With its elegant fireplaces, hardwood floors sweeping views of Casco Bay and antique d?cor, it’s hard to believe that R?-R?’s (Irish Gaelic for fun and merriment), Portland’s new Irish pub, was once a fish packing plant gutted by fire. “I came to see it last year,” said Angela Grogan, a manager at R?-R?. “There was…
Author: USM
Sex, STDs, and college students:
One in five people in the United States has a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Two-thirds of these STDs occur in people 25 years old or younger, with one in four new infections occurring in teenagers. Yet, in spite of the hard facts and all of the mainstream information about testing and protection, only one-third of…
Health Beat
Sheera LaBelle, R.N. University Health Services The more time you spend at your computer, the more you owe it to yourself to pay attention to factors that may help reduce stress and maintain your health. Here are some good starting tips: oAvoid eye strain by reducing glare. Turn off your terminal to identify glare sources….
The ties that bind
Stepping through the doors of any one of USM’s fraternities, one sees a worn-down building in which a group of young men live. But the worn areas are the marks of bonds and timeless friendships that make this structure a home to the brotherhoods which inhabit them. Fraternities at USM include Kappa Delta Phi, Phi…
Meet Joe Student
What’s your name? Sarah Byrnes Where is your home town? Camden, Maine. What’s your major? I’m a senior art education major. Why did you decide to attend USM? I started out at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), and then moved on the Maine College of Art (MECA), and finally arrived at…
Habitat for Humanity
Seventy-eight miles away in Daytona Beach, college students were sunning and sinning by the dozen, but in Melbourne, Fla., the word of the day was “service.” A group of 20 USM community members led by Andrea Thompson McCall, the associate director for Student Activities and Community Service and Student Coordinator Eric C. Smith spent spring…
The Free Press keeps winning
When it rains it pours. The Free Press recently won three awards at a regional conference in Boston. Just over a month ago, the paper brought back five awards from a national convention in New York. The Boston conference, sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press, judged college publications from Pennsylvania,…
Center hopes to bring religions together in post-Holocaust study
Abraham Peck’s parents were married in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland and were separated six months later-his father to a work camp and his mother to Auschwitz. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Peck’s mother searched for her husband and found him. Alive. Soon after, Peck was born in a displaced persons camp in Landsberg,…
University passes accreditation assessment
A committee from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) praised USM for strength, candor, passion and commitment after spending last week on campus assessing the University for reaccreditation. “Every 10 years all colleges and universities are evaluated by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education,” said Bob Goettel, executive assistant to the…
Getting ahead of violence
USM freshman Danielle Askin-Goodwin sat on the panel alongside some Portland High School students. The group discussed stories of school violence both in Maine and around the country, while some of the students shared insights into what can be done to prevent violence. “When you hear someone using degrading, homophobic, racist, or any form of…
Senior college gets $2.2 million
A California businessman recently donated the largest cash gift in University history to USM’s Senior College. The gift prompted President Pattenaude to rename the Senior College after donor and Maine native Bernard Osher, as “The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.” The $2.2 million gift will allow the college to improve the academic programs now being utilized…
04/09/01
Pledge break An anonymous caller to WMPG who threatened to break some of the station’s windows early on Friday morning did just that to three of them later that morning. The person called a WMPG deejay around 3:30 a.m. on April 6 during the station’s fundraising drive. According to a USM Police dispatcher’s report, the…
Senate Update
Guest Speaker USM Police Chief Lisa Beecher addressed the Senate with an overview of this year’s police activity and entertained questions from senators. Beecher announced that there have been an average of 40 criminal cases each month at the University. Although she was not familiar with exact numbers, she estimates that the crime rate at…
Letters to the editor…
Cartoonist responds To the Editor: I just read your editorial in The Free Press this week and the cover article by Steve Peoples “Cartoon Prompts Community Outrage.” I believe it is true that critics of my cartoon cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. Nancy Gish in particular, USM’s illustrious professor of English and women’s studies,…
What I really want to know
It’s that time of year when classes are winding down. All those projects and papers that they assigned on the first day of classes (and that you have forgotten about until now) are due in the next two weeks, you can barely sit through class because it’s sixty degrees and sunny outside, and worst of…
Fee increases need a closer look
University officials want to increase fees for students next year. While parking and Student Conduct Committee fees are understandable, the proposal to increase the recreation fee should not be approved without further explanation to the students. Parking decals will go from $25 to $35 and parking tickets will go from $10 to $25. In a…
Cows take over Pattenaude’s lawn
A herd of eight wooden heifers mysteriously appeared on the lawn of the president’s house overnight last week. Michelle Pattenaude, wife of President Richard Pattenaude, said she received a phone call last Thursday evening informing her the bovine gang would arrive at their Gorham campus house under cover of darkness. When she woke the next…
Senate election draws fewer voters
Only 436 students out of 6,000 voted last week at the Student Senate elections. The number of ballots cast is down 195 votes in comparison to last year. “We had a pretty good voter turnout, a little under 7 percent. But, I guess that was a little disappointing,” said Elizabeth Whitman, the chair of the…
Debate shifts to First Amendment
Though the campus may have been quiet over spring break, the University became a battleground for a heated debate on the First Amendment. Members of the University community bombarded the USM Listserv with angry e-mails regarding a recent decision to stop the Casco Bay Weekly from being delivered to the Woodbury Campus Center. Director of…
Provost orders data destroyed
Provost Joe Wood ordered a psychology professor to destroy the data he collected in violation of federal guidelines. The decision came after nearly two months of investigation into the research methods of John Broida, associate professor of psychology. “In effect the data has been destroyed,” said Wood. “I felt this was an appropriate decision to…
Students shell out
Look out lawbreakers and recreation lovers. Starting in the fall of 2001, the University will be collecting higher fees for parking and recreation, and will introduce a new administrative fee for students who go through the Student Conduct Committee. Judy Ryan, vice president of the Division of Student Development, presented the updated fees to the…
Portland Student Life/Casco Bay Weekly
To the Editors: I am writing to publicly thank Helen Gorgas-Goulding and Portland Student Life for protecting my interests by removing the Casco Bay Weekly from distribution on campus. After reading the ridiculous cartoons that spawned all the outrage, I found to my dismay and horror that I had actually started thinking. I began thinking…
My thoughts on Casco Bay Weekly
Matt Mower Now considering this most recent and pointless, stupid cartoon, I hope people will now share some of my observations that I have had for quite awhile. The Casco Bay Weekly is the biggest pile of monkey crap ever to be dressed up pretending to be legitimate news fit to print. For those protesting…
Students shell out
Look out lawbreakers and recreation lovers. Starting in the fall of 2001, the University will be collecting higher fees for parking and recreation, and will introduce a new administrative fee for students who go through the Student Conduct Committee. Judy Ryan, vice president of the Division of Student Development, presented the updated fees to the…