Showing 1361 - 1370 of 5240 Items
Interview with Adriennie Hatten (Class of 1990) and Shelby Cogdell Knox (Class of 1991) by Marina Henke
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Adriennie Hatten
Shelby Cogdell Knox
Access: Open access
- Adriennie Hatten ('90) and Shelby Cogdell Knox ('91) both share their path to Bowdoin from East Cleveland. They describe the racism that they experienced on campus, especially in their first years at Bowdoin, and how they struggled to develop a sense of place in what was a campus with so few black students. Both Hatten and Knox were highly involved with the African American Society (AfAm) during their time at the College, and the two women share how central Russwurm was to their Bowdoin experience. They reminisce on various speakers that they brought to campus, including Toni Morrison. Finally, Hatten and Knox reflect on AF/AM/50, and share concerns about both the current state of Russwurm and the recent name change from the African-American Society to the Black Student Union. Finally both women criticize the ways that black alumni are treated by the College, and how they see that embodied in the offerings and verbage of their recent weekend on campus.
Interview with Marnita Eaddie (Class of 1990) by Marina Henke
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Marnita Eaddie
Access: Open access
- Marnita Eaddie ('90) reminisces about her time at Bowdoin, particularly the transition of moving from her predominantly black hometown of East Cleveland to Brunswick, Maine. She shares how variations in wealth between students showed during her time at Bowdoin, but also how students from a variety of backgrounds managed to come together. She recounts confronting racism on the predominantly white campus, and how she navigated being one of less than fifteen black students in her incoming class. She additionally describes her own commitment to academics during her four years at the College, and how she managed to balance a superb academic record along with holding various part-time jobs during all of her semesters. Eaddie brings up the impact of various tragedies on campus, including the death of student Pamela Herbert (‘90) in the Pan Am Flight 103 terrorist attack. Finally, she explores how her later work in the military contrasted and aligned with her Bowdoin experience.
Molly Kennedy '19 Interviews Jenna Scott '19
Date: 2015-01-01
Creator: Jenna Scott
Access: Open access
Interview with Justin Weathers (Class of 2018) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Justin Weathers
Access: Open access
- Justin Weathers ’18 grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. His track coach and AP Gov teacher, a graduate of Bowdoin, encouraged him to apply to Bowdoin. Weathers talks about transitioning from the mostly black population of Baltimore to the very white, very small town of Brunswick, ME. He reflects on how, while AfAm was a safe space at Bowdoin, the class, ethnic, and regional differences among black students at Bowdoin affected the black community at Bowdoin. He also reflects on several bias incidents happening at Bowdoin during his first year, which was also the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Weathers remembers how it was to experience the Baltimore riots of the mid 2010s while attending Bowdoin. Additionally, Weathers reflects on his lasting impact at Bowdoin, from making “More than Meets the Eye” a mandatory part of Bowdoin First-Year Orientation, to advocating for black students affected by Bowdoin’s zero tolerance violence policy, which neglects to account for racial and verbal violence, plus the difficulty of having conversations across difference at Bowdoin that feel productive. Overall, Weathers reflects on how Bowdoin shaped him into who he is today, and one of his favorite memories of Bowdoin: riding into Ivies on the Brunswick Quad with Bowdoin security on a golf cart.
"Chinese Final Project" by Caroline Glaser (Class of 2023)
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Caroline Glaser
Access: Open access
- For the final project, all students in Chinese 1104 created a short video about how COVID-19 impacted our lives. Author is class of 2023.
Reading & Teaching Chaucer: the "Good Wif"?
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Sophie Friedman
Access: Open access
- This two-chapter project applies formalist and feminist thinking to the thirty-line description of the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s medieval, British work The Canterbury Tales. It is an interdisciplinary project; it studies how to read and teach Chaucer at the secondary level based off of these two approaches. In this formalist chapter, I study narrative voice, rhyme, irony, and ekphrasis, writing about the history and function of each of those tools and their role in the passage. I argue that the formalist close reading approach is an excellent teaching tool that generates thorough, rigorous, and joyful reading. In this feminist chapter, I compile a critical literary history of scholarly feminist and pre-feminist engagement with the passage over time. I read into an underlying genotype text, arguing that the Wife of Bath was a female entrepreneur who used textiles as a means of social, professional, and aesthetic expression and empowerment. Then I advocate for a feminist ethical teaching approach—one where we use the text as a non-ethical space in which to explore ethical questions surrounding gender. Ultimately, I argue that feminist and formalist approaches are interdependent and complementary; for both reading and teaching Chaucer, they stand stronger together.
Characterization of O-Linked Glycosylated Neuropeptides in the American Lobster (Homarus americanus): The Use of Peptide Labeling Following Beta Elimination
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Edward Myron Bull
Access: Open access
- Neuropeptides are a class of small peptides that govern various neurological functions, and the American lobster (Homarus americanus) provides a model system for their characterization. Neuropeptides are commonly post-translationally modified (PTM), and one common PTM is glycosylation. Past research in the Stemmler lab has found glycosylated neuropeptides in H. americanus; however, the extent and biological role of this modification has not been well characterized. This study was undertaken to determine the number of glycosylated peptides in the sinus glands of H. americanus and to develop an approach to tag the site of glycosylation using beta-elimination chemistry. LC-MS paired with high pH reverse phase fractionation was used to survey for glycosylated neuropeptides and beta elimination with an amine tag was used as an approach to characterize the site of glycosylation. Our results indicate that high pH fractionation is a useful approach to simplify complex mixtures of neuropeptides and improve glycopeptide detection. Efforts to use beta elimination and tagging to characterize glycosylated neuropeptides have been less successful. Beta elimination of full length peptides resulted in peptide degradation. An approach utilizing chymotrypsin to reduce peptide size coupled with beta elimination and labeling with 2-dimethylaminoethanethiol showed less evidence for degradation, and this approach yielded data isolating two potential serine residues for the site of glycosylation; however, the data was not sufficient to distinguish the two sites. Work to optimize reaction conditions using a glycopeptide standard showed that multiple isomeric products were formed during beta elimination. With the goal of optimizing reaction conditions, future work will further examine reaction kinetics to eventually apply the approach to the entire sinus gland
Determining the sites at which neuromodulators exert peripheral effects in the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American Lobster, Homarus americanus
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Audrey Elizabeth Jordan
Access: Open access
- Networks of neurons known as central pattern generators (CPGs) generate rhythmic patterns of output to drive behaviors like locomotion. CPGs are relatively fixed networks that produce consistent patterns in the absence of other inputs. The heart contractions of the Homarus americanus are neurogenic and controlled by the CPG known as the cardiac ganglion. Neuromodulators can enable flexibility in CPG motor output, and also on muscle contractions by acting on the neuromuscular junction and the muscle itself. A tissue-specific transcriptome gleaned from the cardiac ganglion and cardiac muscle of the American lobster was used to predict the sites and sources of a variety of crustacean neuromodulators. If corresponding receptors were predicted to be expressed in the cardiac muscle, then it was hypothesized that the neuropeptide had peripheral effects. One peptide for which a cardiac muscle receptor was identified is myosuppressin. Myosuppressin has been shown to have modulatory effects at the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster. In previous research, myosuppressin had modulatory effects on the periphery of cardiac neuromuscular system alone. It remains an open question of whether myosuppressin acts on the cardiac muscle directly, if it is exerting its effects at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), or both. To test this, I performed physiological experiments on the isolated NMJ. Myosuppressin did not modulate the amplitude of the excitatory junction potentials. Since no modulatory effects were seen at the NMJ, the cardiac muscle was isolated from the cardiac ganglion and then glutamate-evoked contractions were stimulated. I showed that myosuppressin increased glutamate-evoked contraction amplitude. These data suggest myosuppressin exerts its peripheral effects at the cardiac muscle and not the NMJ.
Down in arms: Marine climate stress inhibits growth and calcification of regenerating Asterias forbesi (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) arms
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Hannah L. Randazzo
Access: Open access
- Anthropogenic CO2 is changing the pCO2, temperature, and carbonate chemistry of seawater. These processes are termed ocean acidification (OA) and ocean warming. Previous studies suggest two opposing hypotheses for the way in which marine climate stress will influence echinoderm calcification, metabolic efficiency, and reproduction: either an additive or synergistic effect. Sea stars have a regenerative capacity, which may be particularly affected while rebuilding calcium carbonate arm structures, leading to changes in arm growth and calcification. In this study, Asterias forbesi were exposed to ocean water of either ambient, high temperature, high pCO2, or high temperature and high pCO2 for 60 days, and the regeneration length of the amputated arm was measured weekly. Ocean acidification conditions (pCO2 ~1180 μatm) had a negative impact on regenerated arm length, and an increase in temperature of +4°C above ambient conditions (Fall, Southern Gulf of Maine) had a positive effect on regenerated arm length, but the additive effects of these two factors resulted in smaller regenerated arms compared to ambient conditions. Sea stars regenerating under high pCO2 exhibited a lower proportion of calcified mass, which could be the result of a more energetically demanding calcification process associated with marine climate stress. These results indicate that A. forbesi calcification is sensitive to increasing pCO2, and that climate change will have an overall net negative effect on sea star arm regeneration. Such effects could translate into lower predation rates by a key consumer in the temperate rocky intertidal of North America.
An Analysis of Tidal Mixing Front Dynamics and Frontal Biophysical Interaction in the Harpswell Sound Shelf Sea
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lemona Yingzhuo Niu
Access: Open access
- Tidal Mixing Fronts (TMFs) are prominent hydrographic features of tidally energetic shallow shelf seas, representing the transition from mixed to stratified waters. These frontal boundaries often host enhanced phytoplankton primary productivity, as complete vertical mixing exhumes nutrients from depth to the light-lit surface. Existing observational programs for locating TMFs include infra-red satellite imagery of sea surface temperature (SST) and vertical profiling of temperature and density. However, challenges in observationally distinguishing mixed from mixing using only conservatively mixed hydrographic properties persist. A novel approach based on phytoplankton in-situ oxygen production response to light is proposed in this paper to distinguish stable mixed from actively mixing regimes, and thus to identify remnant versus active TMFs. This project focuses on Harpswell Sound, a shallow (< 40m) coastal reverse estuary, as a case study of TMF dynamics. Our data unambiguously reveal the cross-shelf structure of active, mixed, and stratified regimes. Competition between wind mixing and buoyancy due to solar heating and river plumes were found to be the primary drivers of the active and remnant front locations, while tidal currents were a secondary driver. Such dynamism explains both the temporally variable and spatially patchy phytoplankton blooms observed in the shallow shelf sea environment of Harpswell Sound.