14 minute read
Benthic Ecology: Students deepen their research at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center.
Forward
Fairly immobile, benthic animals are exposed to accumulating pollutants in mudflats, so can signal environmental stress. Mollusks like scallops and mussels draw in nutrients and pathogens as they filter water through their gills to feast on phytoplankton.
Did You Know?
Benthic Ecology
Students deepen their research at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center.
Illustration by Kelsey Oseid
Marine benthic ecology refers to the study of the ocean floor’s ecosystems. (Benthic is derived from the Greek benthos, meaning depth of the sea.) It is a colorful field filled with species many of us are familiar with, from green sea urchins and blue mussels to northern red anemones and orange-footed sea cucumbers. But the study of the benthos is also a critical part of marine science, as it can reveal the environmental health of the broader ocean system. Each year, many students pursue benthic ecology projects at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center, either as participants of the Bowdoin Marine Science Semester or as summer fellows. We’ve highlighted some of their findings here, as well as discoveries from other students and faculty over the years and a few general facts of benthic life.
Contributor: Katie DuBois ’11, Doherty Marine Biology Postdoctoral Scholar Rising concentrations of microplastics are now found in nearly all marine animals, from oysters and corals to deep-sea amphipods. Sophia Adami-Sampson ’24 is the first scientist to look for, and find, microplastics in Maine oysters.
As the ocean absorbs CO2 from fossil fuels, it becomes more acidic, preventing shellfish from constructing durable shells. Research by Fiona Ralph ’22 and Eban Charles ’23 has shown that oyster farms may benefit from being near eelgrass, as it enhances oyster growth.
Eelgrass provides habitat for many coastal species and absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere. Katie DuBois ’11 is studying twelve eelgrass meadows on Maine’s coast that were subjected to die-offs to see how they’re affected by warming water.
Professor Michèle LaVigne studies ancient shells of the quahog, which can live hundreds of years, to determine environmental conditions of the past, such as climate changes. Sea stars are nimble hunters that bounce along the ocean floor after prey. Professor Amy Johnson has shown that sea star agility is powered by hundreds of small tubular feet, which can sniff out food without the need for a brain.
The northern star coral extends from the Gulf of Mexico to New England. Deva Holliman ’23 is using it as a model to better understand how all corals respond to warming oceans.
Bowdoin Marine Science Semester students conduct an annual bioblitz at the rocky intertidal zone of the Giant’s Stairs in Harpswell, bringing together scientists, students, and citizens to survey the area’s species and monitor changes over time.
The European green crab invaded the US in the nineteenth and late-twentieth centuries. The later arrivals from northern climates are better adapted to Maine’s waters. Professor Dave Carlon and Jared Lynch ’24 are researching what allows the two ecotypes to thrive in colder or warmer waters. Olivia Bronzo-Munich ’23 found that rockweed growing in northern and southern waters responds equally well to warming waters—good for snails and other intertidal animals that depend on it.
Forward
Campus Life
THE BOWDOIN BOOK AWARD
Bowdoin is one of many colleges and universities partnering with high schools to honor exceptional high school students, usually juniors, with a college book award. The criteria for book awards varies—at Bowdoin it centers on a deep commitment to the common good. The Bowdoin Book Award celebrates Bowdoin’s values through a connection to the Offer of the College. Students selected by their high schools for this honor will receive one of three books, by a Bowdoin author that corresponds to a line from the Offer.
TO BE AT HOME IN ALL LANDS AND ALL AGES
An Elegant Woman, by Martha McPhee ’87
The fifth novel from National Book Award finalist Martha McPhee, An Elegant Woman considers ideas of self-invention, legacy, memory, and truth.
TO CARRY THE KEYS OF THE WORLD’S LIBRARY IN YOUR POCKET
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr ’95, H’17
In this newest novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, libraries serve as sanctuaries both physical and spiritual, and it is dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come.”
COOPERATE WITH OTHERS FOR COMMON ENDS
On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope, by DeRay Mckesson ’07
A combination memoir and handbook from the civil rights activist, community organizer, and host of Pod Save the People, it is an intimate portrait of the Black Lives Matter movement from the front lines.
Sound Bite
“I wish you love and fulfillment. I wish you wicked problems to solve and a brilliant group of friends with which to solve them. I hope you trust the dark water to fill with abundant light once you take the plunge. I hope you find your own constellation to call home. Thank you for lighting this dark with me.”
—BRIANNA CUNLIFFE ’22, DEALVA STANWOOD ALEXANDER
FIRST PRIZE WINNER, FROM HER BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS,
“A LUMINOUS ENDEAVOR,” MAY 27, 2022
Campus Life
PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH COMMITTEE
A search committee has been formed to identify Bowdoin’s sixteenth president. Members were drawn from the board of trustees, faculty, administrative and support staff, student body, and alumni community and announced May 20, 2022, by trustees Sydney Asbury ’03 and Bertrand Garcia-Moreno ’81, P’17, the search committee’s cochairs, and by Robert F. White ’77, P’15, chair of the board of trustees. The presidential search committee will identify and recommend a candidate to succeed President Clayton S. Rose, who announced in April that he will step down from the post in June 2023 at the conclusion of the 2022–2023 academic year. Learn more about the committee members at bowdo.in/president-search.
Faculty
The Bowdoin Chamber Choir performing “Missa in tempore belli,” Vineet Shende’s new choral piece for Ukraine.
A Choral Offering
Vineet Shende composes a new piece for Ukraine.
A PERFORMANCE by the Bowdoin Chamber Choir on May 7 featured the premiere of a choral work by Professor of Music Vineet Shende. Shende, a globally acclaimed composer, was inspired to write the piece by the events unfolding in war-torn Ukraine. “While trying to figure out what I, as a composer, could do to help,” said Shende in an email to colleagues, “I came across the devastating poem ‘Missa in tempore belli,’ by the celebrated Ukrainian poet Boris Khersonsky.” Shende was able to get in touch with Khersonsky and received permission to set his words to music. “While I think the majority of the poem would need a full orchestra, choir, and perhaps tenor and soprano soloists to do it justice, I felt the opening section, ‘Kyrie,’ would work best for an SATB [soprano, alto, tenor, bass] a cappella choir.” The result is a short piece (under three minutes), the opening lyrics of which are from the Ukrainian national anthem, translated as “Ukraine has not yet perished.”
To watch a video of the performance, go to bowdo.in/chamber-choir. Campus Life
ARTFUL CONNECTION
In April, the McKeen Center for the Common Good showcased new pieces from Spindleworks, a Brunswick nonprofit art center for adults with disabilities. The McKeen Center’s space in Banister Hall includes a soaring ceiling and plenty of open wall that the center has used advantageously to display Spindleworks art for many years. The artists from Spindleworks also show their work at the organization’s Whatnot Gallery and Store, adjacent to their studio space in downtown Brunswick, as well as in other local and national galleries. When an artist sells a piece, they receive 75 percent of the sale, and 25 percent returns to the program to purchase supplies. “Art livens up every space, but it’s really special to have such a tangible representation of our community reflected [here],” McKeen Center administrative coordinator Avery Friend said. “Often students will purchase pieces at the end of the year, or as they graduate, to keep that community connection with them wherever they go next.”
Spindleworks artist Karen McGann at the McKeen Center show.
Forward
Game On
A BEAUTIFUL DAY
CJ Brito-Trinidad ’24 hit a walk-off home run in the ninth inning to lift the Bowdoin baseball team to a 3–2 win over Tufts on a sunny spring day, April 15, at Pickard Field. The Polar Bears never trailed the Jumbos and held a one-run lead from the first inning to the top of the eighth, when Tufts tied the game. Brito-Trinidad was central to the win, going three for four at the plate, with a run scored and a run batted in. The Polar Bears finished 16-19 this spring, with an 8-4 record in NESCAC play to take the NESCAC East division title. A trio of players earned all-conference awards, including Brito-Trinidad (First Team All-NESCAC and NESCAC Rookie of the Year), who finished the season with a .383 average and led Bowdoin in hits (44), runs batted in (30), and slugging percentage (.591), and tied for home runs (5); Stephen Simoes ’24 (First Team All-NESCAC), who had a team-best .407 batting average and .505 onbase percentage with thirty-three hits in twenty-three games; and Ben McKenzie ’24 (Second Team AllNESCAC), who, as a leadoff hitter, posted a .315 batting average with a .407 on-base percentage and a team-leading seventeen walks. He also led the team with thirty-three runs and seventeen extra base hits, and tied in home runs (5).
CJ Brito-Trinidad ’24 (number 5) approaches home plate surrounded by elated teammates after slugging a walk-off home run in the ninth inning to lift the Bowdoin baseball team to a 3–2 win over Tufts on April 15.
Student Life
ZOE STONOROV ’25
The Alaska native is spending the summer at sea, fishing for salmon in Prince William Sound aboard her parents’ fifty-eight-foot vessel. “I’ve been commercial fishing my whole life. It’s a family business. My sister will be joining us, and we’ll be living and working on the boat, fishing every day from six in the morning to eight at night, if conditions allow. It’s hard work, but very satisfying,” says Stonorov, whose favorite classes are history and earth and oceanographic studies.
From learning Russian in Georgia to salmon fishing in Alaska to filmmaking here in Brunswick, three Bowdoin students prepare for adventurous summers.
AADHYA RAMINENI ’23
“I have two passions: filmmaking and medicine,” said the biology major and visual arts minor. This summer, Ramineni will employ mostly the right side of her brain, as she’s been commissioned to produce a documentary film about an arts project in downtown Brunswick. Ramineni is profiling an initiative called “Many Stitches,” a mural celebrating the local community to be unveiled on an outside wall of Fort Andross in August.
SHANDIIN LARGO ’23
The Russian and Hispanic studies major heads to Batumi, Georgia, for a summer language immersion program. Largo, who is interested in comparing North American and Russian indigenous cultures, will also be spending the fall semester abroad. “I will be in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, further improving my language abilities. This is a fantastic opportunity,” she adds, “not only for academic enrichment, but for new experiences.”
Forward
On the Shelf
I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
MÓNICA GUZMÁN ’05 (BenBella Books, 2022)
Mónica Guzmán ’05, of the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes us to the front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt— broken conversations among confounded people. She shows us how to overcome fear and uncertainty to do what seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in our lives whose worldview is different from, even opposed to, our own.
The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery
STEPHEN HARDY ’70 (Independently published, 2022)
“Our Hemisphere”? The United States in Latin America, from 1776 to the Twenty-First Century Britta H. Crandall and
RUSSELL C. CRANDALL ’94 (Yale University Press, 2021) Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives
MINAL BOPAIAH ’99 (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2021)
Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union
DAVID K. THOMSON ’08 (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
On Stage
Man Up, a new musical written by Cordelia Zars ’16 and directed by Max Middleton ’16, follows a boy’s deep sibling bond and his struggle to overcome expectations of masculinity, and explores the redemptive power of love.
Feeling Feelings
Man Up, a three-act musical by Cordelia Zars ’16, explores expectations of masculinity through a touching coming-of-age story about Duncan—a boy forced to choose between staying true to himself or being socially accepted in the rural West. “As Duncan progresses through middle and high school, bullying causes him to question his emotional sensitivity and academic motivation (not seen as masculine traits)—and, ultimately, to reject his own identity in favor of not being an outcast,” says Zars, who majored in music at Bowdoin. But as Duncan comes closer to achieving this ideal of masculinity, he begins to lose his dearest relationships—with his sister and his high school sweetheart. “The central question in Man Up is whether love or social pressure exerts a greater power over our paths through life.”
Zars wrote Man Up in response to the 2017 #MeToo Movement, as an effort to understand the root causes behind violence and discrimination against women. She theorizes that much of gender violence stems from the way that boys are expected to repress their emotions, adopt aggressive behaviors, and turn away help when they most need it. Zars hopes that Man Up can help audiences ponder the idea that gender equality, in large part, begins with emotional liberation for men.
Man Up sold out all of its first eight shows in 2019 in Boulder, Colorado. This past April, it closed its second run as part of Empathy Theatre Project, a nonprofit that Zars founded to “produce original plays and musicals that explore what it means to be American in a time of deep cultural divide.” In its recent eight-show run at the Nomad Playhouse in Boulder, the production— directed in collaboration with Zars’s longtime friend Max Middleton ’16— received standing ovations.
For more, visit empathytheatreproject.org.
Traditions
THE VICTORY MINDSET
Bowdoin celebrated its 217th Commencement on Saturday, May 28. Bachelor of arts degrees were conferred on 450 members of the Class of 2022. As has been the tradition since the College’s first graduation ceremony in 1806, Commencement addresses were delivered by graduating seniors. This year’s speakers, chosen through competition, were Ryan Britt ’22 and Journey Browne ’22 (pictured), who are both Geoffrey Canada scholars. The focus of Browne’s speech, called “The Victory Mindset,” explored the importance of positive thinking and self-respect. For more on this year’s ceremony, visit bowdo.in/commencement.
Forward
Faculty
Professors and Their Passions
Three Bowdoin scholars discuss their current research and teaching.
Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Angel Matos studies the intersections between youth literature and media, queer studies, and screen cultures. His current book project explores the queer imagination in texts and media created for teens. “These texts must devise creative ways of articulating complex ideas that are generally deemed taboo to audiences with limited ranges of experience when it comes to notions of gender and sexuality,” said Matos.
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Kana Takematsu was this year given a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation. The $458,000 grant will fund her research on how certain molecules, called photoacids and photobases, respond to light. “Potential applications of these molecules cover a broad array of areas, from lithography to the harnessing of solar energy,” explained Takematsu.
Assistant Professor of Music Marceline Saibou has been teaching a new course this year. Music and Disability Studies explores how disability intersects with music and includes learning about adaptive approaches to musical practice. The class considers issues such as inclusivity and how notions of ability and disability have been shaped within musical contexts. “The course,” said Saibou, “was also enriched by several guests who spoke to their lived experiences as musicians with disabilities.”
Common Good
