University of Maine News

The latest post on the Bangor Daily News blog “Backstage at PTC” announced the Penobscot Theatre Company’s 2013–2014 season. The season will include “One Blue Tarp,” a new play by Travis Baker, Orono playwright and UMaine English lecturer.

The New Hampshire Union Leader reported University of Maine student Molly Mendola was given the Union Leader Hero Award after helping save struggling swimmers at a beach last summer. The award honors New Hampshire residents who risked their lives in the previous year to save someone else.

The Maine Edge reported on the recent visits of therapy dogs to Fogler Library. The dogs were brought in to ease students’ stress during finals week.

Maine Sen. Angus King mentioned a University of Maine project in a recent interview with Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E). Angus said he is “really excited” about a project at UMaine to generate power from biomass pellets.

The Morning Sentinel previewed the upcoming Maple Grading School class that will be offered May 10–11 in Skowhegan. The class is for maple producers, bulk syrup buyers, state inspectors and others who need to grade or judge maple syrup. The school is sponsored by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, International Maple Syrup Institute, and Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

The latest issue of the Penobscot Times included articles on the commencement ceremonies that will be held May 11 at the University of Maine. The articles included tips for attending the ceremonies, such as parking and seating, as well as scheduled speakers and award winners. The issue of the weekly newspaper also included a front-page photo taken during the third annual St. Baldrick’s head shaving event on Maine Day in the Steam Plant Lot on campus. About 70 members of the UMaine community shaved their heads to raise money for children with cancer. UMaine Circle K, a Kiwanis-affiliated college service organization, held the event.

The University of Maine Professional Employees Advisory Council (PEAC) has named Dwane Hutto, Forest Bioproducts Research Institute (FBRI) project manager, and Barbara Ouellette, Honors College coordinator of student academic services and budget, the winners of the 2013 Outstanding Professional Employee Award.

The PEAC selects winners based on the employee’s actions and achievements beyond work responsibilities that positively affect their field, the university and community.

Each winner is awarded $1,000 in recognition of his or her contributions, and will be honored at the Employee Recognition and Achievement Reception and Awards Program May 21.

As project manager, Hutto oversees FBRI’s administrative functions, coordinates project work and collaborates with the institute’s executive director to ensure the efficiency of operations.

Hutto joined FBRI in 2008 after working for three years in the UMaine Process Development Center as group leader in pulping.

FBRI members credit Hutto with being instrumental in helping increase the institute’s support staff from three professionals to six, designing and overseeing the construction of new office space in Jenness Hall, and getting students interested in engineering through department tours and his involvement with the Consider Engineering program.

Hutto is also working with a local middle school teacher to bring engineering principles to the classroom and is designing a workshop to provide hands-on experiences, according to Amy Luce, FBRI technology research center manager who nominated Hutto for the award.

Ouellette, who has served the university for more than 30 years, is responsible for coordinating student academic services and handling the Honors College budget. She has served as an adviser to the dean, and is credited with guiding and supporting the college and interim dean after last year’s unexpected death of Honors College Dean Charlie Slavin. Ouellette also advises and teaches students in the Explorations Program, and acts as a liaison between the Honors College and other colleges on campus.

Ouellette aided in the selection of a new Honors College dean, has served on the Associate Deans and Directors Committee, trained Honors associates, served on Honors thesis committees, worked on the Honors College publication “Minerva,” and coordinated and attended the annual National Collegiate Honors Council Conference.

In addition to her work at UMaine, Ouellette has been involved in the community, volunteering in the NICU at Eastern Maine Medical Center, quilting blankets for children in crisis, serving as a Maine Swimming Association official, and being a United Way team and unit leader.

Ouellette’s professionalism, knowledge, commitment and compassion has greatly influenced the Honors College culture and community, says Melissa Ladenheim, adjunct associate professor in Honors who nominated Ouellette for the award.

The Bangor Daily News reported the “Historical Atlas of Maine,” a four-part book displaying Maine’s history through maps, photos, art and stories, is the first product of the University of Maine’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Maine Humanities Initiative. The initiative aims to highlight the importance of the state’s economic, cultural and political strengths.

The Bangor Daily News spoke with Pankaj Agrrawal, associate professor of finance at the University of Maine, for the article “Maine’s credit unions break records for members, assets in 2012.” Agrrawal says some of the success of credit unions is “backlash” from the role larger banks played in the financial crisis.

Mainebiz reported Lewiston startup Karkos Group LLC is working on a prototype blender that’s quieter than the competition in the commercial and high-end home blender markets. Using a seed grant, the business had independent tests of its motor run by the University of Maine’s Advanced Manufacturing Center against other commercial blenders.

The Wiscasset Newspaper reported a University of Maine freshman from Dresden helped a co-worker Monday when he started choking. Helen Call reportedly performed the Heimlich maneuver on the man in a dining hall on campus.

The Bangor Daily News blog “Catching Health” by Diane Atwood recently previewed the upcoming “Theater of War” performance at the University of Maine on May 13. The performance will be put on by Outside the Wire, a Brooklyn-based social impact company that uses theater and other media to address important public health and social issues.

The Sun Journal of Lewiston recently reported Spencer Hathaway of Turner was named the 2013 valedictorian at the University of Maine. Hathaway will be honored at Commencement May 11 and will receive two bachelor’s degrees — one in economics and one in business administration in accounting.

The St. John Valley Times previewed the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s upcoming 4-H Sheep and Fiber Festival May 11 in Presque Isle.

University of Maine Professor of History Howard Segal and UMaine Professor of English Deborah Rogers recently published the essay “Painful Admission” in Times Higher Education.

Foster’s Daily Democrat reported Renaissance, the University of Maine’s all-female singing group, will perform a free concert May 17 at Berwick United Methodist Church in Berwick.

The Bangor Daily News cited a University of Maine economic study in the article “Futuristic Quantum-class cruise ship to be largest ever to visit Portland when it arrives in 2015.” The study found the 31 ships that visited Portland in 2008 generated between $5.8 million and $8 million in the Greater Portland economy and supported between 70 and 110 jobs.

A week of lectures, panel discussions and tours highlighting humanities research and exploring its intersects with community partners will be held May 13–16 on campus and in downtown Bangor, coordinated by the University of Maine Humanities Initiative.

The week culminates with a Maine Humanities Summit May 17 in Augusta.

The events involve 37 participants, including UMaine faculty and staff, leaders of regional arts and cultural organizations, and area teachers and policymakers. The interdisciplinary sessions showcase UMaine arts and humanities research and explore ways of making this scholarship more visible and pertinent to community partners.

All events are free and open to the public. Registration is required for the Maine Humanities Summit.

More information is online or by contacting UMaine Humanities Initiative Director Justin Wolff, 207.581.3259.

A summary of the events:

On campus, May 13

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m., with introductory remarks by Dean Jeff Hecker and President Paul Ferguson at 9 a.m.; “Politics, Performance and Palimpsests: The Cartography of Social Space,” with Robert Glover, Michael Grillo, Sarah Harlan-Haughey and James Warhola at 9:30 a.m., all in Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall; lunch at the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center, followed at 2 p.m. by “Online Teaching” with Justin Hafford, Richard Powell and Owen Smith, moderated by Jeff St. John.

On campus, May 14

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m., featuring “Humanities Approaches to Nonviolence,” with Doug Allen, Hugh Curran and Tina Passman at 9 a.m.; “Teaching Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries” featuring Katherine O’Flaherty, Stefano Tijerina and Jennie Woodard at 11 a.m.; and “Wasahpskekmenehan (Marsh Island): A Wabanaki Sense of Place” with Gretchen Faulkner, John Bear Mitchell and Micah Pawling, moderated by Darren Ranco, Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall.

Downtown Bangor, May 15

“The Garden Artists: A Retrospective Look at Collective Women’s Art in Changing Times,” by Mimi Killinger, with a University of Maine Museum of Art tour led by director George Kinghorn, 10 a.m., May 15, UMaine Museum of Art, 40 Harlow St., Bangor.

Walking Tour of Downtown Bangor, led by Tom McCord and Ben Sprague, 11:15 a.m., May 15, starting at the Hannibal Hamlin statue on Kenduskeag Canal, downtown Bangor.

“Connecting Classrooms and Cultural Organizations: A Dialogue,” a panel moderated by Marcia Douglas and featuring Marcie Bramucci, Kal Elmore, Mimi Killinger, George Kinghorn and Bari Newport, 1:30 p.m., May 15, Penobscot Theatre, 131 Main St., Bangor.

“Humanities and the Book,” featuring presentations by Barbara McDade — “The Bangor Book Festival”; Elizabeth Neiman — “The Minerva Press and Romantic-era Redefinitions of Literature”; and Rachel Snell — “Nineteenth-century Cookbooks and Public Domesticity,” 3:15 p.m., May 15, Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St., Bangor.

Collaborate and Celebrate: The University of Maine Humanities Initiative, featuring live music by Larry LeBlanc & Mike Conant, and Raw Chicken, a fine art exhibit curated by participants in the UMaine Museum of Art’s Young Curators program, and other activities to usher in Penobscot Theatre’s production of “Around the World in Eighty Days,” 5 p.m., May 15, Maine Discovery Museum, 74 Main St., Bangor, sponsored by the University of Maine Humanities Initiative, Maine Discovery Museum and the Downtown Bangor Arts Collaborative.

On campus, May 16

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–noon., featuring “The Downeast Fisheries Trail,” with Kathleen Ellis. Catherine Schmitt and Natalie Springuel at 9 a.m.; “Interdisciplinary Community Engagement,” with Melissa Ladenheim, Linda Silka and Claire Sullivan, 10:45 a.m., Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall.

Augusta, May 17

Maine Humanities Summit, featuring panel discussions on humanities-related topics, including museums, libraries and public policy, with remarks by Hayden Anderson, director of the Maine Humanities Council, and Julie Richard, director of the Maine Arts Commission, and a lunchtime address by award-winning journalist Colin Woodard, speaking on “Liberal Arts in the Real World: An Author-Historian-Journalist’s Argument for the Importance of the Humanities,” 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., May 17, Governor Hill Mansion, Augusta. Registration required: email amy.cross@umit.maine.edu.

Baritone Ludlow Hallman, a longtime music director and conductor in the University of Maine School of Performing Arts, will receive the 2013 Vincent A. Hartgen Award from UMaine’s Patrons of the Arts.

The award will be presented in a ceremony May 10 at Buchanan Alumni House on campus.

During his more than 40 years in the UMaine community, Hallman has served as conductor of the University Orchestra and the Oratorio Society, director of the Opera Workshop and chair of the Music Department. He has been music director and conductor of dozens of opera and musical comedy productions — from Mozart to Puccini and Sullivan to Sondheim — throughout the country and around the world.

Hallman also has performed as a recitalist and soloist, with operatic roles with the Santa Fe Opera Company, Mozart Opera Salzburg, the Salzburg Festival and Surry Opera Company.

In addition, the professor of music has served as resident director of New England Universities in Salzburg, an immersion program for students of German.

Hallman studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Southern Illinois University and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

UMaine flutist and chamber musician Elizabeth Downing, who nominated Hallman for the award, calls him an “institution” at the university and an “incredibly versatile musician” who conducts oratorio, opera and orchestral works, and has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic as a conductor and singer.

“Ludlow continues to give his full devotion to the conducting and teaching of music. There is no one more passionate and dedicated to the world of classical music, and he continues to share his wealth of knowledge and vision to music students, the musical community and the public,” Downing says. “As just one of many of his students, he truly changed my life and my career and brought the world of music to my heart.”

Hallman has taught hundreds of voice students and has introduced many to vocal recovery. One of his early students, Dr. Linda Carroll, a speech-language pathologist and voice trainer, became a leader in the field of vocal rehabilitation. Hallman also has served as a mentor teacher for the National Association of Teachers of Singing and as a presenter for the Voice Foundation in Philadelphia.

Since 1999, the Hartgen Award has been given annually to recognize outstanding contributions to arts advancement at the university. The award is named in honor of the late Vincent Hartgen, founder of the UMaine Department of Art and Museum of Art, and a champion of traveling art exhibitions for Maine schools.

Contact: Margaret Nagle, 207.581.3745

WABI (Channel 5) covered the 20th anniversary celebration of the University of Maine’s Reading Recovery program and the continuing support of the Galen Cole Family Foundation.