Maine Perspective Front Page
Hartman Award Winners Leaders in Education, Service
The three women who will receive this year's Maryann Hartman Awards have created opportunities for Maine people through education and public service.
State Treasurer Dale McCormick founded an organization that encourages women to enter traditionally male-dominated occupations. Educator Madeleine Giguère documented Maine's rich French heritage, giving Franco-Americans a voice. Publisher and University of Maine Professor Constance Hunting has recognized and nurtured talent in young writers for nearly three decades.
They will be honored during the 12th-annual Maryann Hartman Awards Ceremony, set for Wednesday, Nov. 5, 5 p.m. at Wells Conference Center. It will include a composition by Beth Wiemann, a clarinetist and assistant professor of music, who will set one of Hunting's poems, Italy, to music. Nancy Ogle, associate professor of music, will sing the piece. A reception will follow.
Mazie Hough, co-chair of the Maryann Hartman Awards Committee, says McCormick, Giguère and Hunting exemplify the spirit of Hartman, a former associate professor of speech communication and distinguished educator, feminist, scholar and humanist who died in 1980. All three have been pivotal in creating opportunities for women in their particular field, Hough says of this year's recipients.
Women in the Curriculum and the Women's Studies Program present the Maryann Hartman Awards annually to honor Maine women of achievement whose work inspires and helps enhance the status of women at the University and throughout the state.
The selection of the recipients continues to reflect a concerted effort to garner statewide nominations of outstanding women whose careers span the arts, science, athletics, education, public service, and political and social activism.
Profiles of this year's recipients follow:
¥ Dale McCormick of Hallowell has devoted much of her professional life to helping women to achieve non-traditional goals. As the founder of Women Unlimited, she successfully trained women on welfare to compete for high-paying jobs in trade and in technical occupations. Her two books, Against the Grain: A Carpentry Manual for Women, and Housemending: Home Repair for the Rest of Us, have helped to demystify carpentry and building for women. In 1984, McCormick founded the Maine Gay/Lesbian Political Alliance. After serving three terms as a state senator, she became the first woman to be elected state treasurer.
¥ Madeleine Giguère of Lewiston is known for her work in identifying and celebrating the state's Franco-American heritage. Her demographic studies of Franco-Americans in the United States have furthered recognition of their collective strength. Following her retirement from the University of Southern Maine as professor of sociology in 1990, she has spent seven years as volunteer director of the Franco-American heritage collection at the University of Maine System's Lewiston/Auburn campus. She also serves on the state Commission to Study the Development of Maine's Franco-American Resources.
¥ Professor of English Constance Hunting of Orono has been living and writing in Maine for nearly three decades. She is an editor, teacher, publisher, poet and essayist who has written 13 books of poetry, criticism and translation. In 1992, she received Westbrook College's Deborah Morton Award for Literary and Cultural Contributions to Maine, recognizing her achievements as a writer and her role as a catalyst for writing in Maine. Through the Puckerbrush Press and the nationally known literary magazine, The Puckerbrush Review, she has fostered the writing aspirations of many women. Her letters of nomination for the award describe her as a tireless teacher and writer, devoted to her students.