April 2006

Dear Colleagues:

As we leave the most unusual winter in recent memory behind, it really becomes obvious that we are hurtling toward the end of this academic year. Just five more weeks of classes remain, and those involved with planning Commencement are already hard at work on the details of that always-memorable event. Later this week, we announce this year's speaker, a high-profile person who will help to make this year's event particularly noteworthy.

This week, much of our community's attention is focused on Coach Tim Whitehead and the Black Bear hockey team. As you likely know, they will play Wisconsin in the national semifinals on Thursday evening. If they win, they will play on Saturday for UMaine's third national championship. I've followed this team closely all season, and I am very excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. I was recently reflecting on the remarkable record of one member of the team who sometimes goes unnoticed -- assistant coach Grant Standbrook. This marks the ninth time in Grant's 18 years at UMaine that the Black Bears have qualified for the Frozen Four. Before UMaine, Grant spent 12 years as a Wisconsin assistant, playing in five national championship games and winning three. In addition to being a legendary recruiter, Grant is an outstanding teacher of the game and is a wonderful role model for the young men in the program.

The hockey team's success certainly draws attention to the fact that UMaine can compete with any college or university in the U.S. While that is true in ice hockey, I know that UMaine's excellence extends to many other areas. As I noted last month, Ginger Yang Hwalek from the UMaine School of Performing Arts was recently named the top music teacher in the U.S. Sam Van Aken from the UMaine art faculty has been selected for a prestigious residency program in Berlin, and is under consideration for another one in Paris. A group of UMaine food scientists, led by Prof. Denise Skonberg, is preparing for the prestigious Institute of Food Technologists Student Association's 2006 Product Development Competition. The UMaine-led Sports Done Right initiative continues to be a model for developing productive youth sports programs all around the U.S. The American Institute of Timber Construction has recently selected the Milbridge Pier, designed and constructed by engineers at UMaine's Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center, as one of the best structures of its kind in the U.S. Students in UMaine's Student Portfolio Investment Fund (SPIFFY) program are regularly honored for their outstanding portfolio management work, under the direction of Distinguished Maine Professor Bob Strong. A group of mechanical engineering students and Prof. Mick Peterson recently competed in the national Clean Snowmobile Challenge competition in Michigan. We see examples of this excellence almost every day; they combine to demonstrate very clearly the high quality of UMaine's teaching, research and public service activities.

Just last week, we were delighted to announce a new $6.9 million three-year National Science Foundation EPSCoR grant to conduct forest bioproducts research and development. Faculty members in engineering, chemistry, biology, forest ecology, economics and other disciplines will work on this project, which has the ultimate goal of providing the science the private sector will need to develop an integrated forest biorefinery. Biorefining involves extracting various compounds from forest products. Potential applications involve the development of forest resource-based products like ethanol, plastics and specialty coatings. The possible long-term, positive implications for Maine's economy are tremendously exciting. I was very proud to participate in the announcement of this grant, the largest of its kind Maine has ever received. This is a wonderful example of the ways in which a comprehensive land-grant university can apply its expertise and unique capacity to helping the state and its people move toward a more prosperous future. I am also delighted with the educational opportunities this project will provide for our students, at both the graduate level and undergraduate level. The exposure to research at the highest level, in disciplines all across the university, is a great benefit for our students.

During Spring Break, I spent some time visiting with groups of alumni and other UMaine friends in other states. Whenever I meet with individuals or groups in settings like this, I am struck by their intense feelings of loyalty to, and pride in, the University of Maine. As is always the case, a great many of them mentioned specific faculty members who had positively influenced them during their time at UMaine. That points out the central nature of those faculty/student relationships as part of the college experience.

One alum, who has done very well in his career, relates an inspiring story. He started college at a service academy, but determined that military life was not for him. The private university he wanted to attend would not admit him because he didn't have much money, and he ended up in Maine. A UMaine faculty member not only got him admitted, but also found him a job so he could afford school. This man told me that he gets tears in his eyes every time he crosses the bridge into Maine, because of his great UMaine experience and the kindness of that faculty member who gave him a chance.

In each of these Spring Break meetings, I was delighted to be able to relay the news about the impressive things that are currently going on at UMaine, and the wonderful, hard-working people we have in our community.

Nothing points that out our more clearly than the Alternative Spring Break and other similar activities in which our students, faculty and staff engage during the break. The number of UMaine people participating in such projects, managed by UMaine's Office of Student Employment and Volunteer Programs, grows each year. U.S.-based projects involved volunteer work with AIDS patients in New York, building Habitat for Humanity Homes in New York and Pennsylvania, helping with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in the South, and cleaning up parts of an Everglades state park in Florida. Additionally, Prof. Kathleen March and 26 students and a VISTA volunteer went to Honduras for two weeks, continuing service-learning projects they began who years ago. They delivered books to a new library, and helped out at orphanages, schools, hospitals and nursing homes. These examples should make us all feel good about the caring, compassionate people who are so much a part of our community.

Also during Spring Break, UMaine played host to 400 middle school girls from all around Maine, who attended the 20th annual Expanding Your Horizons program. This day-long event offers those in attendance the opportunity to learn more about math and science-related careers that have been historically pursued by males. Through a variety of hands-on experiences, the girls gain awareness of the opportunities available to them. A great many women in our community work hard to make this program a success, and their efforts make a real difference to the middle school students who attend the program and learn more about what they can do in their educational and professional lives.

Congratulations go this month to the 35 UMaine faculty members who were on the UMaine promotion and tenure list approved by the University of Maine System Board of Trustees. These are significant milestones in the academic life, and each of these fine professors reflects the highest ideals of our outstanding faculty. The names of those professors is online at http://www.umaine.edu/news/article.asp?id_no=1278.

The board also approved the appointment of Barbara Beers, a 1974 UMaine graduate with more than 20 years of experience in fundraising and related activities, as UMaine's new vice-president for development at her alma mater. In this role, Barbara will oversee UMaine's development activities, which include private fundraising, donor relations, corporate support and stewardship, all critical to the success of our six-year, $150 million comprehensive fundraising campaign. Barbara is a great addition to UMaine, and I hope you will join me in welcoming her.

Bill Mitchell from the UMaine Plant, Soil and Environmental Science faculty recently received some well-deserved recognition. People, Places and Plants magazine, honored Bill with this year's Al Black Lifetime Achievement Award, for dedication to the promotion and improvement of Maine horticulture for more than 20 years. Bill is one of those truly student-centered faculty members whose work makes a difference in the lives of our students and those who are involved in Maine's horticulture community.

Adrienne Kearney of the UMaine economics faculty has been appointed to the editorial board of the Eastern Economic Journal. She will join colleagues from the likes of Columbia, Cambridge, and Maryland. This prestigious journal is published by the Eastern Economics Association.

Also along the lines of faculty achievements Dan Sandweiss, UMaine dean and Associate Provost for Graduate Studies, is in Peru, participating in a BBC film on Tucume, a large pyramid center in northern Peru where he excavated in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Thor Heyerdahl and Peruvian colleagues. The BBC producer says the film will be shonw on the BBC in England and on National Geographic Television in the U.S. next fall.

Congratulations also go to Mary Cathcart, senior policy fellow at UMaine's Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy. A former state senator, Mary is the new chair of the New England Board of Higher Education. NEBHE was established in 1955 by a congressionally authorized, Interstate compact designed to encourage cooperation among New England colleges and universities, which now number more than 270. NEBHE programs focus on the relationship between New England higher education and regional economic development. Mary will be a great leader for NEBHE.

It was a real pleasure to welcome Sen. Susan Collins to UMaine on March 23, when she delivered the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy Lecture, discussing Sen. Smith's legacy as it relates to ethics in modern politics. Sen. Collins, who is enormously supportive of UMaine in all she does, delivered an interesting and inspiring talk before a full house at Hauck Auditorium. She holds the same Senate seat that was once occupied by her political inspiration, Sen. Smith.

UMaine hosted several prominent guests during March, including State Sen. John Martin and Gary Albrecht, a professor emeritus from the University of Illinois at Chicago, who visited last week. Prof. Albrecht, who is an expert on international health and disabilities issues, visited as a guest of UMaine's Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies; Maine's Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service; and UMaine's Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series. In a public lecture, Prof. Albrecht talked about "Cross National Disability Policy: Economics, Culture and Citizenship as Components of Social Welfare."

Congratulations to UMaine's School of Social Work and Center on Aging for a very successful colloquium on issues that are confronted by geriatric social workers and professionals in the legal profession. Organizers had hoped for about 25 attendees. They had to start turning people away after 100 registrations. This is another in a long line of useful and well-received programs offered by these UMaine units, which really work hard to apply academic expertise to issues of real concern to older people throughout Maine.

I was sorry to learn of the demise, because of federal government budget cuts, of the National Youth Sports Program. This award-winning sports day camp program has served hundreds of young Maine people during the past 13 years. It would be impossible to calculate the social, educational and physical benefits to these camp participants, all of whom benefited greatly from the outstanding work of Prof. Steve Butterfield, who directed the program at UMaine. We all hope that efforts to restore the funding for future years will be successful.

UMaine's Division of Lifelong Learning also continues to do some remarkable things to advance the UMaine community, and to better lives across the state.

In 2004, the division collaborated with UMaine Cooperative Extension to establish the UMaine Diversity Leadership Institute (UMDLI). Members of the institute have opportunities to participate in diversity training activities that provide personal growth and prepare them to act as social change agents for the UMaine community and the community at large. The UMDLI mission is to provide and cultivate opportunities to understand, appreciate, support and strengthen diversity. Dean Bob White has announced the five new institute members, who begin their tenure in May: Jack Cosgrove, Marcia Douglas, Scott Hobbs, Margo Lukens and Nancy White. They join continuing members Jose Cordero, Chris Finemore, Tammy Light, Carl Mitchell, Frank Wertheim and MaryBeth Willett.

Nine more institute members enter active alum status in May: Catherine Johnson, Angel Loredo, William Murphy, Susan Pinette, Susan Russell, Maureen Smith, Devon Storman, Fran Sulinski and Cindy Thomas. Thanks to all for their willingness to involve themselves in this important work.

The Division of Lifelong Learning is also poised to announce an new initiative, called Acadam-e, through which some Maine high school seniors will have the opportunity to take UMaine courses through a combination of distance learning and in-person teaching/learning opportunities. This project has wide support, and has great potential to provide tremendous opportunity to young people all over the state. Acadam-e is visionary, unique and very extensive -- there will be 560 student "slots" when it begins in the fall semester. We'll provide more details in next Month's Go Blue message.

As you have likely seen in news reports, the Maine Legislature has recently approved a new state budget. That was the result of a long process, through which a great many people in the UMaine community, and our supporters statewide, worked hard to help advance UMaine's cause. I am very grateful for their efforts.

And I was delighted to hear from a prominent legislator about Prof. Alan Cob-Lewis, who provided expert help to the legislature on its work involving special needs children. The legislature and others involved in policy development really rely on UMaine to provide this kind of input and advice. That is something that many in our community do exceptionally well, and we are all indebted to them for their outstanding service to the people of Maine.

We will continue to work with legislators, the governor and his staff, and others involved in the the decision-making process to press the case for greater support for UMaine. As much as anything, it is critical to our future that we are successful in bringing in more state funds so that we can further tap UMaine's great capacity to serve our students and the people of this wonderful state. As this summary of last month's activities and achievements clearly shows, UMaine is a real treasure, and its faculty members, students and staff members are making a positive difference every day.

Sincerely,

Bob Kennedy
President