Schools

Hermon JROTC

HERMON – The Hermon High School Junior ROTC will honor veterans with a recognition night during the girls varsity and the junior varsity basketball games with Foxcroft Academy on Tuesday, Jan. 30, at Hermon High School. Veterans will be admitted free during the JV game at 5:30 p.m. and the varsity game at 7 p.m.

The Junior ROTC will present a drill demonstration at half-time during the varsity game.

John Bapst Memorial High School

BANGOR – When he heard that the Sylvan Learning Center was awarding two $250 grants each month during the school year for innovative learning units, John Bapst mathematics teacher Brendan Murphy quickly submitted an application.

His winning proposal, “Forestry Management: Calculating Cords of Firewood per Acre,” outlines a unit of study using data collection, data conversion and manipulation, and decision-making.

Murphy said, “In this unit, students survey and sample a representative section of forestry land and extrapolate the data to quantify cords of firewood-per-acre of typical localized forestry lands, usually found within walking distance of many schools in Maine. After surveying a 37-foot radius of forestry land, students measure and record each tree with a diameter greater than 5 inches. They estimate the height of each surveyed tree using various techniques and record that data as well. When the plot of land has been accurately surveyed and measured, students return to the classroom to quantify their data. They convert their data to usable volume of cubic feet and ultimately to cords of firewood.”

Murphy’s proposal went on to explain that depending upon the age group and skill levels of students, the math component could be modified from somewhat complex to reasonably easy. Students see firsthand how they can translate math knowledge to the real world to make intelligent decisions using relatively little data.

Depending on the age group of the students the project could be team-taught with the school’s science department and could transition into numerous topics such as clear-cutting, hardwood vs. softwood comparisons and selective harvesting.

“This project is easy and inexpensive to do and students enjoy the fact that they can go ‘out into the field’ to do their math,” Murphy said.

The $250 grant money will be used to purchase graphing calculators for students.

More information about John Bapst is available at www.johnbapst.org.

Old Town High School

OLD TOWN – Attorney General Steven Rowe announced that the Maine Civil Rights Team Project has received a donation of $1,000 from the Maine Women’s Fund on behalf of Denise Renee St. Peter of Old Town. The project is administered through the Maine Office of the Attorney General.

St. Peter was honored with the Maine Women’s Fund Award for Young Women for her work to change her school’s harassment policy to include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students. As part of that honor she received $1,000 to donate to a Maine organization that helps improve the lives of women and girls.

St. Peter said she chose to donate the money to the Civil Rights Team Project because “the CRTP teaches students how to facilitate change in their school. If someone is going to make a difference in how young people treat each other, it is going to be young people.”

“I would like to publicly thank both Ms. St. Peter and the Maine Women’s Fund for their generous contribution. The Civil Rights Team Project is a valuable tool in the effort to create safer Maine schools where all students can learn and grow, regardless of their differences,” Rowe said.

Denise St. Peter graduated in 2006 from Old Town High School, where she served as president of the school’s Civil Rights Team Project. She is a freshman at Tufts University, where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in international relations. St. Peter also was awarded a scholarship from Equality Maine. After college she plans to serve in the Peace Corps before attending graduate school to pursue a master’s or law degree.

“Denise has repeatedly shown herself to be a leader in the area of civil rights,” Rowe said. “Her passionate commitment to ending bias-based violence and harassment in Maine schools serves as an example of the values, attitudes and behaviors that the school civil rights teams work toward.

On Jan. 15, we celebrated the life of a man who dedicated himself to the cause of civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ With leaders such as Ms. St. Peter, we are assured that there continues to exist a voice for those things that matter.”

The $1,000 donation will be used to bring presenters and-or speakers to the 2007 Statewide Civil Rights Team Conference in May. These speakers will address civil rights issues that are of particular importance to young girls and women. Any remaining funds will be used to provide project teams with resources related those issues.

The mission of the project is to increase the safety of high school, middle school and elementary school students and to reduce the incidence of bias-motivated harassment and violence in Maine’s schools. Since the inception of the project in 1996, the number of schools participating has grown from 18 to 215.

A civil rights team consists of a faculty adviser, 10 to 12 students and a community adviser. Each fall, teams join in regional training where they develop team-building skills, learn about civil rights and the Civil Rights Act, and learn how they as a team can effect change at their school. An annual statewide conference allows teams to interact and share experiences relating to civil rights.

The Maine Women’s Fund is an organization dedicated to achieving political, economic and social equality for women and girls in Maine.

Colleges

Dartmouth College

HANOVER, N.H. – Lauren Hartz of Hampden, a Dartmouth College student in the class of 2009, studied linguistics in Auckland, New Zealand, during the winter term as part of the college’s foreign study program. She is the daughter of Charles and Janet Hartz.

Western New England College

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Joseph M. Carmichael, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering at Western New England College, was named to the fall dean’s list with a 3.75 GPA. He is a 2006 graduate of Hermon High School.

Carmichael was a member of the team that placed second in the Introduction to Engineering challenge to build a search-and-rescue robot out of LEGO blocks capable of navigating an obstacle course and locating an emergency beacon light.

Philosophy Colloquium Lecture Series at UM

ORONO – The University of Maine Philosophy Department has announced speakers for its spring 2007 Philosophy Colloquium Lecture Series, a semi-annual program that invites leading authorities to lecture and discuss philosophical theory, analysis and practice.

Lectures are free, open to the public and held at 4 p.m. Thursdays in the Levinson Room of the Maples building on the Orono campus, unless otherwise noted. The series is funded in part by a grant from the Cultural Affairs-DLS committee. For additional information, call professor Doug Allen, colloquium coordinator, at 581-3860 or e-mail douglas.allen@umit.maine.edu.

. Feb. 1: “Aesthetics and Community,” with Arnold Berleant, professor emeritus at Long Island University and Castine resident who is active in philosophy and music. He is a past president of the International Association of Aesthetics, editor of the journal Contemporary Aesthetics and author of six books and numerous scholarly articles.

. Feb. 8: “Gandhi’s Philosophical Approach: Violence, Nonviolence and Peace Education,” with Doug Allen, professor of philosophy, past president of the International Society of Asian and Comparative Philosophy, author of 11 books and editor of the forthcoming “The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi for the Twenty-First Century.”

. Feb. 22: “The Experience of Home and the Space of Citizenship,” with Kirsten Jacobson, assistant professor of philosophy, a specialist on 19th and 20th century continental philosophy and environmental philosophy. Her lecture will draw on the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

. March 29: “Rawls’ Notion of the Separateness of the Person,” with Iwao Hirose, Japanese philosopher and research fellow at University College, Oxford University, and now Harvard. Hirose specializes in ethical theory, political philosophy and philosophy of economics. He also will speak on “Primary Health Care and the Market Mechanism” at 12:30 p.m. that day in Bangor Room of the Memorial Union.

. April 12: “Gandhi’s Legacy: Is Gandhi’s Philosophy Still Relevant?” with Bhikhu Parekh, Indian philosopher and political theorist who is the 2007 Philosophy Distinguished Visiting Scholar. A member of the House of Lords in England, he is world-renowned author of “Rethinking Multiculturalism, Global Terrorism, and Gandhi’s Political Philosophy.” His program is at 7 p.m. in 100 Donald P. Corbett Business Building. Parekh also will speak on “Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx” at 12:30 p.m. that day in the Bangor Room, Memorial Union.

University of Maine

ORONO – Recognizing faculty strength in academic areas related to policy and international affairs, the University of Maine has created a new interdisciplinary structure to foster and encourage increased collaboration and scholarly activity in those fields.

The School of Policy and International Affairs was unveiled on Wednesday during a reception at the president’s house on the UM campus.

“Changes in the worldwide economy have had a significant impact on Maine,” said UM President Robert Kennedy. “Our state’s future will depend on leaders who understand the ways in which policy changes of all kinds affect Maine’s role in international affairs and business. The School of Policy and International Affairs will improve UMaine’s ability to apply its collective expertise to helping define the relevant issues and create solutions.”

The school will include faculty members from a broad range of academic disciplines, bringing expertise in areas including international policy, economic policy, environmental policy and international relations. UM has had significant recent success in developing similar interdisciplinary organizations where faculty members with similar interests can share ideas and collaborate in teaching and research. Examples include UMaine’s Climate Change Institute, School of Marine Sciences, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Honors College.

Prof. John Mahon, the John M. Murphy Chair of International Business Policy and Strategy at UM, has been named the schools’s director.

“UMaine is always looking for ways to maximize its positive impact on its students and the state we serve,” Mahon said. “SPIA will provide a strong foundation on which we can develop a higher national profile in policy studies while increasing opportunities for externally funded research. Our students and the people of Maine will benefit in tangible ways.”

UM’s William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce will be a cornerstone of the school. In March, the Cohen Center will co-host, with the National Defense University, a Washington, D.C., conference on the subject of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Named for the former U.S. senator and secretary of defense from Bangor, the Cohen Center is now in its 10th year at UM.

“As we approach this milestone anniversary, I am very pleased that the Cohen Center will occupy a central role in the new school,” Kennedy said. “It is a significant asset which helps set UMaine apart from other institutions, and it has vast potential to help us achieve our goal of developing one of the top international affairs and policy schools in the U.S. Our faculty have that level of expertise, and this new structure will help us move forward very quickly.”