This week’s paper and a handful of events in the past week have reminded me how difficult it is to be a student and a journalist at the same time.
I’m not talking about the scheduling conflicts between a 60-hour workweek at the Free Press and a full course load – I’m talking about the various potential conflicts of interest with which student journalists grapple when they write about the university with which their lives are entwined.
By threatening the suspension of 26 academic programs, interim Provost Mark Lapping was trying to “light a campfire.”
Fires, indeed, have been lit.
Computer science came up with an inch-high stack of documentation supporting their program. Physics and chemistry students all but rioted.
An important and historic member of the USM community, Richard “Doc” Costello, passed away last Monday at the age of 79 in his Gorham home after battling cancer.
Born in 1928 in Burlington, NJ, he came in 1953 to what was then Gorham State Teachers College as a physical education teacher and assistant coach.
Dreaming and designing
“This is going to look just right,” says Elissa Levin as she wraps a navy blue sash around her body and skips a couple steps across her hardwood living room floor, which is covered in pieces of fabric.
It’s just after midnight, three days before the WMPG fashion show benefit, and the 22-year-old political science major is busy putting the finishing touches on a piece that she’s designed for the event, held last Friday at the SPACE gallery.
I appreciate Dustin Gilbert’s portrait of Dean Scontras’ candidacy for US Congress.
I am unaware of an effort made by Mr. Scontras to come to USM, as many other candidates have done, but I feel his presence would facilitate an exchange of ideas beneficial to the entire USM community.
A Jew and a Muslim walked into an auditorium.
And they had a conversation. No joke. For an audience of more than 700, the two men spoke of building bridges between their grandchildren in a world where the fight over Israel has driven them apart.
Akbar Ahmed and Judea Pearl have been touring the world for the past five years acting as conduits for a dialogue between two religions that desperately need to talk.
This semester, Eric Favreau took over as president of the USM Outing Club, one of the university’s most active student organizations.
The group, which has an email list-serv of nearly 500 students, has grown by “leaps and bounds,” he says, but he admits that implementing his larger vision for it is sometimes a struggle.
April 14
If you’ve got kids, siblings, or friends who never quite grew up, you might just enjoy a family concert by Matt Loosigian, which is part of the Week of the Young Child. This event is sponsored by the USM Child and Family Centers. 4:30 to 5:15 p.m.
Dear Free Press,
This letter is in response to “Don’t believe the hype around Democrats” published on April 7.
First and foremost I would like to thank you for allowing Mr. Gilbert to contribute to our school newspaper. It is very important for a publication such as The Free Press to contain varying view points, different ideas, and suggestions which allow its readers to obtain different perspectives on a myriad of issues.
Three USM students are concerned about genocide in Darfur.
Well, perhaps there are more than three, but in a year when involved students seem to be less involved than usual, and facing a lack of general knowledge about what’s happening in Darfur, three are trying to reenergize a student group dedicated to the issue.
The Huskies improved to an impressive 15-7 after a busy week, earning three wins in their last four games. A robust offense delivered 41 runs over the four-game week, with the defense keeping opponents in check by allowing only 24 runs.
On Wednesday against Husson College, an offensive battle went the Huskies’ way as the hot bat of sophomore Chris Burleson (Portland) lit up on Husson’s pitching, earning him four runs, including two doubles and a triple.
As I write this column, which was due about two hours ago, I am a stressed out student. I know I am not alone.
The semester is coming to an end, the rest fiercely uphill.
On top of my classes and an independent study, the $250 speeding ticket I got a few days ago isn’t sitting well with my empty pocket book, and I’m attempting to figure out my summer.
I am a minority. When I go into a class where I know politics will be discussed, I usually come braced for debate.
In an American government class last semester, however, I wanted to see what would be discussed if I didn’t make my conservative presence known.
Ben Taylor could just wait in the wings for his term to begin.
After the announcement of his landslide victory in last month’s student government elections, Taylor could just kick up his heels on the Student Senate desk in the campus center office. He could coast until next semester, patting himself on the back for earning 44 percent of the vote and enjoy a nice, stress-free month.
I know a few Huskies who are looking for a good home. This isn’t a classified ad: they play baseball, softball and lacrosse. Their fields, wet and brown, are so far unplayable.
After the long snowy winter and with fields that take forever to dry, our athletes have been forced to travel all over — to play their home games.
As a deaf child, Wayne Betts Jr. watched E.T. for the first time, and knew instantly that he would be a filmmaker.
After years of education, including time at Rochester Institution of Technology’s School of Film and Animation, he has reached his lifelong goal.
How long have you been in Maine?
Since the early 1970’s. I moved here immediately after graduating (undergrad) and was part of the back-to-the-land movement, and built a little place out in the woods.
A place in the woods?
That was a time when people were disillusioned with the Vietnam War, and there were a lot of young people throughout the country moving to rural areas.
A local radio station is enticing its listeners with encouragement for its latest contest: “What will it take to stimulate your economy? A new television or maybe free gas for a year?”
Everywhere you turn, the buzz of recession is eminent.
Talk of an economic slump is all over news headlines; “jobs slashed” and “pointing to a recession” have become commonplace.
“Gas prices have affected how much I drive, but the shuttle bus is helpful. Traveling internationally is getting harder because the U.S. dollar isn’t worth as much because of adjusting exchange rates in Europe.” Miranda-May Beaubien, Sophomore Environmental Science “I don’t really pay attention to that stuff.
Year: Senior
Major: Health Sciences
Sport: Softball
FP: How long have you been playing softball?
Kristina: Since I was 9 years old.
FP: Did you fall in love with it right from the start, or did someone push you towards it along the way?
Kristina: When I first started out playing, my parents said that I didn’t like it, but about a year went by (without playing) and I got back into it and started playing on a little league team and as I got older I played ASA ball (and) it became my favorite sport.
It is, in fact, a small world.
And with the many options available through international and domestic study abroad programs at USM, traveling that world has never been more convenient.
Each year, hundreds of students go through a somewhat lengthy process to apply to study in other parts of the world.
Baseball
4/6 – Rhode Island College 3, USM 1
4/6 – USM 7, Rhode Island College 1
4/9 – USM 11, Husson 10
4/10 – USM 13, Salem State 2
4/11 – USM 4, Eastern Connecticut 2
4/11 – Eastern Connecticut 9, USM 6
Softball
4/10 – USM 8, Salem State 7
4/10 – US
Latvia
Brianna Allen, a senior art major at USM, was abroad last spring. For the price of USM tuition, she studied in Riga, Latvia. She says the insight she gained academically, culturally and personally was “exponential.”
Her first impression: “it’s cold.
UMass Dartmouth always proves to be a season-deciding opponent for the women’s lacrosse team. The Huskies and the Corsairs usually end up as the middle pair in the Little East Conference, and have met each other for the first round of play-offs three of the last four years.