Events

Local kids will unknowingly be getting exercise while taking part in fun activities during the 9th semi-annual Fit and Fun Day, to be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 in Gentile Hall. The event is sponsored by the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Physical Education Majors Club.

The Club has organized the free play day for area children in grades 1-5 for the past four years to teach them about health and fitness in a fun environment. Activities may include a wide range of activities, from cup stacking, rhythm activities, and parachute games to juggling, and ball handling games, and improving motor skill techniques through activities such as throwing with rubber chickens, frogs, and turtles.

Officials with the University of Maine at Presque Isle and Prometric will host an official opening and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Prometric Testing Center that has been established on campus at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 10 on the main floor of South Hall.

The new testing center will provide University students and community members with a convenient location for taking important computer-based exams, such as the GRE, Praxis and MCAT. Before this center was established, area students and residents had to drive south for more than 150 miles in order to take such tests. Officials will be on hand at the opening event to take registrations and schedule testing times.

“We are so pleased to be joining with Prometric in officially opening this testing center for the people of northern Maine, western New Brunswick and surrounding areas,” President Don Zillman said. “We feel this is going to be a major benefit not only to our students who are required to take certain tests in order to become certified as teachers or to be admitted to graduate programs, but also the many community members who currently have to drive long distances to take important computer-based academic and licensure exams.”

A University of Maine at Presque Isle program that serves local residents over 50 and believes in “learning for life” will host its spring kick-off with a luncheon event at 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 19 in the Campus Center.

Seniors Achieving Greater Education [SAGE] has worked for more than a decade to bring short courses in arts, sciences, and specialty areas to the region’s senior community. SAGE is one of 16 senior colleges in the Maine Senior College Network, and the only one north of Orono.

At the March 19 luncheon, participants will have the opportunity to socialize with SAGE members. Following lunch, they will learn all about upcoming SAGE classes. This spring, SAGE officials are offering a dozen courses and learning excursions – on topics ranging from Darwin’s Origin of Species and Financial Foundations to the Civil War and Italian cooking. Learning excursions include trips to the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum, the Musee Cultural Du Mont-Carmel in Lille, and the Houlton sector of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Momentum Aroostook and the University are teaming up for the second year in a row to provide the area’s young professionals with a one-of-a-kind leadership development opportunity.

The two entities will host the Young Professionals Institute, a professional development short course designed specifically for emerging leaders looking to hone their professional skills. The program will be offered at the University during eight afternoon sessions between March and April. The Wednesday sessions will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on March 4, 11, 18, and 25 and April 1, 8, 15 and 22.

Officials are pleased to be partnering again on this project and hope to build on the successes they realized during the 2008 course.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle will host its Annual Job & Career Fair in the Campus Center from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 25. Thirty businesses and governmental agencies from the region and across the state are expected to participate in the event.

“The Job & Career Fair provides a unique opportunity for our students and the public to network with employers, discover opportunities, and to gain professional employment,” Barbara DeVaney, Director of Career Services, said.

Campus and community members will learn all about journeying to the stars when the University hosts a NASA astronaut and space shuttle commander in March as part of its Distinguished Lecturer Series.

Pamela Melroy (Colonel, USAF, retired) has served as a NASA astronaut since 1995 and has participated in three space flights, logging more than 900 hours (more than 38 days) in space and helping to conduct important assembly work for the International Space Station. She will speak on “Human Spaceflight-Shuttle, International Space Station and Beyond” at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 9 in the Campus Center. All are encouraged to attend. During her visit to Maine, Melroy will speak with students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics and at a school in Mars Hill. On the LCS/MSSM campus, she will speak at 11 a.m. on March 9 in Boothby Auditorium.

Melroy completed a 13-day flight in 2000 aboard the space shuttle Discovery, a 10-day flight in 2002 aboard Atlantis, and a 15-day flight, on which she served as shuttle commander, in 2007, again on the space shuttle Discovery. On her 2000 and 2002 flights, she served as the shuttle pilot. She will speak about her missions, her work as commander of a shuttle, and spacewalking, robotics and living in space.

The Maine Hysterical Society takes the stage at the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Wieden Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10 for a night of side-splitting laughter and entertainment.

The troupe is made up of three of Maine’s most popular entertaining variety artists, actors, musicians and Downeast humorists – Randy Judkins, Barney Martin, and Steve Underwood. The trio will present a comedy variety show of original songs and parodies, hilarious Maine characters, ‘wicked-good’ juggling, and hysterical sketches.

The Northern Maine Museum of Science and Aroostook C.A.N.C.E.R. are asking local community members to put their heads to good use and take part in the third annual Planet Head Day, to be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14 in Folsom Hall.

This is the day where community members of northern Maine and adjacent Canada have the opportunity to shave their heads and have them painted to look like planets. The less adventurous can don swim caps, provided by the museum, and have them painted instead. Participants will have many photographs of planets and moons to choose from when selecting how they want their scalp to look. This year, barber Patrick Coughlin of Parsons Street Barbershop and an assemblage of planet head painters will be available for the occasion.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will showcase the work of the University’s newest Fine Art professor with an exhibit that focuses on the “personal community” she has created since moving to northern Maine.

Renee Felini’s installation Creating Community will be on display from Feb. 2 through March 6 in the Reed Gallery. A closing reception for the exhibit will be held on Friday, March 6, from 5-7 p.m.

Creating Community is a gathering of objects and creations by Felini representing her family’s sense of “personal community” since their arrival in northern Maine.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle will host its annual spring semester blood drive on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009. This blood drive is sponsored by the UMPI Residence Life Office, the Brothers of Kappa Delta Phi and the Sisters of Kappa Delta Phi NAS.

The blood drive is scheduled from noon until 6 p.m. in the Campus Center’s Multi Purpose Room. Door prizes will be given away during the event. If donors wish to reserve a time, they should call 768-9585 between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome, or you can sign up at the new online appointment scheduler at www.givelife.org.