The University of Maine at Presque Isle was recently recognized by the Maine Tobacco-Free College Network with a Silver Award as part of its Gold Star Standards of Excellence Recognition Program. The program celebrates the efforts of Maine institutions of higher education to address tobacco use on their campuses.
More than 60 students from local high schools in the region visited the University of Maine at Presque Isle recently for a day filled with learning about everything from drawing and clay to photography and sculpture. The event, Visual Arts Day, was organized by UMPI’s Art Education program for Aroostook Regional Gifted and Talented [ARGT] and this was the first time the art program was opened to high schoolers.
The trustees of the Higher Education Assistance Foundation (HEAF) are pleased to announce the awarding of a scholarship in the amount of $1,000 to Megan Bradley, a native of Easton majoring in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting. She is a graduate of Easton High School.
The UMPI chapter of Phi Eta Sigma inducted 22 students into its national honor society on October 20, 2012. The induction ceremony lasted only 45 minutes, but provided students with a prestigious honor.
According to Cole Dumonthier, an inducted student, “The ceremony was very nice. It was good to see all the family members and friends coming out to support the inductees. It really is an honor to be inducted; the fact that all of our hard work and determination was recognized is a great thing.”
The University of Maine at Presque Isle will host a special reception for University Credit Union in appreciation of a generous donation which has helped the campus complete a beautification project. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Monday, Dec. 3, at 4 p.m. in the Campus Center’s Alumni Room.
University of Maine at Presque Isle faculty member David Putnam will present a talk about his recent research trip to Bhutan on Wednesday, Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. in the Campus Center. His talk, Climate Change in Shangri La: Glacial Research in the Bhutan Himalaya, is free and open to the public.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will present Crafted: Fine Craft of Northern Maine, curated by UMPI Assistant Professor of Fine Art Hyrum Benson. The exhibition opens Dec. 3 and runs through Jan. 5, 2013. The public is invited to join the curator and featured artists for an opening reception on Dec. 7 from 5 to 7 p.m., which is being held in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk.
Crafted honors excellence in Fine Craft being produced here in northern Maine. Benson, who also serves as the Regional Coordinator of the Maine Craft Association, has selected to feature the works of Terry Kelly, furniture maker; Edith Greiner, weaver and fibers artist; Heather Bessey, potter; Jeremy Frey, basket maker; Russell Mount, wood carver; and Mary Sanipass, basket maker.
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.
