10, Zach Coffin ’09, Emma and Sean, Peter McLaughlin ’10, Chris Rowe ’10, Katie Kindick Maloney ’09, Dennis Maloney ’09, and Alex Healy ’09.

3. Sage Mikami ’15 and Tristan Van Kote ’15 were married on May 28, 2022, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Pictured: Tom Kramer ’15, John Benoit ’81, Tracey Smith ’81, David Steury ’15, Ron Pastore ’80, John Swords ’15, Steve Harriman ’81, Jack Hewitt ’17, Kevin Hoose ’15, Kyle Mikami ’10, Will Ossoff ’15, Brian Golger ’15, Kristin Hanczor ’12, Nate Niles ’15, John Izzo ’15, Caitlin Shaffer ’16, Randy Mikami ’81, Laura Keller ’15, Christine Andersen ’17, Lizzy Hamilton ’15, Colin Fong ’12, Jasmine Mikami ’12, Jeanine Pastore ’81, Ali Considine ’15, Kate Witteman ’15, Tristan and Sage, Dennis Zambrano ’17, Jessica Holley ’15, Christian Sleeper ’15, Avery Wentworth ’15, and Mike McQuillan ’15.

4. Bree Candland ’01 and Daniel Burson (Wesleyan ’02) were married on June 25, 2022, at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine. Pictured: Max Garcia Conover ’09, Ben Gott ’01, Margaret Magee Paul ’02, Daniel and Bree, Elissa Ferguson Williams ’01, Maryli Tiemann (former Bowdoin faculty), Eric Thompson ’01, and Sarah Seames (McKeen Center staff). Flowers by Courtney Mongell Ravenscroft ’01 of Mare Brook Farm. Not pictured but in attendance: Eric Diamon ’03.

5. Theresa Faller ’15 and Cody Peters (Champlain College ’15) were married on July 9, 2022, at the Immaculate Conception Church in Salem, Massachusetts. Pictured: Sue Sim ’16, Rachel Pollinger ’15, Ryan Davis ’15, William Shi ’15, Andrew Park ’15, Karl Reinhardt ’15, Theresa and Cody, Patty Boyer ’15, Megan Chong ’15, and Laura Keller ’15.

6. Kata Solow ’10 and Paul Selker (Yale ’08) celebrated their marriage on June 18, 2022, at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Pictured: Matt Yantakosol ’10, Seoung Yeon Kim ’10, Becca Schouvieller ’10, Leah Stecher ’10, Paul and Kata, Chris Murphy ’10, and Erica Boyce ’12 (Twelve College Exchange).

7. Becky Stoneman ’14 and Ben Brewster ’14 were married on July 30, 2022, at French’s Point in Stockton Springs, Maine. Pictured: Aaron O’Callahan ’12, Steven Borukhin ’14, Franklin Reis ’14, David Nemirov ’15, Alex Thomas ’13, Ben and Becky, Molly Popolizio ’14, Kiersten Turner ’16, Julie McCullough Hanley ’14, Dan Hanley ’14, Nick Stoneman ’83, Morgan Woodhouse ’14, Zita DePetris ’13,

Chelsea Gold ’13, Elizabeth Clegg Egan ’12, Joe Russo ’14, Max Rosner ’13, Carolyn Gorajek Lawlor ’13, Pat Lawlor ’13, Augy Kerschner ’11, Luisa Oakes ’13, Austin Downing ’17, Matt Egan ’12, Pierce King ’13, Griffin Cardew ’14, Connor Handy ’13, Dylan Hannes ’14, Andy Stoneman ’23, Sether Hanson ’13, Becky Krakora ’14, Louise Johnson ’14, Amanda Kinneston ’15, Kaley Nelson ’15, Kathleen Smith ’15, Jenna DiCicco Yurewicz ’15, Abby Einwag Shultz ’15, Kelsey Mullaney ’16, Conor O’Toole ’14, Natalie Moore ’15, Jordan Smith ’14, Maggie Godley ’16, Billy Valle ’16, Vicky Stoneman ’83, Tom McCabe (former Bowdoin lacrosse coach), and his wife, Pat McCabe.

Not pictured but in attendance: Chelsea Bruno ’14.

8. Ali Fradin ’13 and Sam Patterson ’14 were married on June 25, 2022, in Bridgehampton, New York.

Pictured: Ali Mathias ’16, Amanda Zalk ’14, Andrew Fradin ’16, Ann Hennessey ’87, Barbara Tarmy ’75, Barry Barbash ’75, Bridget O’Carroll ’13, Charley Allen ’14, Charlotte Gorman ’13, Chris Omachi ’12, Chuck Rollins ’14, Daniel Dickstein ’13, David Shaeffer ’11, Elizabeth Schetman ’13, Emily Graham ’11, Emma Beecher ’16, Emma Stanislawski ’13, Ali and Sam, Evan Gershkovich ’14, Gracie Bensimon ’15, Gus Vergara ’13, Helen Conaghan Renninger ’13, Jeremy Ross ’09, Judy Yang ’13, Julia Bensimon ’13, Julia Graham ’13, Julia Rew ’16, Kate Pastorek ’10, Lidey Heuck ’13, Liza LePage ’13, Louisa Cannell ’13, Marcella Lovo ’13, Matt Mathias ’14, Meghan Marr ’14, Moira Tarmy ’06, Molly Fisher ’13, Molly Lammert ’13, Peter Davis ’14, Peter Woods ’13, Petyon Kelley ’13, Simon Brooks ’14, Stephan Danyluk ’14, and Thomas Lilly ’14.

9. Augusta Rice ’14 and Ollie Koo ’14 were married on June 2, 2022, at Marianmade Farm in Wiscasset, Maine. Pictured: Erik Bertin ’14, Jay Livermore ’14, Ursula Munger Livermore ’15, Colin Downey ’14, Steve Messina ’14, Richard Nerland ’12, Jordan Lalor ’12, Thomas DiDonato ’12, Harry Matheson ’14, Ollie and Augusta, Chloe Polikoff ’17, Dan Weiniger ’13, Kristen Ruane ’14, Joanna Gromadzki ’14, Kimberly Dempsey ’14, Nick Wetzel ’14, Devika Gurung ’14, and Kyle Lockwood ’14.

10. Katie Ross ’14 and Marcus Schneider ’13 were married on July 9, 2022, in Hood River, Oregon. Former Bowdoin rowing coach Rev. Gil Birney performed the ceremony. Pictured: Luisa LaSalle ’14, Chris Granata ’14, Casey Grindon ’13, Olivia Seekins ’13, Andy Gluesing ’13, Leah Greenberg ’13, Sam Seekins ’14, Marcus and Katie, Emily Carr ’14, Natalie Weyrauch ’14, Felipe Camarotti ’14, Sam Weyrauch ’14, Pete Edmunds ’14, Gil Birney, Emily Bean ’15, Nick Saba ’14, David Bean ’13, and Greg Talpey ’14.

11. Sam Roberts ’14 and Katie Porter (Dartmouth ’10) were married on June 11, 2022, on Stratton Mountain in Vermont. Pictured: Michaela Martin Strout ’14, Stephen Strout ’14, Lou Roberts ’80, Sam, Graham Edwards ’14, Jamie Cook ’14, RJ Dellecese ’14, and Charles Roberts ’89.

12. Hailey Wahl ’16 and Karl Bobsein (Ohio University ’14) were married on July 3, 2022, in Ventura, California.

Pictured: Melissa Haskell ’13, Taylor Vail ’14, Sarah Trenton ’18, Hailey and Karl, Ellie Brennan ’14, Erika Sklaver ’17, Skye Aresty ’16, Thomas Wiesner ’16, Noah

Finberg ’16, Dan Polasky ’12, Tom Rosenblatt ’16, Alexander Thomas ’16, Emi Gaal ’15, Sophia Cornew ’14, Clare McInerney ’18, and Charlie DiPasquale ’18.

13. Vincent LaRovere ’18 and Cassandra Fibbe (University of Connecticut ’17) were married on February 19, 2022, at St. Raphael Church in Medford, Massachusetts. They celebrated with family and friends at The Row Hotel in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Pictured: Jaime Quirante ’18, Luke Frankel ’18, Andrew Raisner ’18, Noah Grubman ’18, Vincent and Cassandra, Sawyer Billings ’18, Hannah Donovan ’20, William Hutchinson ’18, Jeremy ChimeneWeiss ’18, and William Brockett ’18. Not pictured but in attendance: John Pietro ’18.

14. Will Herrmann ’99 and Carly Wendt (University of NebraskaLincoln ’03) were married on July 9, 2022, in Silverthorne, Colorado.

Pictured: Paul Auffermann ’99, Kristin Auffermann ’99, Meaghan Guiney ’00, Brian Guiney ’00, Rohit Nahata ’99, Matt Davison ’99, Michael “Tex” Naess ’99, Matt Henson ’00, Avery Yaros ’06, Genevieve Polk ’99, Carly and Will, Mike Bouyea ’99, and Jason Cocovinis ’98.

15. Robert Burkhardt ’11 and Kasie Gasparini were married on June 12, 2021, in Sonoma, California.

Pictured: Robert and Kasie. Not pictured but in attendance: Timothy Anderson ’11, Carey Brown ’11, John Cronopulos ’11, James Dickinson ’11, Billy Rohman ’11, and Daniel Weiniger ’13.

BY EDGAR ALLEN BEEM P’13

Bob and June Frost first opened what became Frosty’s as a Spudnut Shop franchise selling donuts made from potato dough. Their Spudnut Shop was located next to the Bowdoin campus at 212 Maine Street, where Lemongrass Vietnamese restaurant is today.

Frosty’s bakes 1,200 to 1,500 donuts a day. The most popular Frosty’s donut is the twist, a raised yeast donut twisted like a cruller and covered in a sugary glaze.

In 1970, the Frosts moved their donut shop to its present location at 54 Maine Street. Two years later, they dropped their Spudnut affiliation and changed the name to Frosty’s.

Frosty’s Donuts has been a fixture on Maine Street in Brunswick and a magnet for Bowdoin students since 1965. You know the fresh, warm, fragrant donuts, but did you know…?

In 2011, Nels and Shelby Omdal purchased Frosty’s from the Frosts and began an ambitious period of expansion. At the height of Frosty’s expansion, the Omdals had donut shops in Augusta, Bath, Brunswick, Freeport, Gardiner, and Lisbon Falls, and fifty wholesale accounts supplied by a bakery operation at Brunswick Landing (the former Brunswick Naval Air Station), where fifty employees worked around the clock to bake 15,000 donuts a day.

Today, Frosty’s Donuts is back to just its original store. “The only place you can get a Frosty’s donut now is Frosty’s,” says owner Nels Omdal.

The largest order Frosty’s ever filled was for 456 dozen donuts and 225 gallons of coffee. That was for an Employee Appreciation Day at Bath Iron Works in 2012.

The Omdals closed Frosty’s temporarily in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic hit. They sold 10,000 donuts the first weekend they reopened that September.

Frosty’s donuts now cost $2.20 each ($2.45 for twists) or $24 a dozen. Donuts cost just $1 each when the Omdals purchased Frosty’s in 2011, but the cost of ingredients has increased dramatically in the past decade. A fifty-pound block of shortening, for example, that cost $24 now costs $120. Waxed donut bags that cost half a cent now cost 9 cents each.

For decades, Frosty’s opened at 4:00 a.m. and the Omdals once kept their donut shop open 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. seven days a week. Today, it is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

In a 2013 Bowdoin Orient article titled “50 Things to Do Before You Graduate,” No. 7 was “Go to Frosty’s when it opens at 4 a.m.”

At the request of a Bowdoin student, the Omdals opened Frosty’s at 4:00 a.m. on the Friday of Senior Week 2022. Close to 120 seniors showed up for donuts and coffee at the crack of dawn!

PHOTO:

MAINE STREET MAINSTAY

A Brunswick institution for more than fifty years, Frosty’s has tempted waves of tourists, generations of students, and many a local with delicious donuts in flavors like maple frosted, blueberry cake, and chocolate butter-crunch.

Bowdoin