Schools

John Bapst Memorial High School

BANGOR – In an area as individualized as painting, students in John Bapst Memorial High School’s painting class have been trying out a team approach to the creative process – all while exploring painting techniques in watercolors and acrylics.

Working with John Bapst art teacher Melissa Burns, the students completed a collaborative art project, each reproducing a section of a painting by German artist Albrecht D?rer, 1471-1528.

Burns explained the technique they used: “The painting was divided into nine equal sections and each of the students worked independently to reproduce their section. They then collaborated to make sure their piece matched with the surrounding pieces through object drawing and color matching. The result is breathtaking.”

The finished piece will be on display at the school’s Winter Art Show, scheduled for 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 10, in the John Bapst Auditorium at 100 Broadway.

The show also will feature the work of student artists in the John Bapst drawing, advanced art and advanced placement studio art classes. The public is invited to attend, and admission is free.

College Goal Sunday

College Goal Sunday at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27, is a free event to provide parents and students of all ages with assistance in completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form – required for all state and federal financial aid programs, including loans.

The event is sponsored by the Finance Authority of Maine, or FAME, in cooperation with Maine Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the Maine Educational Opportunity Association.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their most recent tax information. For information, including directions, visit www.collegegoalsundaymaine.com or call FAME toll-free at 800-228-3734.

College Goal Sunday location in Bangor is Eastern Maine Community College.

Colleges

Disability Studies Award

ORONO – Robert “BJ” Kitchin, a University of Maine doctoral student and disability studies teaching assistant, was named the 2007 recipient of the American Public Health Association’s DisAbility Forum Student Member Award.

The award is presented each year to one college student who has contributed promising work to advance the health and quality of life of people with disabilities. The American Public Health Association is one of the nation’s largest public health associations.

“BJ is a role model and ambassador who puts disability studies in the forefront of students’ minds,” said Elizabeth DePoy, coordinator of interdisciplinary disability studies at the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies.

Kitchin began work in disability studies as an undergraduate at UMaine in 1992. He earned a master’s degree in social work in 2007 and continues as a graduate teaching assistant in interdisciplinary disabilities studies.

Kitchin worked for 12 years with Community Care in Bangor in administrative, supervisory and clinical capacities in its treatment foster care program. As a research assistant with the UMaine Center on Aging, he was instrumental in helping the statewide Relatives as Parents Project win legislation giving grandparents greater legal standing as guardians of grandchildren.

His interests involve examining the role of the digital environment in society and how it is made accessible or inaccessible through conventions of visual, auditory, cognitive, physical and social design.

“Besides his multiple talents, devotion to scholarly excellence and his unending commitment to advancing access as a major human right, BJ has contributed to social change, advancing full participation and access on our university campus and throughout the state of Maine,” added Stephen Gilson, professor of interdisciplinary disability studies.

Kitchin is a first-generation college graduate and a Bangor native. He was nominated for the award by DePoy.

University of Nebraska at Lincoln

LINCOLN, Neb. – Meghan Kathleen Kramer of Hampden received a bachelor’s degree in education and human sciences during commencement ceremonies on Dec. 22 at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

University of Maine

ORONO – A group of University of Maine mechanical engineering students are working on a senior class project that promises practical benefits not only to their own education but to the university and the environment as well.

For their capstone project, the four students are designing a heat-recovery system for the Engineering and Science Research Building, a facility built in 2004 that houses offices and the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology.

Justin Poland, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and project consultant, said the system being designed would have the potential to recover an amount of energy equivalent to 27,000 gallons of oil a year from the massive volume of ventilation air that is needed in the building. That captured energy would be used to help preheat the cold outside air to room temperature as it is vented into the building.

The recovered energy would reduce the amount of oil now used to heat the building as well as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from the No. 6 fuel, which, according to the students’ project proposal, the university burns at a rate of some 600 gallons an hour on cold winter days.

Although a heat-recovery system had been included in the building plans, Poland said, its installation had to be postponed until some time in the future. The idea was resurrected when James LaBrecque, a local energy expert and longtime university supporter, suggested it to Poland as a student capstone project. The building’s original water-glycol design was replaced by the heat-pump system, which Poland said is more versatile and effective.

The student project began in September and will wrap up in May. The design will have to be evaluated by the university’s facilities management department, which then could choose to put the work out to bid. Poland believes the project would be a good candidate for the University of Maine Foundation’s Green Loan Fund, which lends money to the university for projects designed to reduce energy consumption and improve campus sustainability.