The Bowdoin Orient

Maine chess enthusiasts should be on guard. There's a new king in the state, and he's a Bowdoin student.

Nicole Willey '08 was elected as chair of the Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC) on Thursday night.

Rep. Tom Allen '67, D-Maine, will likely announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate within the next month, The Hill reported Wednesday. The Washington, D.C.-based newspaper attributed the news to Allen's campaign manager.

A Bowdoin employee was fired this week after allegedly stealing cash from residents of Coles Tower, and a Bowdoin student said it was his own investigation that cracked the case.

The administration is proposing a $111 million budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, representing a 5.5 percent increase over the current fiscal year, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Katy Longley said at Monday's faculty meeting.

Joe Adu and Szymon Rus want to get people talking?about anything. The two seniors have chartered a club on campus called Stuff 101. While the club's title suggests a basic-level course, its mission is intense: Adu and Rus want Stuff 101 to be a place where students discuss diverse issues, with the ultimate goal of enhancing knowledge.

It was billed as the start of the capital campaign, but it turned out to be a grand celebration. After all, there was much to celebrate?$147 million?at the the unveiling of The Bowdoin Campaign at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Friday.

The College is scheduled to formally launch its $250 million capital campaign in Boston on Friday. Officials believe The Bowdoin Campaign will be the largest fundraising drive in Maine history.

Bowdoin is taking measures to adopt a new sexual assault and misconduct policy for students. The policy creates a refined definition of consent, designates procedures for a non-college third-party to investigate allegations, and differentiates between sexual assault and misconduct allegations.

Even though the staff of the Maine Ethics Commission has found that there does not appear to be an ethics violation by the Maine College Republicans, the Maine College Democrats are bringing their complaint to the full commission on Tuesday.

The Maine College Democrats asked the state of Maine on Thursday to investigate the Maine College Republicans for alleged violations of campaign finance laws.

Your laptop might soon be worthless to a thief cruising campus for a computer. That's because the Department of Safety and Security, Information Technology, and Bowdoin Student Government have teamed up to help students install pairs of theft-prevention plates on their portable computers.

A Bowdoin student's allegations of anti-Christian hostility sparked investigations into the conduct of two faculty members and one administrator. Though college officials have cleared all three staff members of any wrongdoing, the cases shed new light on the discussion about intellectual freedom and the role of religion on campus. The story of Ryan Helminiak '05 encompasses his student disciplinary case for placing more than 1,000 religious pamphlets in library books, along with what he perceived as religious discrimination during classes taken in the fall of 2001 and spring of 2003.

Four of the seven Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) officer positions were unopposed, but nearly a thousand students still chose to vote in this week's balloting.

Approximately 60 people have applied to be the College's next dean of student affairs, but officials are not yet ready to predict when the search committee will make its final decision. "The end of the search is when we've found the right person," Assistant to the President Scott Meiklejohn said in a phone interview.

George Mitchell '54 has been selected to lead an investigation into alleged steroid use by Major League Baseball (MLB) players, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday.

After regularly receiving overly informal emails in their inboxes?and even the occasional inappropriate message?some faculty members are wondering if students might want to slow down before they click the "send" button. Faculty members point to messages they have received that make unfair demands or turn out to be downright embarrassing for students.

CORRECTION: A subsequent article contains a more complete report of events. Taryn King died at the hospital, not in the ambulance.

A Bowdoin student died of unknown causes while studying in Ireland, the College announced Thursday. Taryn King '07 was studying abroad through a Butler University program at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley said that a Butler official told him that King mentioned to a roommate before bed that she was feeling ill. She reportedly woke up at approximately 11 a.m. local time Thursday and asked a roommate to call for emergency assistance. She died on the way to the hospital.

Bowdoin's top administrators earn pay on par with Maine's other top private colleges, according to public tax documents obtained by the Orient. President Barry Mills received $255,850 in compensation in the 2003-2004 fiscal year, along with $42,752 in contributions to employee benefit plans. This sum of $298,602 in total presidential compensation mirrors that of nearby Bates and Colby Colleges.

Millions of Americans will learn about Alex Cornell du Houx '06 on national television soon?though they won't read about him in Bowdoin Magazine, which recently pulled a piece on Cornell du Houx and his political opponent Dan Schuberth '06 amid controversy. A crew from NBC's flagship news broadcast, "Nightly News with Brian Williams," will be on campus Monday and Tuesday to report on the political activist's upcoming deployment to Iraq in the U.S. Marine Corps, Cornell du Houx said.

Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) President DeRay Mckesson '07 says he will not run for the Class of 2007 presidency in the upcoming re-election. Mckesson was disqualified in last week's election by the BSG Elections Committee because of his role as student government president. Mckesson originally planned on running again, but after discussions with the BSG officer team, he decided to end his candidacy.

DeRay Mckesson '07 has been disqualified as a candidate for the presidency of the Class of 2007 in this week's completed elections, the Orient learned late Thursday. At issue is Mckesson's role as president of Bowdoin Student Government (BSG).

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear the case of a Bowdoin graduate who sued in federal court over a 1999 Judicial Board decision, the court said in an order issued earlier this month.

As pundits argue over the impact of youth voters in the 2004 election, one thing is clear: Bowdoin students of all political persuasions voted in force on Election Day.

Multiple campus voting districts and misconceptions about student voting could create confusion on Election Day for many students planning to vote in their first presidential election. Town officials, college administrators, and student organizations are working to ensure that voting goes smoothly, but in the event that students have difficulties, the major political parties have attorneys in place to provide assistance.

Maine's top three Democrats emphasized the importance of the youth vote in interviews with the Orient at the Maine College Democrats of America College Convention. Keynote speaker Governor John Baldacci spoke in Moulton Union on Saturday to a packed house.

College Democrats are preparing for their first-ever state college convention to be held at Bowdoin next Friday and Saturday.

The Department of Safety and Security announced a new name, focus, and phone number for its student shuttle service.