Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 February 1, 2002 f

A solution to Bowdoin's dating and political apathy problems
DANIEL BUCKLEY

It has become apparent to me as a reader of the Orient that Bowdoin, despite its idyllic image as the bucolic small college in Maine, does have its share of problems. According to the opinion section, these pressing issues include, and are not limited to: the dysfunctional nature of students' romantic lives, an overly liberal student body, and the entire school's tendency to neglect traditional American/Anglo-Saxon values. The list goes on, but I am limited in this article to some 600 words (82 down, 518 to go).

Mercifully enough, the Orient is not the sole purveyor of news and opinion for Bowdoin students. Most students will flip through the pages of a major newspaper or magazine at some point during the week. Yet besides those pinko-commies printing the disorient, it is the Orient that enlightens the community to the campus goings-on. Supplemented monthly by the always-hilariously Patriot (brilliant political satire in there), the Orient primarily fills the void of Bowdoin print media.

Still, even with this trio of Bowdoin publications, no one has been heretofore able to solve the problems of a lackluster dating scene or a serious bankruptcy in reactionary political conservatism. Indeed, these are challenging issues. But I believe that combining the two problems-rather than tackling them separately-will yield an interesting solution to Bowdoin's most important issues.

In order to alleviate the awkward situations Bowdoin students encounter daily with the opposite sex and to rejuvenate the political right on campus, I recommend that the College consider admitting only male applicants, becoming, once again, an all-male liberal arts college in four years' time.

Now, we would have to do something about the classification "liberal arts college," but that's another column; hear me out. By relegating our current female students to a different school, perhaps constructing a [Harriet Beecher] Stowe College (a la Radcliffe and Harvard of old), we can ease the inter-gender tension by strictly limiting coeducationally structured time. The women will attend one campus, the men the other.

With all the problems of dating older/younger students, and deciding when to break up or stay together, it would make much more sense to simply schedule times, on the weekends, for men and women to intermingle: at a hockey game, a social house party or a formal school event. By limiting the amount of time men and women interact, you can likewise limit the amount of awkwardness that each Bowdoin students feels upon contacting the opposite sex. Clearly, brief and closely chaperoned events in which all the social and sexual needs of young adults must be met would be tension-free when compared to the miserable, inherently awkward situation of asking a classmate-a person one sees almost every day-for a quick cup of coffee.

The most attractive facet of this decentralization of the sexes is that it practically solves the political "liberality" of the College by itself. Prior to 1970, Bowdoin existed as a distinguished all-male liberal arts school. Educating future leaders was simpler then: less minorities were represented on campus, there were obviously no females present, and the College apparently had no problem with its typecast as the "old moneyed New Englanders'" small school of choice. With this rampant yet delightful homogeneity once again reinstituted, Bowdoin students could get back to what's important: celebrating those forgotten figures like Jefferson or Washington, or debating how-not if-it is best to neo-colonialize the Third World in our own image. The political and traditional implications for an exclusive group of wealthy, all-white males of Anglo-Saxon stock (OK, we'll take most Northern Europeans) are all too clear to require further explanation.

Therefore, the establishment of an all-female "Stowe College" is clearly justified. It just may be the solution that both the College's conservatives and single Bowdoin students need. Maybe there's even a connection: conservative…and…single…?