News
NESCAC News
By Noelle Connors ’19
April 6, 2017
Tags news
Amherst Hosts Recreation of Stolen Artwork
During the month of March, Amherst College commemorated the unsolved mystery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist of 1990 with recreations of the stolen artwork. During the original heist on March 18, 1990, 13 paintings were stolen, together valued at $500 million dollars. After working from the FBI National Stolen Art File to recreate sketches of these works, artist Kota Ezawa was inspired by the release of the tape of the heist to combine the tape with the sketches to create a dynamic exhibit. Ezawa used light boxes to create 3D works of art inspired by the original stolen works. These works will be on display at Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum through June 1, and Ezawa will speak about his works in a lecture on April 5.
Bowdoin Begins Purple Media Campaign to Address Red/Blue Media Divide
Beginning April 1, Bowdoin will begin the Polar Bear Purple Media Plunge to address the political divide in media. Through this program, students, staff and faculty will sign up to receive a daily email which will contain news headlines from diverse sources including CNN, MSBC and FOX. Often, students are only exposed to news through algorithms, news feeds or particular websites they choose, all of which match their own preconceived political views The goal of this project is not to endorse any particular media outlet, but instead to encourage participants to read articles from diverse perspectives. So far, over 80 Bowdoin students have signed up to participate in the challenge, which includes reading news headlines every day from April 1-26 and then completing two surveys to study the challenge’s impact.
Bates Moves Away From Paper Cups in Dining Halls
As of April 25, Bates’s main dining hall, Commons, will no longer have paper coffee cups available. Currently, Bates College uses 750,000 cups every year. The result of a long-term effort to improve sustainability on campus and reduce waste, this move will reduce waste not only in the production of the paper cups, but also in the waste which cannot be recycled. Bates’s dining service is giving every student a reusable mug to use instead of the cups and has installed a mug cleaning station in the dining hall. While this change was driven predominantly by collaboration between Bates EcoReps and Dining Services, over 1,200 out of 1,700 Bates students voted in an online poll in favor of the implementation of this program.