ORONO – The University of Maine community will honor a chaplain whose example has inspired countless students, faculty and local citizens, at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Elizabeth A. Morris Memorial Peace Garden at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Wilson Center, 67 College Ave.

The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the launching of a special Student Community Outreach Program Experience project about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

SCOPE, created in Morris’ memory, is an annual program that offers a $750 stipend from Morris’ endowment to student leaders who plan and lead activities to benefit the UMaine community.

Morris was a chaplain 1990-1993 at the Wilson Center, an ecumenical campus ministry for the UMaine community. She was killed in 1993 in an accident on the Maine Turnpike.

“Elizabeth Morris’ spirit is very much alive,” said Joanne Whitehead, chaplain at the Wilson Center. “People are still talking about her and rallying around her almost 10 years after her death. Everyone who knew her or knew of her speaks so incredibly about her wonderful, wonderful spirit.”

The 20-foot by 40-foot garden, designed by Tom Gasaway, a landscape supervisor at UMaine, will be located in front of the Wilson Center. Gasaway has provided a list of perennials that Morris’ friends are invited to bring to the groundbreaking ceremony. For the list, call the Wilson Center at 866-4227.

A highlight of the ceremony will be the installation of a 6-foot tall peace pole. The pole has “May Peace Prevail on Earth” inscribed on its four sides in the English, Arabic, Hebrew and Penobscot languages.

The four students who were selected as SCOPE leaders will install the pole. The students, chosen after a competitive application process, are Essam Al-Shalabi, Virginia McIntosh, Ryan Parker and Kathleen Sprague.

“The pole will serve as a reminder to people of the importance of envisioning and working for peace in our lives,” said Barbara Blazej, the coordinator of UMaine’s peace studies program.

The Morris family donated materials for the garden. The labor to construct the garden, which includes a brick walkway, stepping stones and a fenced arbor, was donated by Gasaway, UMaine students, Wilson Center staff and friends.

A dedication ceremony for the garden will be held in the spring when Morris’ family, including mother Emily McKusick, brothers David, Jeff, Topper and Mike, and many nieces and nephews, will be present.

The idea for the garden was conceived last year, when David Morris e-mailed Whitehead and asked if he could put a memorial plaque in the garden. Whitehead, who had arrived at the Wilson Center in October, looked out the window and realized that what had once been a garden was now just a tree with a few flowers beneath it.

“That made me think that because of all that Elizabeth Morris gave when she was here, we should do something,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead told Emily McKusick, Morris’ mother, that the Wilson Center was considering expanding the garden. At the same time, David Morris read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Gasaway’s gardening on the UM campus. Whitehead contacted Gasaway, and he agreed to design the garden.

“The sequence of events whereby this came about was amazing. Everything just happened, and fell into place, and the family was generous enough to back the entire project,” Whitehead said.

SCOPE is an outgrowth of Morris’ dream to promote peace, justice, spirituality, activism and leadership skills through service to the community. Past projects have included interfaith service projects, sexual assault and rape awareness training, mentoring in local public schools and an international campus newsletter. In addition to the special Israeli-Palestinian project, there will be two students working on other SCOPE projects during the fall. Whitehead, Blazej and other faculty mentors advise the students, but they have a great deal of freedom to design and implement their activities.

The Israeli-Palestinian project developed from a March 5 panel discussion on the peace process at UMaine. A group of UMaine students and staff met to determine if there was interest in continuing the dialogue about the conflict, and students were invited to apply to participate in the special SCOPE project in April 2002.

“These students are committed to understanding and resolving this conflict, even from this distance,” Blazej said. “They recognize that no one in today’s world is isolated, and that we are connected to other nations politically, economically, historically, culturally and through communications and travel. We also live in a very powerful country that has been very involved in the Middle East, from the aid we give to the arms that we sell. It’s important to understand our connections and the responsibilities that arise from that.”

The students will work in collaboration with Whitehead, Blazej and UMaine faculty who specialize in the Middle East. Possible projects include talk shows, speakers, panel discussions, conversations between Jewish and Muslim students, and the development of a formal document with suggestions for resolving the conflict.

McIntosh, a junior from Bangor majoring in political science with a minor in peace studies, is looking forward to the project. Related activities may continue informally after the semester ends. “We hope this project will help people discover the commonalties, rather than the differences, between Israelis and Palestinians; and between Muslims, Jews and Christians,” McIntosh said. “By engaging UMaine and the community in a process of understanding, we hope to spread knowledge not of the conflict – but of the solution. I believe that when we see each other as brothers and sisters instead of enemies, then we will see the adoption of understanding and peace that will surpass any of our differences.”