Showing 831 - 840 of 2039 Items
Talia Cowen '16 interviews Hugh Cipparone '19
Date: 2016-01-01
Creator: Hugh Cipparone
Access: Open access
Interview with Richard Adams (Class of 1973) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Richard Adams
Access: Open access
- Richard Adams ‘73 talks about lobbying during his senior year of high school in Pittsburgh to make Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday a national holiday, shortly after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. He chose Bowdoin for its liberal proclivities, believing it would be place for him, an avid activist by the time he graduated high school. Adams’s activism followed him to Bowdoin, where he was active in the African-American Society, finding a home in the black community at Bowdoin and in Maine at large, and how his passion for activism defined his time at Bowdoin and beyond.
Interview with Janelle Charles (Class of 2006) and Dudney Sylla (Class of 2008) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Janelle Charles
Dudney Sylla
Access: Open access
- Janelle Charles ‘06 and Dudney Sylla ‘08 talk about their differing paths to Bowdoin. Sylla grew up in Boston, attending a Jesuit high school, and being a recipient of the Posse Scholarship. Charles talks about growing up in San Francisco, California and finding out about Bowdoin through fly-in programs. Both talk about the difficulty of transitioning to Bowdoin’s academic rigor, particularly as first-generation college students, and the freedom and independence that came with having an open college schedule. They also detail what it was like to leave their home communities and craft new communities at Bowdoin. Charles and Sylla both talk about the resources at Bowdoin and the leaders and professors that encouraged them and helped them feel seen at Bowdoin, particularly Shelley Roseboro, and reflect on their favorite memories and their own enduring friendship.
Interview with Judy (Mike) Reinhold-Tucker (Class of 1975) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Judy (Mike) Reinhold-Tucker
Access: Open access
- Judy Mike Reinhold Tucker reflects on her one year at Bowdoin, during which she was a member of the first class of women at Bowdoin. She also talks about the transition, both in weather and academics, as she moved from Trinidad to the United States when she finished high school in 1969 in Washington D.C. and then came to Bowdoin on a full scholarship in 1970. Despite only attending Bowdoin for one year, Tucker talks about how Bowdoin shaped her path to be pre med, her passion for education, and the AfAm community at Bowdoin that made her feel at home for the short time that she was here.
Interview with Joseph Adu (Class of 2007), Shawn Stewart (Class of 2008), and Michel Bamani (Class of 2008) by Marcus Williams
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Joseph Adu
Shawn Stewart
Michel Bamani
Access: Open access
- Shawn Stewart '08, Michel Bamani '08, and Joseph Adu '07 reflect on their different paths that led them to Bowdoin: Stewart, who grew up in Harlem, working at and being a student of the Harlem Children's Zone, Bamani, a child of Congolese immigrants, and Adu, a child of Ghanaian immigrants. They talk about the challenge of transitioning to Bowdoin academically and socially, getting used to the high academic demands and also learning how to utilize resources. Adu tells a funny story of applying to college during his junior year of high school because he did not realize you had to wait until your senior year in America! Additionally, the three ask each other questions about their own experiences, highlighting the importance of understanding how to prioritize what's most important to them and reflecting on how Bowdoin aided them in that endeavor. They also talk about the expereinces of men of color at PWIs and how to better retain students of color.
Ivette Pala '16 and Zachary Watson '16 Interview Each Other
Date: 2016-01-01
Creator: Zachary Watson
Ivette Pala
Access: Open access
Context-specific effects of vasotocin on social approach in the male common goldfish, Carassius auratus
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Katharine Torrey
Access: Open access
- The peptide vasotocin (VT) and its mammalian homologue, vasopressin (VP), produce effects on social behavior that are highly species- and context-specific. We recently sequenced two genes for V1a-like receptors (VTR) in the goldfish brain, one that encodes for a fully-functioning canonical receptor and one that encodes for a non-functional truncated receptor. The current study is an investigation of whether social context may alter expression of these receptor types and thus, potentially, behavioral responses to VT. We used western blotting and immunohistochemistry with custom anti-VTR antibodies to characterize the distribution of VTR throughout the forebrain and the hindbrain. Western blot results showed bands close to the predicted sizes for truncated and canonical VTR constructs, suggesting that both genes are translated into protein in the brain, but the presence of additional bands suggested potential nonspecific binding. Immunohistochemistry data revealed VTR signal throughout the brain in regions associated with social behavior. We additionally examined whether visual and olfactory context alters behavioral responsiveness to VT, potentially by altering the expression of one or both receptors. Behavioral tests suggested that VT inhibits approach to males, but its effect on response to females in reproductive contexts is still undetermined, likely due to interference from a stress response during testing. Further characterization of VTR throughout the brain will clarify how social context might alter VT signaling through context-dependent modulation of its receptors. Additionally, future work should examine the behavioral consequences of such modulation by further studying whether VT’s effect on social approach behavior depends on context.
Responses of central pattern generators in the American lobster STNS to multiple members of a novel neuropeptide family
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Benjamin Harley Wong
Access: Open access
- Neuropeptides are important modulators of neural activity, allowing neural networks, such as the central pattern generators (CPGs) that control rhythmic movements, to alter their output and thus generate behavioral flexibility. Isoforms of a neuropeptide family vary in physical structure, allowing potentially distinct functional neuromodulatory effects on CPG systems. While some familial neuropeptide isoforms can differentially affect a system, others in the same family may elicit indistinguishable effects. Here, we examined the effects elicited by members of a novel family of six peptide hormone isoforms (GSEFLamides: I-, M-, AL-, AM-, AV-, and VM-GSEFLamide) on the pyloric filter and gastric mill CPGs in the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) of the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Recent unpublished work from the Dickinson lab found that five of the six GSEFLamides elicited similar increases in contraction amplitude when perfused through the isolated lobster heart, while one (AVGSEFLamide) had virtually no effect. Using extracellular recordings, we found the pattern of GSEFLamide effects on the STNS gastric mill to be similar to the pattern observed in the lobster cardiac system; the gastric mill circuit was fairly consistently activated by all isoforms except AVGSEFLamide. The intrinsically active pyloric pattern was also significantly enhanced by three out of five peptide isoforms, and nearly significantly enhanced by two more, but was likewise non-responsive to AVGSEFLamide. While the reason AVGSEFLamide had no effect on either pattern is unknown, the similar phenomenon noted in the isolated whole heart potentially indicates that this isoform lacks any function in the lobster.
Survival Strategies: Historic Preservation, Jewish Community, and the German Democratic Republic
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Emily Ann Cohen
Access: Open access
- Following the Second World War, as German Communists worked to establish a new socialist East German state, Jews who survived persecution and imprisonment by the Nazis worked to reestablish a Jewish community at the same time. Though many scholars dismiss the relationship between Jews and the Socialist Unity Party, the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic, as one characterized only by neglect and occasional political exploitation, it was much more nuanced, shaped in large part by the Cold War. Both the party and the Jewish community relied on the other to accomplish their goals, namely, survival in a new world order: The Socialist Unity Party relied on the Jewish community to maintain the German Democratic Republic's claim to legitimacy, and the Jews, few in number, relied on the party for financial support. Despite mutual benefits, however, the state and party nearly always had the upper hand. The power imbalance led Jews to find creative ways to fulfill their needs and, at several points, even prompted protest of the party’s treatment of its Jewish citizens. This paper follows the course of this relationship by focusing on the German Democratic Republic's management of sites of historical significance—which vacillated between outright destruction and dedicated protection—returning particularly to the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. With this particular lens, this project addresses questions about memory, mythology, and agency in a socialist dictatorship and challenges assumptions about Jewish life in East Germany.
Duty and Distinction: Scientists as Intellectuals in Modern China
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Helen Wang
Access: Open access
- As critical players in the Chinese state’s pursuit of modernization and political legitimacy, Chinese scientists have been the recipients of state attention and scrutiny throughout modern history. This paper will analyze how Qian Xuesen (1911-2009) became a national hero as the Chinese Communist Party’s model scientist. Qian developed his scientific expertise in the United States, before Cold War political tensions forced his extradition. Upon his return to China, Qian became a key missile scientist in the state’s emerging nuclear weapons program. By analyzing Qian’s public persona as portrayed in official state media, this paper will argue that the CCP conferred distinct political duties to scientists, defining a new socio-political role for scientist-intellectuals. Beginning from the Mao era and continuing through to the present day, the CCP’s portrayal and promotion of Qian’s legacy gives insight into the state’s strategy to use science to bolster authority and legitimize policy.