University of Maine News

A Portland Press Herald blog on large animal veterinarians in Maine included a question-and-answer interview with University of Maine Cooperative Extension Veterinarian Anne Lichtenwalner, director of the UMaine Animal Health Laboratory and assistant professor of animal and veterinary sciences, about the dwindling numbers of large animal veterinarians in the state.

For the Feb. 5 edition of Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s Maine Calling program, Jessica Leahy, assistant professor of human dimensions of natural resources in the University of Maine School of Forest Resources, joined Scott Williams, executive director of the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program, and Susan Gallo, a Maine Audubon wildlife biologist, for a discussion about how citizen scientists in Maine help environmental researchers document aberrations in seasonal changes in nature.

A photograph of a snow-capped Mount Katahdin taken by Nancy Michaud, a library specialist in the University of Maine Science and Engineering Center at Fogler Library, has been selected to represent the month of February in a 2013 calendar produced by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc. The company binds science journals for UMaine and other colleges and universities in the Northeast, and asks employees at institutions it serves to submit photos each year to be considered for its annual calendar.

Mary Cathcart, senior policy associate at the University of Maine Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, is one of two women selected for induction into the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame Saturday, March 16 at a ceremony at the University of Maine at Augusta. Cathcart, a former three-term member of the Maine House of Representatives and a four-term member of the Maine Senate representing Penobscot County, has been a long-time advocate for the rights of women and girls, according to an article in the Bangor Daily News. At the Margaret Chase Smith Center, she established the Maine NEW Leadership program, a nonpartisan training program for undergraduate college women in public and private institutions. The Maine Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs created the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990 to honor women who have made notable contributions to improving opportunities for Maine women. The second Hall of Fame inductee is Colby College Professor Lyn Mikel Brown, an activist, author and co-founder of Hardy Girls Healthy Women in Waterville.

Head football coach Jack Cosgrove has agreed to a new three-year contract that will keep him at the helm of the Black Bears through June 2016, according to University of Maine Director of Athletics Steve Abbott.

“I am pleased to announce that we have signed Jack Cosgrove to lead our football program for another three seasons,” says Abbott. “Jack has done a terrific job as the leader of the Black Bear football team. He thrives on the intense competition and rivalries in the Colonial Athletic Association, and is committed to continuing to build upon the team’s success.”

Cosgrove, who just completed his 20th season leading the Black Bears, is a 1978 Maine graduate and All-Conference quarterback. He holds the program record with 111 wins. His 76 CAA wins put him fifth in conference history.

“I am especially pleased that we have finalized the contract for Coach Cos,” says UMaine President Paul W. Ferguson. “We have been enjoying a productive conversation with Jack over the last several months following the season’s end, both reflecting on his successful decades of service, but also on a vision for the future of Black Bear Football. I look forward to continuing our close friendship and partnership with him.”

Cosgrove has led the team to four NCAA playoffs (2001, 2002, 2008, 2011), including advancing to the NCAA Final Eight on three occasions (2001, 2002, 2011) and two conference championships (2001, 2002).

Cosgrove’s teams have produced 21 All-America selections and 129 All-Conference honors in the toughest conference in the Football Championship Subdivision. In the classroom, the Black Bears have garnered 26 Academic All-CAA honors from 2009-11, including 13 in 2011.

“In addition to being a first-rate football coach, Jack has been a great mentor and teacher for a whole generation of Maine football players,” Abbott says. “Coach Cosgrove firmly believes in the importance of the academic and personal development of his athletes, and he has made that a priority for more than 20 years. I am delighted that he will continue to guide this program in the future.”

Cosgrove has earned several coaching accolades, including being named the 1996 and 2001 Atlantic-10 Coach of the Year, the 2001 American Football Monthly I-AA National Coach of the Year and the 2011 New England Football Writers FCS Division I Coach of the Year.

“The Cosgrove family is grateful for this opportunity to continue to serve the state of Maine and the University of Maine and its Black Bear Football Program,” Cosgrove says. “We look forward to facing — and embracing — the challenge of providing a quality academic and athletic experience for the young men in our program. We are already hard at work preparing, through our recruiting and training of our current football team, for the challenge of CAA football and our 2013 schedule.”

LGBT rights advocate Hudson Taylor, a wrestling coach at Columbia University and former NCAA All-American wrestler at the University of Maryland, will discuss building allies among athletes and making college campuses safer, in a free public talk at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 18 in 100 D.P. Corbett Business Building. Taylor is a heterosexual ally of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and an advocate for inclusion. His presentation is titled “Allyship: Becoming a Champion for Inclusion on Your Campus.” LGBT Services at UMaine is sponsoring Taylor’s appearance. For information or to request disability accommodations, call 207.581.1439.

Channel 2 (WLBZ) and its affiliate Channel 6 (WCSH) reported on the 5th annual Maine VEX Robotics Championship held Feb. 2 at Cape Elizabeth Middle School for middle and high school students. Organized by the University of Maine Black Bears Robotics Club, the annual event introduces students to real-world engineering and encourages them to apply math and science skills they have learned in school. The UMaine College of Engineering and Fairchild Semiconductor cosponsored the event this year.

Mainebiz carried an article, drawing information from a Maine Campus news report, about the expended 2013 UMaine Business Challenge, which now invites competitive business plans and proposals from students throughout the University of Maine System.

The Bangor Daily News interviewed University of Maine Cooperative Extension Cranberry Associate Charlie Armstrong about the 2012 cranberry harvest in Maine, which Armstrong said was the best harvest ever and due largely to a combination of suitable weather and better pest management.

Channel 5 (WABI) and Channel 2 (WLBZ) reported that University of Maine men’s ice hockey coaching staff, players and fans supported a Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence initiative during the Feb. 3 home game by wearing purple ribbons.

University of Maine Assistant Research Professor and polar ecologist Rhian Waller, who is collecting cold-water coral samples among icebergs in Alaskan fjords as a National Geographic grantee, posted a new blog and photographs of her expedition on the NG Explorers Journal website. Waller reports that expedition members slept through an earthquake, which caused pieces of icebergs to break off.

University of Maine School of Performing Arts faculty Beth Wiemann, clarinet, and Marcia Gronewold Sly, vocalist, taped an interview about the upcoming performance of Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg for “Morning Classical Music” with Suzanne Nance on Maine Public Radio. Their interview, including a discussion of the work’s 100-year history, is expected to air Feb. 8. The dramatic and influential Schoenberg work will be performed as part of the Cadenzato Faculty Chamber music concert at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 9, Minsky Recital Hall, Class of 1944 Hall.

From an archaeological excavation site on the Peruvian coast, University of Maine interdisciplinary Ph.D. candidate Ana Mauricio participated in a Jan. 13 live chat with primatologist Jane Goodall and underwater explorer and discoverer of the Titanic Robert Ballard, among other explorers from seven continents, organized by the National Geographic Society to celebrate its 125th anniversary.

Mauricio came to UMaine in 2009 from Peru on a Fulbright fellowship to do a master’s in Quaternary and Climate Studies with Dan Sandweiss, professor of anthropology and climate studies and dean and associate provost for graduate studies. She defended her master’s thesis in 2012 and received a master’s last August. At the same time, Mauricio began an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quaternary archaeology.

She currently is excavating the early mound site of Los Morteros on the Peruvian coast, initially supported by the National Science Foundation and the Climate Change Institute’s Churchill Exploration Fund. Recently, Mauricio was awarded a National Geographic Society Waitt Foundation grant and a Beca Andina (Andean Fellowship) from the French Institute for Andean Studies.

University of Maine Professors of Sociology Steve Barkan and Steve Cohn recently published an entry on member recruitment in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. In the entry, Barkan and Cohn discuss the importance of social movements as a basis for participation in democracies, which have achieved major political, social and cultural changes. The influence of social movements depends largely on their ability to recruit members, but what is less obvious is why people choose to participate in them, the authors say.

Click here to view the “Ice Climbing ” video on YouTube.

Click here to view the “How To: Washing Fruits and Vegetables” video on YouTube.

A Maine Public Broadcasting Network report on declining honeybee populations across the country included comments from Frank Drummond, University of Maine Professor of Insect Ecology and Entomology in the School of Biology and Ecology and a UMaine Cooperative Extension professor and bee specialist.

University of Maine Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition Mary Ellen Camire was interviewed by Prairie Public Radio in North Dakota about a range of food topics, including nutrition, the health benefits of chocolate, food allergies, food safety and smart grocery shopping for healthy food products. Camire is a member of the national Institute of Food Technologies.

The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography on Jan. 7 named University of Maine Associate Professor of Art History Justin Wolff’s book Thomas Hart Benton: A Life one of the “Best of the Best” in its Year in Books issue. Reviewer Jason Pettus called the book a well-done biography that offers an appropriate examination of the life of Benton, an eccentric American painter and muralist who died in 1975. Wolff’s book was published in March 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and will be released in March in paperback.

The Bangor Daily News interviewed Habib Dagher, director of the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center, about plans to move a 57-foot-tall, scale-model wind turbine being built at UMaine to Castine harbor in April for testing. The project is part of a wind-energy demonstration project expected to lead to a much larger offshore wind turbine network planned off Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine.