“Frankly, budget limitations brought some of that [progress] to a halt,” said Lynn. “We’re just going to have to keep going back to the drawing board.”

“I think that there’s been a contraction of course offerings for all three campuses, that the recent budget cuts have required some really difficult decisions about what’s going to be on the schedule for next year.”

The progress that Lynn referred to is in part due to her efforts as new head of the Gorham Initiative. She was assigned to the role halfway through this year by USM President Theo Kalikow. According to Lynn, Kalikow and Provost Michael Stevenson have fully committed to supporting those efforts. The Gorham Initiative is a continuation of the work done by a series of committees and task forces that have tried to establish a more dynamic Gorham experience since 1997.

One group, the Gorham Campus Steering Committee, released its final report in October 2012. It stated that “recent reductions in the numbers of residential students have turned the Gorham campus into a rather empty space, a place that students and faculty depart after classes or avoid.” Later, the report called for a “revitalization” and a “new direction” for the Gorham campus community and experience, and the administration’s commitment to the Gorham Initiative followed.

The initiative hopes to improve Gorham campus life in four areas. Its goal is to offer a larger array of classes so that students only have to take their courses in Portland by choice. Currently, the campus sees over 200,000 visits per year from community members coming to see sporting events, concerts, theater productions and other events, but the Gorham Initiative also hopes to build more community connections in Gorham and make campus a more vibrant and dynamic place to be. It also hopes to increase the number of activities and events for students offered on campus throughout the year to make it fun as well as academically challenging. Beyond that, the initiative also intends to boost the faculty presence in Gorham, which has been more centered in Portland. The initiative is centered on improving all aspects of the Gorham resident’s life from the food and the activities to the classes and the dorm experience.

While budget cuts are making a complex situation even more complex for Lynn and the Gorham Initiative, some students are still unimpressed with their experiences in Gorham.

“The food is terrible,” said undeclared freshman Tai Infante. Overall, Infante didn’t enjoy the Gorham campus and intends to move to an apartment in Portland next fall.

Infante also complained that the Gorham campus was not the most open or accepting environment for LGBTQ students. “I don’t think harassment is taken very seriously,” Infante said. “I’ve never been harassed in Portland, only in Gorham.”

Another student, Michael Legere, a sophomore majoring in computer science, explained that he is going to be moving to Portland for the fall semester as well. He also argued that Gorham didn’t feel as open to LGBTQ students.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s because of the athletic culture and fraternity culture, but it isn’t queer friendly,” he said. He feels that a few groups dominate the culture in Gorham, making it difficult for one united community to thrive.

“As a computer science student, I don’t feel very involved in the Gorham campus,” Legere said.

Both Legere and Infante explained that they couldn’t recall many events on campus from the past year, and they think that many events were poorly planned and executed, so that many student weren’t even aware that there were events until just before or right after they had taken place. Legere cited this year’s Reel Big Fish concert as an example.

“From what I understand, the genre [ska] wasn’t very popular,” he said.

On top of that, Legere found it difficult to manage the expenses that accompany a campus lifestyle. “The cost of living on campus [and] the food plan is inconvenient,” he said.

He also explained that he plans to move because a majority of his classes have been in Portland. “I find it more of a hassle to live in Gorham.”

Lynn hopes through the Gorham Initiative to decrease the amount of time that Gorham students have to commute between Portland and Gorham to help students like Legere who are forced to travel back and forth multiple times per week. However, she explained that scheduling for USM’s two campuses and diverse student body is increasingly challenging, especially in consideration of the recent budget restrictions.

“There has been some uncertainty about the extent to which we can maintain those increased [class] listings on the Gorham campus, but I think that’s the same for Portland and LAC as well,” she said.

“I think it’s going to be a work in progress every semester to make sure that students have the classes they need,” she added.

Hejabian was the first of her family to escape Iran as a religious refugee. After gaining U.S. citizenship years later, Hejabian’s mother and father were allowed to leave Iran and join her in Maine. The Hejabians will have a lot to be proud of at this year’s USM commencement.

“I am Iranian. I consider myself a Persian, but before that, I am Baha’i,” said Hejabian.

She was forced to complete her first degree in Iran in secret because she identifies as a member of the Baha’i faith, a religion that the intolerant Islamic regime works constantly to eliminate. The Baha’i follower believes in what Hejabian calls progressive revelation, which means prophecy from God does not come from just one prophet, but many, with the most recent being the founder of Baha’i in the 19th century.  In Iran, no one of the Baha’i faith is allowed any more education than a high school diploma, so the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education in Iran, where Hejabian got her first degree, conducts its classes in secret.

“We hold classes in our living rooms, basically, and all of the professors are from the Baha’i community.”

Hejabian has had a long and difficult road to graduating with a master’s in social work. Hejabian fled Iran to Turkey after finishing her education at the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education and lived there for a year before coming to the U.S. While there, Hejabian volunteered for the U.N. to work with other incoming refugees.

“When refugees arrived in Turkey, they usually came illegally and had to immediately register with the U.N. Otherwise, they would be in trouble, and the police in Turkey would deport them back.”

While in Turkey, Hejabian also worked with an interpreter to help the other refugees, mostly women and children, gain access to health care and other services.

The U.N. sent Hejabian to Maine after her year in Turkey, where she tried to reconcile her notions of America with the realities of life in quiet New England.

“My first impression was, ‘Is this really America?’ because my previous thought was America has big buildings — huge, you know — like, loud music, jazz everywhere, in the middle of the night. Lights and everything.”

Hejabian said her goal upon arriving in the U.S. was to find a way to give back after benefitting from so many of the systems that help refugees.

Hejabian found her calling in USM’s master in social work program. She got a lot of support from her fellow students and the faculty.

“They wanted [me] to succeed. The more I learned, the more I was commited to learn because I knew this was the right field for me.”

Hejabian wants to continue in the social work field and is currently applying to doctoral programs. Harvard University is her top choice, but she is applying to USM’s Muskie School of Public Service as well. She said that she will have a lot of people in the audience at commencement due to the very supportive Iranian community in the area. Her parents, now U.S. citizens, will be among her loudest supporters, she said.

“They are in Portland. They like it. It’s a safer place to live, to practice their religion. The older you get, your priorities change.”

The Thinking Matters conference encourages students and faculty to display the work they’ve accomplished together over the year in research and scholarship.

Hundreds of students, professors and members of the Portland community milled about the exhibition floor at the Thinking Matters poster session in the Sullivan Gym last Friday, perusing the projects of students who stood by to explain their work.

Projects ranged in scope and expertise: from two juggling theater majors showing off the talents and equipment of traveling theater troupes to one student explaining the effects of stellar radiation on the brain and how those effects might be reduced.

In the corner of the exhibition floor, Dobson showed off a pair of silicone masks he had designed, inspired by Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.

One of the silicone masks, Dobson’s interpretation of Mephistopheles, was covered in smooth, dark scales, with two devilish horns protruding from its forehead. Dobson flexed its silicone polymer skin and explained how the pliant material allowed the mask to react to and display an actor’s facial expressions underneath. In contrast to Mephistopheles, the other silicone mask, which Dobson said represented the sin of Gluttony, grimaced at passersby with jagged teeth.

Dobson explained that he is interested in using modern technology to bring the supernatural to life on stage.

“The way that it’s been done in the past has been by using lighting changes or by holding up a wooden mask,” he said. Dobson explained that in Marlowe’s time, actors would have worn white makeup and held up a mask when playing a demon.

“With our technology now, I can bring that demon to life on stage,” Dobson said, holding up the mask of Gluttony and tugging on its skin folds thick with snaking, violet veins.

“He’s going to move, and he’s going to talk, and you’re not going to know the difference between that and an actor.” Dobson said, moving the mask’s mouth open and closed with a finger. “And for that one little moment, where you can just sit there in a dark theater and watch that story, you’re going to be in the story. You’re not going to worry about cooking dinner, driving home or paying taxes. You’re going to experience Christopher Marlowe’s story — better, I think, than Christopher Marlowe could have presented it.”

The masks were the product of six months worth of work in design, Dobson said, and would not have been possible to realize without a grant he had received from the university.

“Alone, this is 700 bucks,” he said, pointing to Mephistopheles’s scaley head. But Dobson, who plans to continue to push the limits in terms of theatrical costume design, considers that money well-spent.

“It’s all learning technique for me, and that’s what these [masks] allowed me to do. They allowed me to explore a learning option that I hadn’t had before.”

Dobson said that he will work further as a theater makeup and special effects artist and is planning on pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree. However, he is unable to do that at USM, even though he would like to.

“I would love to continue learning here, but [the university] doesn’t have anything for me here anymore. Even though they have an MBA for business, and they have one of the best arts programs — or used to until they started cutting it — in New England, I can’t continue because they don’t have an MFA in the arts. They have doctors in all these fields, but I can’t learn from them because they’re not allowed to teach me a higher level degree.”

Would you go into a fast food restaurant to order a hamburger if you knew it would cost you over $50? Would you order steak in a fancy restaurant if you knew it was going to cost you over $200? In truth that’s already what you are paying. When is the price you pay not the price you pay? When the government helps to foot the bill.

The U.S. government subsidizes the beef industry. The government subsidies are for corn to feed the animals and water and land for them to graze on. If the beef industry had to pay fair market value for these resources, a Happy Meal would turn into an Unhappy Meal very quickly. Those subsidies are funded by taxes collected from the American taxpayer – that’s you and me. And it doesn’t matter whether you are vegetarian, vegan, pescetarian (those who eat fish, but no other meats) or belong to any sect, creed, religion or faith that prevents eating certain kinds of meat, you are not exempt: if you live in the U.S and pay taxes here, you’re paying for that big, juicy, $50 Big Mac along with the rest of us.

Sixty three percent of the U.S. government food subsidies go directly or indirectly to subsidize the meat and dairy industries. Less than 1 percent goes to fruit and vegetable cultivation. Less than 2 percent goes to nut and legume cultivation. Stopping meat subsidies would raise meat prices dramatically. If I cannot afford meat I will not buy meat; However, I could buy fruits and vegetables if the decreased governmental subsidy for meat is used to subsidize fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes. Shifting subsidies will help provide healthy and affordable diet choices for all Americans.

America needs to reallocate its food subsides. Now that America is struggling to provide health care for its disadvantaged populations, it is time to focus on the cause of health problems. Poor diet causes problems such as hypertension, heart disease and, most alarmingly, the high rate of obesity and type two diabetes that is increasingly affecting our youth. The better our diet, the healthier we are and the less we will desperately need that health care. Shifting our food subsidies will help ourselves and the environment, and help to safeguard the health and future of the next generation of Americans.

In this tough economy people buy the food they can afford instead of making healthy and environmentally sound choices. In a country like the U.S., healthy foods should not be a luxury. Our tax money should not be used to harm us. If the subsidies to the beef industry were ever cut so that we would get a more accurate sense of what things should cost, we would see Ronald McDonald would go out of business or quickly be replaced by Ronald McHealthy.

Be involved – don’t let your taxes work against your well-being. Let your senator know that you sent them to D.C. to look after you, and that they should support only farm subsidies that increase the well-being of America.

Fatoumata Issifi Hidjo is a Junior in the USM honors program.

There is nothing particularly exciting about Kettle Cove–no big waves, no stunning vistas, no shocking wildlife. There doesn’t need to be. Kettle Cove is peaceful and expansive, a plane of soft sand leading down to a calm, clear stretch of water for swimming. The cove is protected by an impressive wall of rock, at the top of which there is a stretch of grass perfect for picnicking. In short, Kettle Cove is the perfect spot for nice long lazy days of swimming and sunbathing, nothing more, nothing less.

2.) Higgins Beach

This beach is a real gem. It’s tucked away in what feels like a relatively isolated pocket of Scarborough, just a short drive away from Portland and Gorham. Here you get a quaint-feeling coastal town surrounding by a great stretch of powdery sand. The water’s great for swimming, with clear and unseasonably warm conditions. Parking can be kind of a pain, so prepare to pay for a spot and stay for the day or arrive early to fight it out for one of the metered spots. In the end, it’s worth it. This spot is a great place to swim, lay on the sand or explore the surrounding grassland.

3.) Sandy Beach

The slightly misleadingly named Sandy Beach is one of the most popular summer spots on Peaks Island, and with good reason. At high tide, this beach is the perfect spot to swim, and at low tide, the combination of the rocky tidepool landscape ringed with sand has something for everyone, with good spots for everything from climbing to sandcastles. Sandy is also just a hop, skip and a jump from what passes for ‘downtown’ on Peaks–that is, it is a short walk from the ice cream store, the grocery store, and each one of the restaurants and places to go for drinks that the island has to offer. For the price of one 15 minute boat ride, take a mini-vacation out of town without ever technically leaving the city of Portland.

4.) East End Beach

Probably the most convenient for Portlanders, the East End Beach is just off of the Eastern Promenade Trail. Portland’s only public beach is free, with plenty of parking. It’s not the most quiet or secluded of places and depending on the tide it might be hard to find a place for your beach chairs, but its close proximity is great for an impulsive weekday jaunt after work or a summer class. Get iced coffee and picnic supplies up at Hilltop Coffee and Rosemont Market on the hill. If you’re a dog owner, you can bring your dog to play leash-free after 5 p.m. (and if you’re not a fan, be sure to avoid the evening).

5.) Old Orchard Beach

If you’d rather spend a hot day smothered by crowds of strangers (and their annoying kids fresh out of school and ready to drink Mountain Dew all summer) OOB is the place to be. This isn’t a place to walk your dog or stare off into the ocean contemplating existential questions. This beach is all about partying, playing games of tackle football and dodging sandcastles as you run down to boogie board in the ocean. If you need a break from the beach, you can hit up the pier and grab a greasy bite to eat, get rid of all that spare change at the arcade or snatch one of those sick hats with your name graffitied on it. I recommend going on a rainy day when there’s no one there if you don’t like people.

Working at this newspaper has probably been the single most beneficial real world experience I’ve had in my life thus far. As an English major, I do a lot of writing, and writing an article every week has helped me to rein in my voice, as well as learn the concept of a “filter” (something my girlfriend truly appreciates when we’re talking with other people during dinner.) It has improved my writing on all levels, which makes writing things like response papers and essays a whole lot easier.

My days here have also been an exercise in time management. As college students, we constantly feel like there aren’t enough minutes in the day to accomplish all the work we have on our plate. Between class, homework, sports, extra-curricular activities and a part-time job, there’s not much time left to do other things. But as backwards as it sounds, working at the newspaper has taught me time management with everything else in my life. We have deadlines to meet, and getting a finished copy of the paper to the printer on time requires everyone to work as a team. We often do the brunt of the work on the weekend, which means that school work has to be done earlier in the week.

As an editor, working for the paper is certainly no cake walk. In fact, I’d often get frustrated with the various little things such as last-minute changes (which quickly become last-hour changes) that I thought would take five minutes but ended up eating into my weekend time. But I find that I only get frustrated with things I care most deeply about. Thankfully, I’ve made several lifelong friends over the past three years at this paper. All of them are experiencing the same stress that I am, and we’re all in this boat together. We vent to each other, but we also have a lot of meaningful discussion, and we pretty much spend every weekend together. We keep one another sane, and my relationships with the other editors of this paper are ones that I hold close to my heart. Want to make true friends, become a better writer and learn to manage your time more efficiently? Work at The Free Press.

The purpose of this article isn’t just a recap of the ways that The Free Press has positively impacted my life, and it isn’t a pseudo-recruitment piece telling you to come on over and start working for the paper. It’s a testament to the value of teamwork and friendship that comes with working in such a close environment like the newspaper. Working for The Free Press has helped me become who I am today. To be quite honest, I don’t know who or how many of you have read my articles. I don’t know who I have touched through my writing. But if even one person has felt improved in some way after finishing one of my articles, then I’ve done my job.

While I’ve enjoyed and cherished my time at USM and The Free Press, the truth is that I’ll forget a good portion of it. I’ll forget where I sat in my jazz class during freshman year, even though I enjoyed the class so much. I’ll forget why I got so stressed over that six-page final for ENG 230 since I ended up getting an A in the class. I’ll forget what my dorm room looked like in Philippi and what posters occupied its walls. But even when I’m well into my elderly years, attending school reunions and blogging about the benefits of Depends and denture cream, I’ll never forget my time at The Free Press.

Andrew Henry was a staff writer from Sep. 2010 to May 2012 and Perspectives Editor from Sep. 2012 to May 2013.

If you’ve spent time in an academic building’s bathroom over the course of the semester, you may have noticed that paper towel dispensers are disappearing and hand dryers are popping up, especially on the Portland campus. This is in due to an initiative by the Office of Sustainability to reduce external costs and work towards achieving carbon neutrality by 2040, as outlined in the Carbon Action Plan.

The transition to air dryers is a response to the forecast of budget cuts in the near future. Making the switch over to hand dryers has significant financial benefits. While each hand dryer costs $243.00, it only takes $36.20 for annual operation. Paper towel dispensers, on the other hand, have a low startup cost. The price to set up a new dispenser is $25.00. However, the operating cost of paper towel dispensers is much higher than hand dryers. It’s not just the cost of extra paper towels that racks up the bills – it’s paying for staff to refill dispensers and manage the thrown away towels. Restrooms at USM with paper towels tend to be messier, resulting in more resources wasted in cleaning them up. The annual cost for paper towels in 2012 was approximately $72,000.

The Harvard University Office of Sustainability in 2009 assessed the total environmental impact associated with hand dryers and paper towels. The experiment calculated the total net cost to manufacture, transport, use and dispose of paper towels and hand dryers. The assessment concluded that hand dryers used less natural and financial resources than paper towels. Because most American paper towel rolls come from well-managed commercial timberlands, where trees are replaced after harvest, the main environmental problem of paper towels isn’t deforestation. Rather, it is the greenhouse gasses released from factory machinery and log transport during manufacturing. The energy intensity in pulping, the process of turning raw timber into material, can also result in contaminated water around a processing plant.

The Office of Sustainability recognizes the uncertainties and concerns of the USM community and is dedicated to creating a campus that is friendly to the environment and convenient for those who work, study and live there. Noisy machines, one possible problem, are already being addressed. A survey of bathrooms was conducted in the fall 2012 semester that identified bathrooms where noise concerns may be present (e.g. next to an office or classroom). If you have any questions or concerns, you may e-mail ssweeney@usm.maine.edu, the resource recovery supervisor. And remember, every paper towel saved is one more step closer to achieving a sustainable campus.

Shaun Carland is a math major and a student employee with the Office of Sustainability. Shaun is also the president of Students for Environmental Awareness and Sustainability (SEAS).

“A lot of people in the city have busy schedules, and one too many things on their plates,” said Portland Public Library Team Leader Steve Weigle. “Not a lot of people have time to stop by the library. So we’re bringing the library to them.”

The goal is to bring books, audiobooks and DVDs to areas that no longer have direct access to a library. The idea of a portable library came after the city closed three branches of the library in 2010 as a cost-cutting measure. The branches on Munjoy Hill and in the West End were closed, along with the Riverton branch on outer Forest Avenue, which has recently been reopened.

“We needed a method of serving those areas, so we decided to get the bookmobile up and running as soon as we could,” said Weigle.

This isn’t the first time residents of Portland have spotted a bookmobile driving down their streets. For the better part of two decades, a lumbering, bus-sized vehicle driven by librarian Jim Charette was a common sight. But services stopped in 1993 when the vehicle broke down, and the program was suspended.

This new bookmobile is more efficient and should be on the road for a long time, said Weigle. The vehicle holds roughly 1,700 books, is powered almost completely by three solar panels on the roof and has its own Wi-Fi hotspot. It is also  equipped with a lift to help patrons with disabilities browse its stacks. According to Weigle, the vehicle was custom made by a company in Nevada that more frequently produces SWAT and emergency vehicles. The project was funded by Key Bank.

“It’s really an impressive machine.” said Weigle. “I couldn’t manage to drive it the first time without spilling a shelf of books though,” he added with a chuckle.

The main goal of the bookmobile project right now is to get library cards into the hands of children and young adults who otherwise might not set foot in a library. Along with fiction and non-fiction for adults, the bookmobile also houses plenty of books for young adults and children in its stacks.

Right now the bookmobile is only budgeted to run 20 hours each week, but Weigle hopes that someday it can be a full-time operation.

“The people of Portland are already stopping and pointing whenever we drive by,” said Weigle. “We’re off to a good start and are very optimistic.”

We know, we know – it’s cheesy, but it’s true. Looking at the front of the paper this week, you’ll see little cartoon people running up and down stairs, parachuting from picture to picture and jumping to avoid falling through the cracks. The paper’s front page this week isn’t just a recounting of this year. It’s a testament to the obstacles and successes we’ve had this year.

No denying it, we’ve felt like we were running an obstacle course from time to time this year. Starting the year off with no more than three returning staff, with little to no training, we really had no idea what we were doing, and now, when we look back on some of our first issues, we laugh at the awkward layout, the typos and the poorly written ledes. There were those nights, at 3 a.m. hunched over a news desk littered with red-marked proofs, when we felt like we couldn’t do it anymore, and getting up the next morning for that 8 a.m. budget meeting was like trying to wake up the dead. There were those weeks when the only way we could get sustenance was by squirting some Tabasco on a three-day-old slice of pizza before running out the door.

But somehow, we did it. Somehow, we managed to end the year on a note of success, and we’re hoping that you did, too. Despite all of the ups and downs, the twists and turns, we all learned something. We learned not to eat the pizza after five days, not to put that story off until the last minute, not to lose our notes. We learned that we can accomplish something meaningful. It’s been a pleasure bringing you the news, USM.

You’d think after founding the Black Eyed Peas, releasing three previous solo albums, winning seven Grammy Awards and being given the position of creative director of innovation at Intel Corporation that will.i.am could make some good, interesting music, but he can’t seem to do it in this album.

#willpower is simply a collection of bass dropping, electropop club tracks, laden with Auto-tune and recycled drum tracks. It’s the perfect album to throw on if you’re hosting a party, have a boring, narrow taste in dance music and everyone is already blackout drunk when they arrive. The world needs music like this, yes, but that’s what we have masked 14-year-old boys with a cracked version of Fruity Loops and a Youtube account for.

Want to know what songs you should check out? Just look for whatever Top 40 pop star you’re already in love with and listen to whichever song they’re on. will.i.am packed this album with a star-studded team to guarantee it’d stay on the charts while he goes back to being a judge on The Voice. #willpower features Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Chris Brown and Justin Bieber. Needless to say, these songs will make up the majority of the next Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. There are 13 featured artists on 18 tracks. It’s almost as if he was trying to disguise how bad this album was with hot artists.

On top of that, the lyrics are absolutely laughable. It’d be more enjoyable to listen to the album not knowing English than to hear will.i.am rapping or singing about how “tonight is the night” or drinking too much at a rave. The album’s opening track “Good Morning” is actually really interesting. “When life gets tough, remember we were never born to die” sings will.i.am over a soft ambient synth, “Good morning, wake up and live the life / And don’t forget to dream the dreams.” And after you wake up, you’re apparently supposed to spend all day in the club. It’s an interesting introduction but the rest of the album fails to follow through.

If you’re looking for some impersonal escapist fun to get drunk to over the summer, will.i.am is your man. But if you’re looking for something meaningful, don’t think twice about this album. Don’t even make a joke about his name or Twitter. Trust me, it won’t end well.

As sucessful as will.i.am has become, I think we all need to remember that he made one of his first paychecks off a song titled “Let’s Get Retarded.” Think about it. I’m looking at you, Intel.