Following in the tradition of Charles Darwin 150 years ago with his groundbreaking theory of evolution, USM grad student Erik Pietrowicz is embarking on a year-long project along with scientists from around the world to promote evolutionary sciences. The results will be posted on a blog to be set up in the near future.
Puzzle Answers
Sudoku & crossword puzzle answers for 3/2.
Seek the peak
Take next week’s break from class and study hard on the slopes. Check out the rankings below for Maine and New England’s best skiing options.
We set up three different classes:
Casual Skier – you love a nice day at the mountain but you just don’t have the time
Moderately Serious Skier – a regular day tripper, good for 20 days a year
Full-On Chargers – you can’t count your days per year, you’ll chase any snow storm anywhere, you know who you are.
Out with the old, in with the crew
The opening reception was crowded with old friends, students and colleagues. As Portland’s Channel Six attempted to get a few words with Juris Ubans, aglow in suit and tie and standing taller than the camera man, he kept interrupting the interview, surprised as another familiar face brushed by,
“Oh Hello!” Juris belted, ignoring the camera and energetically shaking hands with a former student who had returned to USM for the art show, a retrospective exhibit of the work and history of Juris over his long career.
USM scholarship deadline Feb 27
The average student working fast food might be able to pull down $8 an hour. Add a couple bucks to that pay rate if you are toiling away in retail at the Mall. Waiters might make off with some hefty tips, but there is an easier way to dent that USM tuition bill than flipping burgers, folding clothes, or balancing trays.
USM to shut down day care
In an update posted on her website on Feb 4, USM President Selma Botman announced that the University will shut down its Child and Family Centers on August 14.
The school’s childcare program employs 24 staff members and serves 88 children from infancy to age 5.
Ice fishing: a Maine landscape
Drive by any lake or pond this time of year and you’re likely to find a hamlet of ice shacks spotting the pristine white surface of the water. Bustling from shanty to shanty, people swap stories, venison and overall good times.
Last weekend I had the chance to head back home (Bangor) and throw some traps in a local pond.
Not taken for Grant-ed
Travis Grant, a costume designer and theater major at USM, has created many of the wardrobes seen on the Russell Theater stage. It was Grant’s ten designs for last spring’s play, “Last Easter,” that got the attention of a Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) respondent.
USM Community Arts Gala
AmeriCorps Service Leader Rachel Church is wielding the power of creative expression as a tool for community work.
This year, she has launched the USM Community Arts Initiative (CAI). The CAI mobilizes students of the arts to take on community issues of Greater Portland with their paintbrushes, cameras, voices, choreography and other media.
Parents push for reprieve on daycare closing
“We’ve had plenty of parents approach us that if this place closes, they won’t continue to take classes here,” says Jane Dean.
Morin leads historic Huskies
The USM wrestling team entered the 2008-2009 with justifiably high expectations.
Out of 95 NCAA school offering NCAA Division III in the country, USM boasted an incoming recruiting class ranking within the top-five.
The incoming class, coupled with a core of standout returning wrestlers including five NCAA All New England Athletes, three NCAA New England Finalists, and three NCAA New England Champion/NCAA National Qualifiers formed a team with historically good potential.
“A great kick” in the snowpants
A bowl of hearty chili spiked with sweat inducing spices is a welcome dish in the midst of any chilly month; especially one with a Superbowl in it. As a first time chili maker, I took an opportunity to send a container to my son at UMO (for critique and, hopefully, enjoyment).
The Informative T.E.D.
You know how it seems as if some lectures end way too quickly? Yeah well, me either, but if you feel like a little extracurricular mind-expansion, your options are not limited to the fine USM faculty, or schedule one narcotics.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference, being held this week in southern California.
EYE’ll be back
At last Fridays monthly meeting, the USM Faculty Senate voted to reinstate the Entry Year Experience (EYE) requirement for next year’s crop of incoming freshmen. This reverses the decision made by the senate during its Dec 5th meeting, when they agreed to postpone the requirement until 2010.
Students, bookstore grapple with prices
“Text books have always been expensive,” says USM student JJ Brewer outside the Portland branch of the USM Bookstore.Coping with the cost has been made easier recently by his professors who have chose more affordable texts, he said.
“I just bought this one for seventeen bucks, so I’m not complaining,” Brewer said.
Sled the day away
Sometimes getting outside isn’t about finding a new activity or reinventing the wheel for that extra jolt of excitement. When your in the middle of the winter in Maine and your energy levels are getting lower each day, sometimes all it takes to get you outside is a past-time that you haven’t done in years.
Travis Grant
Award winning costume designer, Travis Grant took the time to answer some questions with The Free Press’s Kathleen Wilber
Free Press: What is your major and concentration?
Travis Grant: I am a fourth year Theater major originally from Waldoboro, ME.
FP: How did you get into costume design?
TG: I started by assisting a volunteer costume designer in high school, which in turn led to outside work with community theater, and eventually branched out into semi-professional and professional work.
New book honors Maine immigrants’ stories
The Women and Gender Studies Program (WGS), in collaboration with Multicultural Student Affairs at USM will be holding their Annual Women’s History Month Dinner, which recognizes and honors the students, staff, faculty, and community members who have contributed to the program’s success.
Battle of the bars
Sometimes enjoying your favorite pint in the comfort of home isn’t enough. Sometimes it’s just plain better to belly-up to the bar and enjoy a fresh ale. But, if you’re a craft-beer nut like me, it can be tough to find a place that couples the right atmosphere with a robust selection of beers at a decent price.
Review: PMA Backstage Pass: Rock & Roll Photography
The Portland Museum of Art’s current photography exhibit, Backstage Pass: Rock & Roll Photography, is a reasonably comprehensive glance at the pop musicians of the second half of the twentieth century as cultural icons.
The featured photographs do not show musicians at work.
A bite with Botman
USM President Selma Botman followed through on a promise that she made in a campus-wide email, and held her first informal lunch meeting with students last Tuesday in the Woodbury Campus Center.
At the lunch, Botman provided some insight to students in attendance regarding her plans for the future of USM.
Coming soon to a theater near you
April showers bring May movies? Not really.but “Terminator Salvation” does come to the silver screen. I am not personally a huge Sci-fi fan or James Cameron fan, but seeing how the latter is missing from this endless saga, it does seem promising. Having the most sought after man in Hollywood right now, Christian Bale, play a post-Judgment Day John Connor doesn’t seem to hurt either.
It’s a grace (only bodies can impart)
On the night of Saturday, Jan 31, the Gorham campus was graced by the beautiful folk music of USM resident Jakob Battick with his friends (Mark Dennis, Milo Moyer-Battick, Jesse Meuner, Wade Linebaugh, Ryan Higgins) and Biddeford-based duo South China in the Hastings Formal Lounge.
USM to close Child Care Centers
In an update posted on her website, USM President Selma Botman announced that the University will shut down its Child Care Centers on August 14.
In Botman’s newsletter, “The 21st-century USM,” she calls the decision “excruciating” but necessary.
“We have provided a $400,000 annual subsidy to the child care program, a subsidy we regrettably can no longer afford,” Botman stated in the newsletter.