Maine Perspective Front Page
Commencement 1999
Outstanding Students Named for Class of '99
Julie Bard - Co-Salutatorian and December Graduate
Julie Bard of Oakland is returning to her alma mater to see her older brother, Jason, receive a master's degree in electrical engineering.
She will be watching from the Commencement stage, where she too will be honored as co-salutatorian.
"It was a surprise," says Bard, who received a bachelor's degree in biology in December. "I had planned to be at May graduation anyway. It will be nice for my parents who are really proud to see me as an undergraduate salutatorian and to see my brother receiving a master's."
According to University policy, from the graduating seniors at the May Commencement ceremony - degree candidates from May, the preceding December and the following August - the two highest-ranking baccalaureate degree candidates are designated class valedictorian and salutatorian. This year, for the first time in the University's history, two valedictorians and three salutatorians, each with GPAs for 4.0 and 3.99, respectively, have been named.
Bard enrolled in 1995 as a biology major. She followed her father, Raynold, Class of '68, and her older brother, who also received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1997. The University was Bard's choice because of its location and the variety of options it offered.
A milestone in Bard's academic career came when she realized she had the potential to be a doctor. As a sophomore, she became a member of the University Volunteer Ambulance Corps (UVAC) and became a licensed Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). She quickly found that lessons from her EMT training were associated with her biology coursework.
"I was taking what I know from classes at UMaine and applying it to patients served by the ambulance corps," says Bard. "It was an incredible experience."
Bard attributes her academic success to having a balanced life in college. "I didn't just study," she says. "I was involved in intramurals, the ambulance squad. I was a CPR instructor and a runner. Part of the success is just in knowing you have other things in life besides school."
Bard also found a role model in Professor of Zoology Mary Tyler, who promoted out-of-class academic and extracurricular learning. It was Tyler who recommended Bard for a post-baccalaureate fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
Since graduating in December, Bard has worked as a student researcher in NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. There she is participating in studies of the pathophysiology of mice to better understand certain blood diseases.
She will continue in the fellowship until she heads to medical school.
Stacy Brady - Co-Valedictorian, Outstanding Graduate Student in the College of Education and Human Development, and Outstanding Graduating Student in the Department of Anthropology
Stacy Brady is a big-picture person who wants to open children's worlds, as her own education has done for her.
The College of Education and Human Development's 1999 Outstanding Student is a double major in elementary education and anthropology. The Old Town resident is a 4.0 Honors student, a co-valedictorian, the Anthropology Department's outstanding graduating senior, and a member of four national honor societies. She has received four distinguished academic achievement awards.
Inspired by her anthropology professor and mentor Cynthia Mahmood, Brady seized the opportunity to do field research in an area that both intrigued and troubled her - the complex political, cultural, religious and gender equity dynamics and dilemmas of Sikh women. Her exploration took her into Sikh communities in major urban centers throughout the United States and Canada, where the women she interviewed shared their insights, concerns and choices.
The result was her Honors thesis, "Outstanding Women: Religion, Identity and Relationships Among Women of the Sikh Diaspora." Her study fills a gap in existing research on the issues and views of Sikh women in mainstream North America. She plans to work with Mahmood to expand her study into a book.
As a student teacher, Brady's contagious enthusiasm and inquiring search for knowledge spread to both students and supervising teachers who found themselves engaged in creating museums, making cross-cultural comparisons, raising critical ethical questions and closely examining the answers.
Before coming to UMaine, Brady spent 11 years in the retail business, working her way up to manager/ buyer for an athletic footwear company.
But 1990 was a turning point for Brady and her husband, Matthew. Their vehicle was hit by a drunk driver, and both were seriously injured. After extensive medical treatment and a long rehabilitation, they decided to make a new start. They moved to Maine and returned to school.
Matt will receive his B.A. in English from UMaine next year, and both are already planning graduate work. They are strongly committed to supporting, encouraging and guiding one another through their educational pursuits.
"We have found joy in seeing each other learn and grow," says Stacy. "There was always another sympathetic student to listen when things were stressful."
Rickie Cyr - Outstanding Graduating Student in the College of Business, Public Policy and Health
Rickie Cyr of Frenchville never intended to major in accounting.
"To be honest, I was lost. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I've been a biology major, a psychology major, a nursing major and undeclared," says Cyr. "I decided on my current major after taking an accounting class and enjoying it."
Cyr is graduating from the Maine Business School with a 3.98 grade point average. He has accepted an offer to work at Baker, Newman and Noyes, a public accounting firm in Portland.
Cyr took classes for a year at the University of Maine at Fort Kent before transferring to UMaine. He has been on the Dean's List for eight semesters and is a Presidential Pin recipient with a 4.0 GPA in five consecutive semesters. The member of two national honor societies, Cyr won the Maine Society of CPA's Outstanding Student Award. Cyr has also been the president of the UMaine student chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants.
"I don't think I'm any brighter than anyone else, I just make a lot of sacrifices and work a lot harder," says Cyr. "Coming from Aroostook County is another factor, because all the people up there are hardworking, and a good work ethic was instilled in me by my parents."
The professor that Cyr credits with helping him the most is Steven Colburn, associate professor of accounting.
"I think of him more as a good friend than a professor and I respect him a lot," says Cyr. "He helped me get scholarships when I needed them. There was a time when I was doing well academically, but didn't have much confidence, and he helped me with that. He's a good man."
In the immediate future, Cyr says his greatest hope is to pass the CPA exam, fulfill the requirements for a CPA license and eventually spend time working in healthcare management and consulting.
Hildy Ellis - Co-Salutatorian and Outstanding Graduating Student in the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture
For Hildy Ellis of Hope, the biggest challenge in starting college was leaving home.
Home for Ellis is a small cabin she built in the woods. At 43, Ellis started taking classes part time in 1993 - 25 years after graduating high school. In 1995, she became a full-time student in landscape horticulture.
Ellis' primary interests are plants - what they are, where and how they grow, and
how they can be propagated. For the past six
seasons, Ellis has worked as a self-employed garden designer in the Camden-Rockport area. Ellis also is active in the Invasive Species Council in Maine.
"I have tried to do the best I can in all
my classes and that has translated into a very good grade point average," says Ellis, a co-salutatorian. "But the GPA is not the point of my work. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I am interested and fascinated with learning. I wanted to make the most of it."
The past five years of academics have changed Ellis' life in ways she did not anticipate. "Staying up late enough at night to do all the work was hard. I'm not a late-night person," says Ellis. "And I learned to use a computer. My epitaph was going to be 'computer illiterate and proud.' Three months after being at UMaine, I realized I would have to let go of that idea real quick."
In 1997, Ellis was recognized by the American Society for Horticultural Science as one of the top horticultural students in the United States. She has won numerous scholarships, including the Bickford Award as the outstanding student in the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture. She is past president of the Landscape Horticulture Club and, for the past two academic years, has conducted tutorials in the woody landscape plant courses.
Ellis' community service includes work with the Josselyn Botanical Society and the Merryspring Horticulture and Nature Park in Camden.
In spring 1998, Ellis participated in the National Student Exchange program with the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she worked as an intern with the Institute of Pacific Island Forestry on an experimental ecological restoration and invasive species management plan. She is currently completing an analysis of pesticide usage data that she has collected in a survey of horticultural professionals in Maine.
Of her years at UMaine, Ellis says she will most remember the support she received from professors, and the acceptance and support from her classmates. It was a reaffirmation of what her father told her years ago.
"From my father, who has been gone for 25 years, I learned unconditional love," says Ellis. "And I learned everybody deserves an equal chance, no matter what."
Justin Hebert - Co-Salutatorian and Outstanding Graduating Student in the College of Engineering
Justin Hebert of Glenburn is the third member of his immediate family to get a degree from UMaine. His mother, Raymonde, received a degree in education in 1971. His brother, Louie, received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1997 and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Toronto.
His younger sister, Jennie, is at UMaine studying education, and may be joined in the fall by another sister.
But while he was growing up, Hebert knew most about UMaine as a fan of men's ice hockey. Then as a junior, he attended the Pulp and Paper Foundation's summer Introduction to Engineering Program.
He was further encouraged to pursue engineering by his father, a civil engineer with whom Hebert has done land surveying work for the past eight years.
"UMaine had a reputation for education and job placement, so I decided to stay near home and save money, knowing from here I can go anywhere," he says.
Hebert graduates next month as co-salutatorian and the Outstanding Senior in the College of Engineering. He says the key to his success has been his work ethic, including being prepared before class to get the most out of it. Success also has to do with not settling for mediocrity, which involves seeking activities that broaden experience.
"It's important not to be behind a computer all the time," says Hebert, a National Merit Scholar. "I took a class in rock climbing, did mountain biking and weightlifting in the gym. My involvement in community activities, such as with Tau Beta Pi, have been very fulfilling."
In fall 1997 and summer 1998, Hebert participated in a process engineer co-op at Georgia-Pacific in Woodland. Last semester, he traveled to the University of Wyoming through National Student Exchange.
He hopes to complete an MBA.
Cindi Jo Madden - Division of Lifelong Learning Outstanding Achievement Award
For as long as she can remember, Cindi Jo Madden yearned to be a University of Maine student. She read and reread the undergraduate catalog and imagined what it was like to take courses. When she drove past campus, she slowed to take in the excitement of students headed to classes.
But after graduating from Old Town High in 1977, work and family occupied her time.
"As my children got older, I wanted to be a positive role model for them," says Madden. "When I was in high school, I wanted to be a teacher. My mother encouraged me to go to college, but talking about it just wasn't enough to get me there. I didn't know how to go about it. "
After eight years as a secretary working with special education teachers and a director who was a speech pathologist for a school union in her hometown of Milford, Madden enrolled at UMaine through the Onward Program in 1994. When she took her first course in communication sciences and disorders, Madden knew her career would not be teaching students but helping those with speech, language or fluency needs succeed in the classroom.
"Speech pathologists have to be really creative," Madden says. "Problem solving and individualization are needed to see what will work best to meet a person's needs. It can mean big differences socially for people, especially children, improving their self-esteem, and ability to fit in and learn."
Madden had her own lessons to learn after being out of the classroom for almost two decades, including the fact that collegiate life is more than academics.
"I have made some dear friends through Onward and through my classes. That's not something I expected to happen," says Madden. "I thought of college as books, papers and tests, but I found out it is so much more in terms of personal and professional growth."
For two and a half years, Madden served as an Onward peer advisor and a site leader for Alternative Spring Break. In 1996, she was awarded a $10,000 Clyde Russell Scholarship, based on academic achievement, community involvement and character.
Madden's daughter, Jessy, is a UMaine sophomore majoring in kinesiology and is the newly named captain of the UMaine women's swim team. Her son, Nick, 17, is a high school studying automotive technology.
Madden has been accepted into the UMaine communication sciences and disorders graduate program.
"Getting my degree next month will be exciting. It also will be an ending," says Madden. "It is a longing fulfilled."
Charley Martin - Outstanding Graduating Senior in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Charlotte "Charley" Martin of Dedham and East Machias, is a double major in anthropology and women's studies because "a couple of really awesome women got me excited about both fields," she says.
Martin transferred to UMaine after spending a semester at Southampton College, part of the Long Island University System in New York. Her major there was marine science, but she changed her mind due in part to some negative experiences in a chemistry class.
"I was so homesick. Some guidance counselors encourage successful high school students to go Ivy League and not to UMaine, and I bought into that. I had to come home, though."
At UMaine, Martin took a course from Cynthia Mahmood, associate professor of anthropology with a focus on cultural anthropology. Martin says that same semester, she took a women's studies course.
"As my political consciousness was developing through the women's studies classes, my global consciousness was also developing through my anthropology classes," she says.
Sharon Barker, director of the Women's Resource Center, offered Martin the opportunity to share her work with others.
"She asked me if I would be interested in and organizing a group for high school-age girls," says Martin. "Girls don't really have a supportive place to sit and talk and develop mentor relationships in their lives. The group really took off."
The group, United Sisters, began in 1996. The support group for girls ages 13-18 offers a safe place to talk about what it's like to be a girl in school and society today. The group is politically active about issues girls are facing, and serves as a teen advisory committee to the Women's Resource Center.
"United Sisters let Sharon know what's cool and what's not cool. They are part of the planning process for Women's Resource Center gender equity initiatives," says Martin. "If you're organizing for girls, it is crucial to have them as part of the planning process so you can develop programs that are realistic for them.
"My work with United Sisters has been the most challenging, most rewarding, most amazing part of my college career," she says.
At the same time she has been helping young women in this country, Martin has been getting to know a woman from another. She has spent time on independent research and advocacy with Mahmood relating to a woman from Somalia who is incarcerated in Maine.
"I interviewed this woman several times at the Kennebec County Correctional Facility where she was a prisoner," says Martin. "I've been transcribing those interviews in the hopes of telling her life story. This woman's background presents an issue that uniquely combines women's studies and anthropology - female genital mutilation."
Martin says this issue builds a bridge between objective, distant anthropology and active feminist research. Martin, Mahmood, and Barker helped get the Somali woman a lawyer who agreed to take the case pro bono.
"There's a serious chance that she will be deported," says Martin of the work that may become her area of graduate study. "She won her post-conviction review trial, but the state is appealing."
Matthew Vire - Co-Valedictorian
Matthew Vire of Biddeford has been in the spotlight repeatedly in the past four years for his acting talents and his scholarship.
In May, he'll play another starring role, this time as co-valedictorian.
"So many aspects of theater interest me," says Vire, a first-generation college graduate. "It offers an opportunity to pursue a career that is academic, creative or a combination of the two."
Beyond his coursework, most of Vire's theater talents have been seen on stage. He has been acting since eighth grade.
At UMaine, Vire has had roles in six Maine Masque productions. His most memorable was staged last fall: Hay Fever. Among his many awards, last January Vire was named one of 16 finalists out of 156 competitors in the regional competition of the American College Theater Festival.
Vire graduated from Biddeford High School in 1989 and worked in retail for 11 years. He was training to be a computer operator when he realized he was not pursuing his heart-felt interests and needed to go back to school.
"It would not have been easier for me to come to college right out of high school," Vire says. "Coming back now after years of just making enough to get by, I was really ready to be here. That made a huge difference."
At the University, Vire also studied French, the language of his parents. And he studied English. But it was theater that he found "relevant to everything."
"I remember the surprise I felt at the end of each semester when I kept getting all As," says Vire. "I expected my GPA to get a dent in it over four years. But as each semester went by and there was consistency, I put more and more pressure on myself to live up to the semester before."
The key to his academic success, Vire says, was in time management and taking responsibility for his education. "I learned from the beginning that I was in charge of my education," he says. "I wasn't here saying to professors, 'teach me,' but I was in charge of finding and using the resources available to get out of education what I wanted.
"I feel that I'm a better person than I was four years ago," he says. "My awareness of lots of things has enhanced. I also realized how much more there is to learn."
This fall, Vire will start graduate work in theater at UMaine. He hopes to go on for an M.F.A. and a Ph.D.