Press Releases

University of Maine at Presque Isle professor Dr. Chunzeng Wang led a group of students from the Environmental Studies and Sustainability Program on an overnight field trip to the mines in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, in late October. The trip gave them a first-hand glimpse of metal ore deposits, underground mining, and mine waste treatment, showed them the ins and outs of a large-scale mining operation, provided them with an up-close look at some of the rocks and deposits they’ve been studying, and let them see up close some of the environmental issues that come with mining and ways of dealing with them.

A team of University of Maine at Presque Isle professors evaluating the feasibility and sustainability of producing grass biomass in central Aroostook County is seeking landowner input to better understand past land usage and future interest in growing the renewable resource.

Specifically, the team is hoping to have Fort Fairfield landowners with 10 or more acres of land participate in a survey that covers agricultural resources, farming experiences, and their perspectives on grass biomass as a potential land use and production activity. There are nearly 200 landowners that fit that description and the team is hoping to get responses from a majority of them. Team members have been working since the summer to conduct these surveys, which need to be completed by early December. The survey takes about 10 minutes to fill out and can be accessed at www.umpi.edu/epscor-survey.

This fall, a University of Maine at Presque Isle faculty member was able to join his son on the trip of a lifetime: an international research expedition to Bhutan organized by Columbia University that could have far-reaching impacts on issues ranging from climate change to the future of water resources in southern Asia.

David Putnam, archaeologist and UMPI Lecturer of Science, participated in the trip—the very first significant scientific expedition into the high Himalayas of Bhutan—with his son Aaron Putnam, a glacial geologist and post-doctoral research associate at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

University of Maine at Presque Isle Professor Anderson Giles has led dozens of trips focused on World War II in the Pacific over the years, but it’s not often that these visits to historic battle sites and other points of interest result in coverage from the likes of the Chicago Sun-Times and Fox News.

That’s just what happened, though, following Giles’ trip to the Solomon Islands earlier this year. One of the many highlights was that a member of Giles’ group was able to bring home an Army dog tag discovered on a battle site and was able to return it this fall to the family of the soldier.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle is welcoming 17 new employees in the first part of the 2012-2013 academic year, including new professors and professional staffers.