Combined News

The Portland Press Herald spoke with University of Maine Biology Professor Frank Drummond about how several species of bees are in danger of extinction in Maine. Drummond and UMaine colleagues Lois Berg Stack and Alison Dibble are conducting a five-year study financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on bees and what plants best support them. Drummond spoke of the importance bees have on agriculture due to pollination. Drummond and his team are advocating for gardeners to use bee-friendly plants.

A Portland Press Herald article on poor planning in Maine’s foster care system mentioned a five-year, $3.9 million federal grant that was awarded to the University of Maine School of Social Work and Families and Children Together, a Bangor-based foster care agency. The grant will be used to develop a program to help parents address substance abuse issues and keep children out of foster care.

WABI (Channel 5) and the Bangor Daily News spoke to Amy Blackstone, University of Maine sociology professor, about her roller derby team Central Maine Derby’s first public bout at the Bangor Auditorium on Sunday. The BDN also spoke to Blackstone’s teammate, UMaine entomology graduate student Jennifer Lund. Both women spoke highly of the sport, calling it a great workout and a natural fit for them.

The Academy Award-nominated documentary “The Invisible War” will be shown at 6 p.m., April 10, 100 D.P. Corbett Business Building, sponsored by the Women’s Resource Center, a program of the Division of Lifelong Learning. “The Invisible War,” directed by Kirby Dick, investigates the epidemic of sexual assault and rape in the U.S. military. The screening is part of “The Invisible War” campaign to tell survivors of military sexual trauma that they are not invisible and to raise awareness of the need for policies to prevent — and prosecute — cases of rape and sexual violence among service members.

Click here to view the “Dragonfly Mercury Research” video on YouTube.

Click here to view the “Pruning Ornamental Trees” video on YouTube.

An ecological chain reaction triggered by the boom and bust of sea urchin fishing in the Gulf of Maine demonstrates the importance of comprehensive ecosystem-based ocean management, says a University of Maine marine scientist.

Conventional fisheries management regulates for a “maximum sustainable yield” for each managed species. However, this usually ignores strong interactions between predators and their prey that can affect the entire ecosystem, says Robert Steneck, a professor in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center.

Steneck and three university graduates pooled 36 years of Gulf of Maine ocean data to examine how a stable ecosystem state composed of green sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) and a pavement of crustose coralline algae switched, or “flipped,” to an alternate stable state dominated by erect macroalgae, or kelp and other seaweed.

When fishermen began abruptly removing large numbers of sea urchins from the Gulf of Maine in the late 1980s, the seaweed on which they grazed began to flourish, Steneck says. The abundance of seaweed, in turn, created a nursery habitat for Jonah crabs (Cancer borealis). The crabs, say the researchers, subsequently preyed on the sea urchins that remained.

The entire coastal ecosystem flipped and “locked” into a seaweed-dominated alternate stable state that has persisted for nearly 20 years.

In 2000 and 2001, Steneck and crew tried to “break the lock” of erect macroalgae by reintroducing 51,000 adult sea urchins into plots off the coast of Cape Elizabeth. But both years, large crabs migrated to the plots and wiped out the reintroduced urchins.

The consequences of sea urchin decimation “can be costly, and recovery may be difficult or impossible to achieve” for decades, Steneck says.

Fisheries management may need to focus on increasing the number of crab predators in order to return to a stable state of crustose coralline algae and sea urchins, he says.

The Gulf of Maine crab population increased in density because the seaweed nursery habitat became abundant and because, over time, commercial fishing has reduced the population of crab predators, including Atlantic cod.

Sea urchins, Steneck writes, were “highly abundant and a highly valued food” in 1987 when Maine fishermen began harvesting them along the southwestern coast before moving northeast toward Canada. The Maine harvest peaked in 1993, then declined rapidly.

In 1995, Maine’s sea urchin industry fishery was second only to that of the American lobster in value, Steneck writes. At that time, the local fishery supported more than 1,500 full-time urchin fishers.

Today, Steneck says the sea urchin fishery in the Gulf of Maine has declined 84 percent in value; no full-time fishers remain.

The study was conducted with nearly four decades of UMaine thesis research, starting with Steneck’s master’s thesis. Bob Vadas, UMaine professor emeritus, was Steneck’s thesis adviser. University graduates who co-authored the paper are Doug McNaught, assistant professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine at Machias; Amanda Leland, vice president for oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington D.C.; and John Vavrinec, senior research scientist with the Coastal Assessment and Restoration technical group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Sequim, Wash.

The paper, “Ecosystem Flips, Locks, And Feedbacks: The Lasting Effects on Fisheries On Maine’s Kelp Forest Ecosystem,” is featured in the January 2013 Bulletin of Marine Science and is recommended by peer scientists on the F1000Prime website.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777

When Shelbe Lane graduates with honors from the University of Maine in May, she’ll be equipped with a bachelor’s degree in business management, a minor in legal studies and experience as the intern to chief legal counsel in the Governor’s Office.

All of which should serve her well this fall when she enters the University of Maine School of Law in Portland.

Lane’s philosophy helps explain how she accomplished so much in three years at UMaine: “If you see something you want to accomplish you should go after it,” she says.

The scope of her academic accomplishments could soon extend far beyond campus and impact public service in Maine for decades; she participated in drafting proposed ethics reform legislation for Maine politicians and officials.

After Lane completed her draft of the legislation in the fall, she submitted it for review and consideration to Michael Cianchette, chief legal counsel in the Governor’s Office. It then went to the desk of Gov. Paul LePage, the official sponsor.

The result is LD 1001, “An Act To Improve Laws Governing Financial Disclosure by Legislators and Certain Public Employees and Public Access to Information Disclosed.”

Sen. Emily Cain of Penobscot is presenting the bill, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Michael Beaulieu of Auburn and Sen. John Tuttle of York. Lane says she will testify for LD 1001 on March 27 before the Committee of Veteran and Legal Affairs.

The Patten native helped pen the proposed legislation for her Honors College thesis. “I picked an area that interests me and where I think real change could be made,” she says.

Lane decided to tackle writing ethics reform legislation after The State Integrity Investigation — an assessment of “transparency, accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms” — ranked Maine 46th of 50 states with regard to integrity in politics in its March 2011 report.

The investigation, a collaborative effort by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, assigned Maine an F on its Corruption Risk Report Card.

“The fact we’re 46th out of 50 doesn’t mean we’re corrupt,” Lane says. “It means we don’t have the statutes in place to deal with things.”

Maine, she says, lags behind many other states and the federal government with regard to asset disclosure and conflict-of-interest regulations.

LD 1001 seeks to rectify that. If the legislation becomes law, legislators and some executive branch employees would have to include a description of annual income of $2,000 or more on disclosure forms and would have to report ownership interests of 5 percent or more in businesses. They also would be required to file disclosure statements electronically and post the statements on a publicly accessible website. In addition, they would have to report any involvement by them or an immediate family member as a responsible officer of a political party or committee.

“It’s not about being nosy; it’s about avoiding conflict of interest in the voting process,” Lane says of her honors thesis, whose working title was State-Level Government Transparency and the Maine Legislative Process.

“Citizens have an apprehension and concern about politicians and I hope maybe this will ease some concerns,” she says.

Lane, who turns 21 in April, credits UMaine’s Honors College with encouraging her to be analytical and search for solutions as well as providing her with unique cultural opportunities and interesting, varied courses.

Civic service is a priority for Lane, who in the summer of 2012 participated in Maine NEW Leadership — a free, six-day, nonpartisan university training program that seeks to empower and engage college women. It promotes public speaking, coalition building, networking, advocacy and running for public office.

The program strives to provide attendees with “a greater awareness of their leadership potential, skills, and opportunities in civic life and public office” and to prepare them to “emerge as political leaders.”

Lane says the program and its presenters inspired her. She wants to enact positive change in ways other than running for elected office, including perhaps someday working in an attorney general’s office.

Mary Cathcart, co-director of Maine NEW Leadership and a senior policy associate at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine, knows about public service. The former four-term state senator and three-time representative believes in the importance of women motivating and supporting each other.

In 1988, Cathcart attended a Winning With Women speech given by Shirley Chisholm, a teacher, activist and congressperson who ran for president in 1972. When Chisholm asked those in the audience to rise if they planned to run for office, Cathcart’s friends encouraged her to stand. Not long after, Cathcart launched her distinguished career in public service.

“Women do make a difference,” Cathcart says, adding that women are buoyed when they can identify with successful role models. Cathcart says Lane is a bright young woman from a small town “who is growing up to be a very strong leader.”

Lane says she strives to be courageous, create opportunities and do her best. In the fall of 2011, she became the first Governor’s Office intern in Gov. LePage’s administration.

Honors College members are encouraged in their junior tutorials to study abroad or take part in an alternate learning experience. As Lane was carrying a 21-credit course load, studying abroad wasn’t feasible.

So she pursued the opportunity for an experience in the Governor’s Office and she landed an internship with Cianchette, Gov. LePage’s chief legal counsel.

Lane recounts a number of highlights, including Pardons Board hearings. She relished the internship so much she extended it for a month and wrote a handbook guide for future interns.

In order to graduate in three years with 120 credits, the commuter has taken as many as 21 credits a semester and enrolled in summer classes. She also earned 10 college credits when she was a student at Katahdin Middle/High School, where she was valedictorian of the Class of 2010.

Throughout her college career, Lane has also worked six to 10 hours a week at her father’s logging business in Patten, where she has been employed since she was 13.

During the 1.5-hour drive to Patten, which is home to about 1,000 people, Lane says she listens to music and frequently composes papers in her head.

A calendar and sticky notes help her keep everything on track.

“If it needs to get done, then it is written down on a list somewhere,” she says. “Sometimes, when things get crazy, that includes a note reminding me to take a little time off. I am a planner, I have an end goal and I like to challenge myself.”

Entering her final semester, Lane’s grade-point average was 3.89.

She says her friends and supporters also occasionally remind her to relax, which for her means cooking, reading magazines, gardening and watching movies with her fiancé.

After law school, Lane is considering specializing in employment law or mediation.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777

A University of Maine graduate dedicated to building cultures of peace to prevent new wars and advancing universal secondary education of youth in Africa will deliver the 2013 John M. Rezendes Ethics Lecture on campus April 2.

Arthur Serota, the 2008 winner of UMaine’s Bernard Lown ’42 Alumni Humanitarian Award, is executive director of the nonprofit United Movement to End Child Soldiering (UMECS), based in Washington, D.C.

His free, public talk, “To Look the Other Way or Not: Ethical Choices We Make,” begins at 3:30 p.m. in Hauck Auditorium in the Memorial Union. A reception will follow. For more information or to request disability accommodations, call 581.3263.

In 1966, Serota earned a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences at UMaine and in the ’80s, he lived and worked in the Republic of Zimbabwe, teaching, building schools and taking part in agricultural and reforestation projects.

After witnessing a rebel army invasion in Zimbabwe that included child soldiers, the Brooklyn, N.Y. native helped form UMECS. Its goal, Serota says, is to transition cultures of war to cultures of peace and thereby prevent additional wars, genocides and child soldiering. UMECS provides grassroots, school-based and community-based programs that seek to stimulate access to education, a sustainable culture of peace, female empowerment, environmental management and economic development.

UMECS and the Council on Foreign Relations estimate 300,000 child soldiers are involved in conflicts worldwide — many of them in Africa. In addition, there are many millions more youth directly affected by conflicts.

Millions of traumatized former child soldiers and other youth affected by conflict worldwide need rehabilitation and education in order to reintegrate into society, Serota says. “The decision to provide rehabilitation and education to children and youth affected by conflict and to build cultures of peace to prevent new wars are some of the ethical choices we make,” he says.

Taking part in efforts that save lives, focus on immediate and long-term needs, and transform situations detrimental to human dignity are ethical choices, says Serota, a human rights attorney who earned a law degree from Suffolk University Law School.

In 2000, Dennis Rezendes, ’57, established University of Maine Foundation funds to annually host a visiting scholar in ethics to honor his father, John and to engage staff, students and community members in ethical issues. Honors College and the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series Fund sponsor, in part, the John M. Rezendes Visiting Scholar in Ethics.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777

The Portland Press Herald cited a 2008 study by two University of Maine economists in the article “Carnival ship plans 8 visits to Portland this year.” The study, which was funded by Portland, looked at cruise ship passengers’ economic effects on the city. The study found the average passenger spends $80 to $110 a day in the Portland area, and the cruise ship industry generates between $5.8 million and $8 million in local sales.

The Village Soup wrote an article about the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Kids Can Grow program, a youth gardening program for ages 7–12 that will offer six hands-on classes from May to September at the Knox-Lincoln counties office in Waldoboro.

Karen Hagemann, distinguished professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Anne Margaret Johnstone Memorial Lecturer, will present “Gendering World War II: The History and Memory of German Women’s War Service during the Third Reich” 3:15–5 p.m. Monday, March 25 in Hill Auditorium at Barrows Hall on the UMaine campus. For more information or to request disability accommodations, call Julie Riley at 207.581.1228. The talk, co-sponsored by the Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program along with the Department of History, is part of the Women’s History Celebration on campus, “Out of the Shadows: Gender, Identity, and History.” The lecture will focus on how women in Germany during WWII provided critical wartime service.

More than half of the University of Maine’s student-athletes — 250 in all — will be honored and recognized for their success in the classroom at the 24th annual Scholar-Athlete Recognition Ceremony March 25.

This is the 10th consecutive year that more than half of UMaine student-athletes have been so honored for their academic achievement.

At the 6:30 p.m. ceremony in Wells Conference Center, 165 student-athletes will be recognized as Scholar-Athletes for achieving a 3.0 or better grade-point average in 2012 year and/or having a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. In addition, 85 first-year student-athletes will be honored as Rising Stars for earning a 3.0 or better.

The event also will include two announcements: the recipients of the “M” Club Dean Smith Award, presented annually to the top male and female scholar-athlete; and members of Team Maine, honoring the sophomore, junior or senior from each team who achieved the highest GPA last year.

All scholar-athletes will receive medallions representing the number of years they earned the award. This year, 81 student-athletes will receive bronze medals signifying their first award, 49 will receive silver medals as second-time award winners, and 31 student-athletes will receive gold medals as three-time recipients. Four student-athletes will receive double gold medals for their fourth-time award.

Since the start of the annual awards in 1989, 2,994 medallions have been awarded. The event is sponsored by the University of Maine Foundation, University Credit Union, the M Club and the University of Maine Alumni Association.

A list of the names of the student-athletes is online.

The Bangor Daily News, WLBZ (Channel 2), Portland Press Herald, WABI (Channel 5) and WVII (Channel 7) were among several news organizations that covered the University of Maine’s football Pro Day. Eleven members of the Black Bear football team’s senior class got the chance to perform tests and drills for a New England Patriots scout in hopes of getting noticed by an NFL team.

The 50-member University of Maine Symphonic Band, conducted by Christopher White, will tour Down East and northern Maine April 3–6 with free public performances from Machias to Madawaska at school assemblies during the day and evening community concerts.

The 7 p.m. concerts are April 3 with the Machias Town Band at the University of Maine at Machias, April 4 at Houlton High School and April 5 at Madawaska High School. There also will be a 1 p.m. concert April 5 with the University of Maine Presque Isle Community Band on campus in Presque Isle.

The program includes works by Clifton Williams, R. Vaughan Williams, Dana Wilson, Johan Halvorsen, Frank Ticheli and R.B. Hall.

Among the performance highlights: Soloist Blake Ford, a senior music education major from Princeton, Maine, will play electric guitar in a unique piece, “Chaos Theory 3.0 Concerto for Electric Guitar and Wind Orchestra” by composer, sound designer and guitarist Jim Bonney.

Jason Priest of Old Town, Maine, winner of the Symphonic Band solo competition in December and a UMaine senior majoring in music performance and music education, will solo on the euphonium in a piece, “Rhapsody for Euphonium and Concert Band” by James Curnow.

Faculty member Dan Barrett will perform a featured trombone solo in “Variations on Barnacle Bill The Sailor” by Steven Frank, who teaches low brass at UMaine.

The Symphonic Band’s spring concert, featuring selections from the tour, will be 7:30 p.m. April 18 at in the Collins Center for the Arts. Tickets are $12; free with a student MaineCard, and can be purchased at the Collins Center for the Arts box office or at the door before the performance. For more information or to request disability accommodations, call the Collins Center for the Arts, 207.581.1755.

Posted on Thursday, March 21

Assistant Professor Dylan Dryer, of the English Department, has received the Braddock Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. The CCCC is the largest organization in the world devoted to theory, research, and instruction in college-level writing. The Braddock Award is given annually to the best article published in the organization’s flagship journal, College Composition and Communication. An appointed review team carefully considers the dozens of peer-reviewed articles published in the journal during the previous year, and then decides which one rises above all the others in its intellectual, scholarly, and expressive excellence. Acceptance into the journal is extremely competitive, but the Braddock Award is a mark of even greater excellence, one that instantly brings visibility to its recipient and has an important impact on his or her career.

Dr. Dryer was the first faculty member in residence in Stodder Hall and held that position for more three years. He has also led the Thesis and Dissertation Studio for graduate students since Spring of 2010. The Studio is a UMaine Graduate School and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences-supported program that engages small, interdisciplinary groups of graduate students in structured peer review and feedback on drafts of their Thesis or Dissertation projects. 

The University of Maine Bookstore will sponsor its annual Grad Fair 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Thursday, March 21, at the lower level of the Memorial Union in front of the University Bookstore.

During the fair, graduating students can purchase caps and gowns and order items such as diploma frames, announcements, class rings and commencement day DVDs.

Students can also have their senior picture taken and be entered to win prizes.

Many university departments and outside vendors will be on hand to offer information about services and products related to commencement, according to Keven Higgins, associate director of the University Bookstore.

The event is co-sponsored by Campus Activities and Student Engagement (CASE).

Those unable to attend can purchase graduation items from the University Bookstore. For more information on the bookstore, call 207.581.1700 or visit bookstore.umaine.edu.

For more information on the fair, or to request disability accommodations, call Thomas Diaz at 207.581.4350.

Members of the UMaine community are invited to hear presentations by the three finalists for the position of Honors College dean. The candidates have been asked to speak on the topic: “Honors Education at the Public Research University.” The candidates’ vitae are online. Their campus presentation schedules: Rhonda Phillips, Associate Dean, Barrett, The Honors College Downtown Campus, Arizona State University, 9:30–10:45 a.m., March 26, Bangor Room, Union; Francois Amar, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry, University of Maine, 1:15–2:30 p.m., March 29, Room 3, Wells Conference Center; Steven Shapiro, Professor of Physics and Director of Academic Advising, Guilford College, 9:30–10:45 a.m., April 9, Bangor Room, Union. For more information, contact Dianne Avery, 581.1595.

The Bangor Daily News reported on a small kitchen fire that broke out in the Memorial Union on the University of Maine campus Tuesday morning. The Union was evacuated for about a half hour. No injuries were reported.

Mainebiz interviewed Kathy Hopkins, a maple syrup educator with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and Jenny Shrum, a doctoral biology and ecology student at the University of Maine, for the March 18 article “Maine syrup makers brace for widespread variability.” Hopkins spoke about the unusually warm seasons producers have been seeing in the past few years. She said despite the variability of the seasons, syrup production has been booming and state licenses for commercial production have increased. Shrum spoke about her research into how to better define what temperature rises and weather variability will mean for sap flow, as well as possible steps that could safeguard the state’s industry.