Motorists and passersby on Main Street may have noticed something unique happening this week in one of the downtown Presque Isle storefronts: a wall of calendars – 365 to be exact – and a young man crossing out particular days on those calendars.
This art installation performance piece – called Is This the Way Life Should Be? – was conceived by University of Maine at Presque Isle Art Professor Renee Felini and is being performed by her husband Tim Bair.
Two books on energy and sustainability issues that University of Maine at Presque Isle President Don Zillman helped to write are taking on new life online and have even helped add to the global conversation surrounding the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway this week in Copenhagen.
More than $60,000 in new equipment has been installed at Gentile Hall thanks to the Legacy Gift given to the institution earlier this year by the late Caroline D. Gentile, the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s longest serving faculty member. The equipment is helping to increase energy efficiency in the campus building and provide more options for exercise facility patrons.
A $50,000 pool cover system and about $13,000 in exercise equipment have been put in place at the health and wellness center this fall. Officials were able to purchase these items because of Miss Gentile’s efforts during her lifetime to promote health and physical education, which are continuing now through her Legacy Gift.
An Aroostook County family recently honored the memory of their father and grandfather, Edgar Doak – and his example of service to his community – with the donation of an electric scooter chair to the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
The scooter chair, valued at more than $5,400, will be made available to campus visitors as well as students, faculty, and staff who need mobility assistance in order to travel around campus. The chair will be kept in South Hall and signed out on a need-to-use basis.
Edgar Doak was born in Caribou and lived in Aroostook County for his entire life. He was 93 years old when he passed away this summer. Doak was well known to many through his work over the years as a farmer and with the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad. In retirement, he volunteered at Cary Medical Center, where he received honors for providing more than 1,500 hours of community service.
Dr. Bonnie Wood, Professor of Biology at the University of Maine at Presque, was recently in Denver, Colorado, to present a Special Workshop entitled Lecture-Free Teaching: A Learning Partnership between Science Educators and their Students at the 2009 Professional Development Conference of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT). Each participant received a copy of Dr. Wood’s newly-published book of the same title (NSTA Press, 2009), the cost of which was included in the Special Workshop fee. The book was used as a workbook during the session.
An Education professor at UMPI recently was in Spain to present at the Global Conference on Inclusive Education, an event organized by Inclusion International, a global federation of organizations advocating for the human rights of people with intellectual disabilities worldwide.
Dr. JoAnne Putnam gave a presentation titled Teacher Education Program Models for Inclusion during the conference, which was held in Salamanca, Spain from Oct. 21-23. Inclusive education involves including students with special needs in the same educational arrangements as the majority of children through quality education and support for different styles and rates of learning.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle hosted a dedication ceremony for its new GIS laboratory, the Geospatial Information Technology Center, during World GIS Day on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle will dedicate its new GIS laboratory, the Geospatial Information Technology Center this November, and host a GPS workshop in the same day.
Both the GPS workshop and the lab dedication will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 18 in Room 201 of Folsom Hall. The GPS workshop will take place from 9-11:30 a.m. and the lab dedication will take place immediately following the workshop. November 18th is World GIS Day, which is sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, the United States Geological Survey, the Library of Congress, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and ESRI.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle brings to campus a musical composer whose work has been performed with Brooke Shields and James Earl Jones when it hosts Samuel Hazo as its third Distinguished Lecturer of the 2009-2010 academic year.
Mr. Hazo will speak at 10 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 30 in the Campus Center about how music helps us all to become better students and citizens of the world during his talk “The New Face of Music Advocacy” – a message for music lovers, educators and community members alike. He will discuss the importance and the benefits of participating in music programs and in keeping music in schools and in our lives beyond school. All are invited to attend this free event.
A professor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle has found a unique way to honor the veterans of World War II and ensure that their service to their country is never forgotten.
Each year without fail, Professor Anderson Giles makes at least one pilgrimage to the Pacific islands to participate in commemoration ceremonies, lead trips to historic battle sites, and preserve through film, photographs and interviews the history and stories of what happened there more than 60 years ago.
