Trip
PRESQUE ISLE – Four University of Maine at Presque Isle students are heading out on the learning opportunity of a lifetime this week as part of an International Service Learning and Social Work experience.
Kasey Knowles, Skowhegan, senior behavioral science student; Laura Long, Blaine, senior social work student; Jessica Plant, Perth Andover, NB, junior social work student; and Tia Shaw, Perth Andover, NB, senior social work student, leave on Feb. 13 for their Guatemala Service Learning Project.
The four will travel with Social Work Professor Shirley Rush to Guatemala to spend a week in and around Quetzaltenango, serving as volunteers in community development projects throughout the region. They will be doing renovation work at a kindergarten building in Xela, the indigenous term for the town of Quetzaltenango. They will be among a group of 22 volunteers, who come from all over the U.S. and range in age from 7 to 70, participating in the week of service in Xela.
The inspiration for the trip came following a social work trip to the United Nations and Fordham University in spring 2008. Students have worked since May 2008 to research and develop the project, create a fund-raising strategy and execute these activities. The cost of the trip, not including faculty advisor expenses, was estimated at just under $12,000 based on the cost of program participation (they are working with a volunteer program called Cross Cultural Solutions), transportation, lodging, immunizations, passports and insurance. Students were asked to do equal amounts of individual fund-raising, collective fund-raising, and grant writing and scholarships to pay for the trip.
A potluck and blessing for the project will be held the day before the group’s departure, on Thursday, Feb. 12, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in CC 118. All are welcome to attend.
After their return, students intend to present their experiences at the NASW Maine Conference in Rockland, to be held in April 2009. They will also present at University Day.
In April, the group also hopes to host a Guatemala “fiesta.” The event is expected to include a public forum, including a book discussion, students’ feedback about their activities in Guatemala, as well as food, music and photos.
“Our idea is to say thank you to the campus and community for all the support we have received,” Rush said.
For more information about this trip, contact Rush at 768-9427.
UMPI’s newest art professor offers exhibition gallery
PRESQUE ISLE – The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will showcase the work of the University’s newest Fine Art professor with an exhibit that focuses on the “personal community” she has created since moving to northern Maine.
Renee Felini’s installation Creating Community will be on display from Feb. 2 through March 6 in the Reed Gallery. A closing reception for the exhibit will be held on Friday, March 6, from 5-7 p.m.
Creating Community is a gathering of objects and creations by Felini representing her family’s sense of “personal community” since their arrival in northern Maine.
Felini has close ties to the County. Her mother is from Fort Kent and her father is from the Bronx. Every summer as a child, she and her five siblings would visit relatives in northern Maine. In 2001, she returned to the area to work on a horse farm in Portage. Every summer since, she and her now husband Tim Bair made a trip to the County, and in 2005, they married on the shores of Eagle Lake.
When Felini and her husband moved to northern Maine from Ohio, their family consisted of two dogs and a cat, along with their household possessions. Since then, Felini has taught art courses at UMPI and, this spring takes on a one-year appointment with the Fine Art Faculty as long-time Fine Art Professor Clifton Boudman prepares to retire.
“I am excited for the opportunity to work at UMPI because it will make it possible for Tim and I to remain in the area and continue with my art,” Felini said.
Felini graduated from the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio, with a BFA in 2003 and from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with an MFA in 2005.
Her show focuses on the objects that are acquired over the years to fill a house, to make it a home – or a personal community – and how those objects take on new significance when people work to create a new home and space.
“In an area that can isolate an individual, we create our own little world within our home, where all our ‘friends’ gather and cohabitate,” Felini said.
The public is invited to view Felini’s show and attend her closing reception. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The gallery is closed Sundays and university holidays. For more information, call 768-9611.
NASA astronaut visits UMPI
PRESQUE ISLE – Campus and community members will learn all about journeying to the stars when the University hosts a NASA astronaut and space shuttle commander in March as part of its Distinguished Lecturer Series.
Pamela Melroy (Colonel, USAF, retired) has served as a NASA astronaut since 1995 and has participated in three space flights, logging more than 900 hours (more than 38 days) in space and helping to conduct important assembly work for the International Space Station. She will speak on “Human Spaceflight — Shuttle, International Space Station and Beyond” at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 9, in the Campus Center. All are encouraged to attend. During her visit to Maine, Melroy will speak with students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics and the Central Aroostook Junior/Senior High School.
Melroy completed a 13-day flight in 2000 aboard the space shuttle Discovery, a 10-day flight in 2002 aboard Atlantis, and a 15-day flight, on which she served as shuttle commander, in 2007, again on the space shuttle Discovery. On her 2000 and 2002 flights, she served as the shuttle pilot. She will speak about her missions, her work as commander of a shuttle, and spacewalking, robotics and living in space.
Melroy graduated from Bishop Kearney High School in Rochester, N.Y., in 1979. She earned her bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from Wellesley College in 1983 and her master of science degree in earth and planetary sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984.
She was commissioned through the Air Force ROTC program in 1983. After completing her master’s degree, she attended undergraduate pilot training at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas, and was graduated in 1985. She flew the KC-10 for six years at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, La., as a co-pilot, aircraft commander and instructor pilot.
Melroy is a veteran of Just Cause and Desert Shield/Desert Storm, with over 200 combat and combat support hours. In June 1991, she attended the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Upon her graduation, she was assigned to the C-17 Combined Test Force, where she served as a test pilot until her selection for the astronaut program in 1994. Following training and evaluation, she was assigned astronaut support duties for launch and landing and worked on advanced projects for the Astronaut Office. She later served on the Columbia Reconstruction Team as the lead for the crew module. She retired from the Air Force in February 2007.
Melroy has logged over 5,000 hours of flight time in over 50 different aircraft and has received several medals for her service. She is the recipient of the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; Air Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; Aerial Achievement Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster; and Expeditionary Medal, First Oak Leaf Cluster.
The University’s Distinguished Lecture Series was established in 1999. Each year, the UDLS Committee sponsors five to six speakers who come from Maine and other states representing a range of disciplines and viewpoints. While the emphasis tends to be on featuring visiting academics, it is not exclusively so. The speakers typically spend two days at the University meeting with classes and presenting a community lecture.
For more information about Melroy’s visit, contact the Media Relations Office at 768-9452.
Melroy
