September 2005

Dear Colleagues:

There is a real sense of excitement around UMaine these days, as we prepare for the beginning of the 2005-2006 academic year. It has been a wonderful Maine summer, with a lot of great things happening at UMaine. I always enjoy this time of year, as I hope you do, when our campus really comes alive and the fall semester gets underway.

I write again this month to share some information on some of the interesting and important things that are happening at UMaine.

On Friday, we will welcome the Class of 2009. Admissions Director Sharon Oliver and her staff have done a wonderful job in bringing us another outstanding group of first-year students, and I look forward to meeting many of the students and their families at Friday's Maine Hello and other Fall Welcome Weekend activities. This weekend is always a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy Friday, when we seen the great gratitude that the new members of our community express when they're met at the curb by eager Maine Hello volunteers who help the new students move into residence halls. The Maine Hello program continues to grow. This year, 200 faculty and staff members have volunteered to participate, and I'm sure they will share my view that it is a wonderful opportunity to create a great first impression for our students and their families.

We were all pleased to receive word recently that UMaine has been listed by the Princeton Review as one of the country's "Best 361 Colleges." We're in great company on this list, and it is always nice to receive this kind of recognition. I take particular pride in a favorable Princeton Review ranking, because that publication's methodology is based on detailed interviews with each institution's own students. To have our students say good things about us, and to be included on this list, is very gratifying.

Congratulations to all involved in Sports Done Right, the youth sports reform initiative in UMaine's College of Education and Human Development. The program has deservedly received a great deal of attention over the past several months, but early August saw the biggest hit yet when it was featured in Parade Magazine. That kind of national media coverage shows that Dean Bob Cobb, Duke Albanese, Karen Brown and so many others are on the right track with this program. It is picking up steam and being incorporated into local programs all over the country. It is already beginning to make a difference in the way youth sports programs are delivered, and that can only be good for the children who participate in those programs.

I was very interested to follow the reports on glacier research in Greenland involving Gordon Hamilton and Leigh Stearns from UMaine's Climate Change Institute. They spent a week in late July on the Greenpeace ice cutter Arctic Sunrise, and they made some astonishing observations. Gordon, Leigh and others discovered that the glacier Kangerdlugssuaq is moving nearly nine miles per year, making it one of the fastest-moving glaciers in the world. The increased pace of the glacier's movement over the past few years is dramatic, and it is of real interest to those studying global warming.

On campus, crews have been busy working on a facelift at Hauck Auditorium. That facility is 43 years old, and it was showing quite a bit of wear and tear. When the work is finished the auditorium will feature new seats, paint and carpeting. It will really look terrific, and it will provide an improved setting for the wonderful performances that take place there every year. Hauck Auditorium is also an important facility for teaching and learning about the performing arts, so its improvements will have a widespread effect on the university. Mary and I certainly look forward to attending student performances in the new-look Hauck Auditorium.

New MBA and Master of Science in Accounting students in the UMaine Business School are finishing an interesting start to their program. Beginning on Friday Aug. 26, they undertook a week-long residency week, also known as "business boot camp." In addition to opportunities to learn about business topics and to work on real- world problems for area businesses, the group also participated in team-building exercises and and other outdoor activities at UMaine's MaineBund Challenge Course. Some faculty members and Dean Dan Innis also participated. This program is a great way for these students to get to know each other, to start learning and working right away, and to become familiar with the faculty. It started last year, and has met with some very positive reviews.

Having worked at land-grant universities throughout my career, I've long been familiar with the great work done by Cooperative Extension. At UMaine, we have an extension operation that is really outstanding. One good example of the valuable service Extension provides to Maine communities is the work of Espreanza Stancioff, a faculty member in Extension and Sea Grant who serves as state coordinator for Maine Healthy Beaches. Working with Extension professional Keri Lindberg, Espreanza trains and oversees a network of water-quality monitors who advise community officials as to whether to close public beaches or post quality advisories. These efforts serve the public good and provide a valuable resource to the communities that rely on beaches for recreation and commerce.

Another interesting project, which also relates to the environment, will be supported by a grant that Prof. Chris Reberg-Horton of UMaine's sustainable agriculture faculty and Cooperative Extension has recently received. In a project that also involves scientists at UNH, Chris will look at cropping systems for organic farms. The experiments are set for UMaine's Witter Research Center, and the results will have implications for the growing organic farming industry in Maine and beyond.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to two new coaches who have recently joined the Black Bear team. Stacey Sullivan, a UMaine graduate who was most recently the coach at Merrimack College, is our new softball coach. And Steve Trimper, the head coach at Manhattan College, has been selected to take over the UMaine baseball program. Stacey and Steve share an infectious enthusiasm for intercollegiate athletics, and I think they will be great additions. I am also very pleased that Kim Corbitt is staying at UMaine to be on Ann McInerney's women's basketball staff. Kim, UMaine's 2005 Dean Smith Award winner and 2005 America East Player of the Year, is a great example of what a student-athlete can accomplish. She will be an outstanding role model for members of the basketball team and for other students.

Kudos to John Vetelino from the UMaine electrical engineering faculty for another successful summer program extending UMaine's resources and expertise to benefit teachers and undergraduate students. As he has done for many years, John directed NSF RET (Research Experience for Teachers) and REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) programs in the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology. Through these programs, teachers and outstanding undergraduate students learn about cutting-edge science and develop knowledge and skills that will help them be better teachers and students. John and others have helped a great many people raise their aspirations and increase their understanding of science through these programs over the years, and that is very commendable.

We frequently talk about spin-off businesses created from UMaine research. When these businesses are created, and when they flourish, that is great news. It's a key example of the ways in which research feeds the economy, it's a great endorsement of the quality of the research and it provides significant opportunities for the researchers and the companies' employees. UMaine chemistry professor Brian Frederick continues to make progress with the company he co-founded, Stillwater Scientific Instruments, Inc. The company, which is involved in the development of instruments such as mass spectrometers, secured some very significant venture capital funding this summer, to help bring it to the the next stage in its development.

Congratulations this month go to Liz DePoy and Stephen Gilson from the UMaine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies. Liz and Stephen will receive the 2005 Allen Myers Award for the Disability Forum of the American Public Health Association. The award, which is for their scholarship, teaching and policy work, will be presented in November at the annual meeting of that organization.

I also wish to recognize UMaine student David Slagger, a sophomore in the College of Education and Human Development, who has been selected for a prestigious internship at the Smithsonian Institute's new National Museum of the American Indian. David, who is a member of the Aroostook Micmac Nation and works at UMaine's Wabanaki Center, was selected from 40 applicants for the position, and he leaves for Washington later this month.

We have scheduled a presidential installation for Friday, Sept. 23. The event, set for 3:30 p.m. in the Maine Center for the Arts, will be part of a series of activities that week, culminating in the Maine Center for the Arts gala with Bill Cosby. I hope you can join us on the 23rd. Bob Edwards, the president emeritus of Bowdoin College and a member of our Board of Visitors, will be our guest speaker. Chancellor Westphal will also be with us for the installation, which will be followed at 5:00 by a reception under the tent in the Maine Center for the Arts parking lot. The day's events will begin with an ice cream social at 12:30 on the Mall.

We've selected our Go Blue Fridays for the fall semester. People really seemed to enjoy these last year, and many dressed casually in blue on the designated dates to show their UMaine pride. Mark these dates on your calendar:

Sept. 2 (tomorrow, for Fall Welcome Weekend)
Sept. 16 (Family and Friends Weekend)
Sept. 23 (installation)
Oct. 21 (Homecoming)
Nov. 4 (Hockey East men's home opener)
Dec. 16 (last day of classes for the semester)

I wish you all the best as we begin what promises to be a productive and memorable academic year at UMaine.

Sincerely,

Bob Kennedy