Students compete in language contests

News in brief: Mckesson loses primary election for mayor

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson ’07 finished sixth in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Baltimore mayor, garnering two percent of the vote. Mckesson profusely thanked his supporters on his Twitter page, saying, “Thank you to all of the supporters, voters & donors who contributed to my campaign. In 83 days, we changed the landscape of the race.” Even though Mckesson was the last to enter the race, announcing his bid for candidacy on February 3, his tweets on Tuesday reminded his followers that he was the first to release a comprehensive platform and that “the ideas & platform our campaign introduced will influence the next administration.”
With over 343,000 Twitter followers, Mckesson’s social media presence both benefited and impaired his campaign. In an interview with Yahoo News, Mckesson acknowledged the press’s focus on his low poll numbers and activism background as well as the pressure to document his campaigning efforts online.
“[The social media presence] does a lot to amplify the message in a way that is powerful,” Mckesson said. “The hard part is that if I don’t put it on Twitter, people literally act like it doesn’t exist...No other candidate has to prove every single thing they do.”
Even though Mckesson lost, his candidacy highlighted the constructive power of digital campaigning. He tweeted on Wednesday, “We raised more money quicker than any local campaign in the country, and almost all of it digitally. The old money gatekeepers are no more.”

News in brief: Conflict over College Street property may result in legal action

In a case that could be brought to court, Bowdoin seems to be pushing back against the $1.6 million dollar asking price for 28 College Street, the last remaining non-campus property on College Street. Bowdoin has denied that the property is the place where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” despite the owner’s claims. According to an article in the Bangor Daily News, Arline Pennell Lay, the owner of the property, was notified by her attorney last week that the College plans to file a lawsuit to make Lay adhere to a 1996 agreement with the College. The agreement states that the College can buy the property at 125 percent of its appraised value if the owner dies or puts it on the market; with the appraised price at $154,300, the College should only pay $192,875 for the house. However, Lay and her attorney, Sean Joyce, claim that an attorney was not present at the time of this agreement; Bowdoin’s attorney claims otherwise, according to Joyce. The College has said that it will leave the issue up to its lawyers.“We’re investigating whether or not [Lay] had representation and [whether] it was, essentially, unequal bargaining,” Joyce told the Bangor Daily News.
The high asking price of the house is attributed to Lay and her family’s claim that Stowe rented a room on the second floor between 1850 and 1851 where she wrote much of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” However, the College has pushed back against this claim over the years with evidence that Stowe wrote the novel at 63 Federal Street, her home from 1851 to 1852, and Appleton Hall, where her husband had a study.
The property is listed on the National Register of Historic places. However, according to Joyce, the College attributes this to the property’s other historical significance. According to the Lay family, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned a poem, “The Old Clock on the Stairs,” about a grandfather clock in the house. Norman Rockwell also apparently modeled his painting, “Freedom from Want,” after members of Lay’s family, Alice Lay and Richard Coffin. The real estate listing states that, “Other famous people such as President and Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Chris Wallace and William Cohen have stayed at this home.”

News in brief

Students compete in language contests

April 28, 2016

Bowdoin students competed in The Chinese Bridge Speech Contest for University Students in New England held at the Confucius Institute at University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston on April 19 for the first time in the competition’s six-year history. Bowdoin students ranked highly at the competition, with Eduardo Jaramillo ’17 placing third among advanced level contestants and Louis Frumer ’18 placing second at the beginner level. Jaramillo was also chosen as one of six contestants to be a Cultural Ambassador, resulting in an all-expense-paid trip to China, taking place in June.

Twenty-one students from the New England area competed across three different levels of Chinese proficiency—beginner, intermediate and advanced. Students were judged on two performances, one for their speech and language proficiency through a self-written composition piece and another in an entertainment category, featuring cultural performances.
Visiting Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language Lisa Ahnert emphasized the students’ achievement.

“Bowdoin students are always busy, so we only had the chance to rehearse together three times before the actual competition,” said Ahnert. “The entertainment piece was especially challenging, as we do not have the resources of a larger department, such as the Confucian studies center at UMass, in the form of costumes and music.”

Ahnert hopes Bowdoin’s strong showing will entice more students to take courses with the Chinese department, and also encourage current Chinese language students to take part in next year’s contest.

Bowdoin students also performed very well at this year’s Japanese Language Contest, held at the Consulate General of Japan in Boston. Of the nine available essay prizes, Melissa Miura ’19, Poy Pholcharee ’18, Heidi Cao ’16 and Claudia Knox ’19 won four. Bowdoin students have now placed first and second in the essay portion of the competition for three years in a row.

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