Four UMaine Professors Honored at Convocation Ceremony
May 8, 2009

ORONO -- Professor of Art Owen Smith, chair of the Department of New Media, is the recipient of the Presidential Research and Creative Achievement Award. Smith's primary research focus is contemporary nontraditional art, specifically the Fluxus Group. He is a historian of Fluxus, a revolutionary movement rooted in the 1950s that continues to be pivotal in the development of contemporary art, music performance and new media. Fluxus has a strong antiart and anticommercial focus. The genre seeks to make art part of people's lives and encourages audience participation in creative work that values simplicity over complexity. In 1998, Smith wrote what is considered the seminal book on the genre, Fluxus: The History of an Attitude. Smith has been a professional artist since the mid-1980s. He joined the UMaine faculty in 1991 and became chair of the New Media Department in 2004. He also directs UMaine's new Intermedia MFA program. Smith's art has been included in more than 60 solo and group exhibitions worldwide. In addition to creating and showing his own work, he has been curator or co-curator of more than 20 exhibitions. Smith received the Presidential Outstanding Teacher Award in 2000 and serves as vice chair of the Maine State Arts Commission.

Associate Professor of Journalism Kathryn Olmstead, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the recipient of the Presidential Public Service Achievement Award. Olmstead was cited for her long-term service to the state and region as a volunteer editor, teacher and mentor for student journalists. She joined the UMaine journalism faculty in 1984 where she taught print journalism and media ethics until becoming associate dean in 2003. In 1988, she cofounded ECHOES: Rediscovering Community, a quarterly magazine celebrating the cultural heritage and beauty of northern Maine, which she has edited after hours for 20 years and continues to publish from her home in Caribou, Maine. With an international circulation of 3,000, the magazine has generated pride and become a voice for readers and writers who share an appreciation of values inherent in rural culture. She also founded the Maine Center for Student Journalism at UMaine to foster the practice and teaching of journalism in Maine secondary schools, serving as its director from 1993 to 2004. MCSJ involved hundreds of high school journalists and their advisers statewide in annual conferences, newspaper contests and outreach activities. In addition to inspiring young Maine writers' aspirations in journalism, she has played an integral role in an evolving conversation about the meaning, challenges and future of rural communities through her work on the magazine and as a board member for state press and cross-national organizations. Her public service activities through the years have bridged communities, including those at UMaine, in the County and in journalism statewide. Her achievements in journalism have been recognized with awards from the New England Scholastic Press Association, the Maine Centers for Women, Work and Community, the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, the Maine Chapter of the American Association of University Women, the Gannett Foundation, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the New England Press Association and the Maine Press Association.

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Leonard Kass is the recipient of the Presidential Outstanding Teaching Award. Kass has been a member of the UMaine faculty since 1985. He was cited for his high level of commitment to students, coupled with creative pedagogical approaches, an expansive knowledge base, enthusiasm and engaging class presentations. Kass is as comfortable teaching a lecture hall of 350 first-year students as he is an advanced seminar class of 20. He is dedicated to creating and delivering the best educational experience possible to students in his biology classes, and applies his talent to innovation and reform in science education at all levels — K-12 and postsecondary. An experimental scientist whose research interests include visual physiology and other areas of neuroscience, Kass has developed innovative teaching laboratory experiments to nurture the excitement of discovery for students. His popular teaching innovations in the biology curriculum motivate students and facilitate meaningful, effective learning of content and the process of science. He has been involved campuswide in the assessment and improvement of student learning. In 2007, Kass received the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture Outstanding Teaching Award.

Professor of Anthropology and Marine Sciences James Acheson is the University of Maine Alumni Association Distinguished Maine Professor. Acheson, an Augusta, Maine native, received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Rochester in 1970 and has taught at UMaine since 1968. He has served as chair of the Department of Anthropology and as program coordinator for marine policy in the School of Marine Sciences. He also is a cooperating research professor in the Lobster Institute. Colleagues describe him as the consummate professor for his rigorous teaching and internationally recognized interdisciplinary research in environmental policy related to forests and fisheries. As a social scientist and economic anthropologist whose research connects the social, cultural and environmental components of marine policy, Acheson has provided invaluable service to the state. Acheson was integral in the establishment of a comanagement system in Maine's lobster industry that has since become a national model. In 2004, the Maine legislature recognized Acheson with an Expression of Recognition for his environmental policy research applied to the lobster and fishing industries. Acheson's forestry landowner research was cited last year as a National Science Foundation Highlight. Acheson is the author of 82 articles, focused primarily on the social science aspects of resource management. He also has written five books, including The Lobster Gangs of Maine and Capturing the Commons: Devising Institutions to Manage the Maine Lobster Industry. His most recent research includes an NSF grant for studying small-plot forestry land use in Maine, and another NSF grant for environmental policy research on the state's lobster and groundfish industries. Acheson received the American Anthropological Association's Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology in 2004 and the UMaine Presidential Research and Creative Achievement Award in 2005.

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