Philanthropic Success

Philanthropic investment continues to make the difference. So far, alumni and friends have contributed more than $1.7 million for the Strategic Plan’s priorities. A group of alumni leaders from Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts is leading the Leadership Starts Here! Scholarship Campaign to make new funds available. They have raised $1.1 million so far, adding to our current scholarship endowments of $11 million. And they aren’t done yet!

Additionally, recent major gifts from other generous supporters (totaling more than $500,000) are helping us launch a new Leadership Institute, strengthen our competitive ski teams, expand marketing efforts, build distinctive and innovative undergraduate research initiatives, and plan needed renovations to the Fitness & Recreation Center. Online giving is easy at www.umf.maine.edu/giving.

More on the Leadership Institute – Training Tomorrow’s Leaders

The purpose of the Institute is to enable UMF students to face the world equipped to be knowledgeable and active participants in a quickly changing society. The new Leadership Institute will provide challenging opportunities for students to participate in community affairs, service learning activities, internships, and semester-based programs that will strengthen their understanding of all aspects of public engagement. The Institute will be a certification program and will consist of seminars, not individual courses.

Additionally, the Institute will build on UMF’s strong service-learning programs and will encourage student involvement with schools, businesses, the arts and sciences, government programs, and nonprofit organizations such as the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence based in Portland. UMF is preparing to launch the Institute within the next two years.

Emery Community Arts Center - Invigorating the Arts in Western Maine

The construction of UMF's new Emery Community Arts Center is expected to begin later this year. ECAC is a visual representation of UMF’s distinctive, integrated arts mission as it deepens the University’s partnership with community arts organizations such as the Arts Institute of Western Maine, Farmington Public Library, and Sandy River Players.

ECAC is currently being designed by designLAB architects of Boston and is made possible through a $5 million gift by a generous benefactor. Since the current economic crisis has substantially lowered construction costs, now is the ideal time to build Emery Community Arts Center. The total will not exceed the $5 million mark.

Featuring a flexible 100-seat multipurpose performance space; two smaller, flexible exhibit/performance spaces; an outdoor theater; and an outdoor arts quad, ECAC will promote dynamic opportunities for expression in the arts. According to Steve Pane, UMF professor of music, the building’s 21st century design will completely change the audience’s experience. For example, the main theater space will be flexible with moveable chairs and stage equipment promoting a more interactive theater experience between performer and audience. “With Emery we can create both ends of the spectrum—from the intimacy of a café, to a blow-out-your-ear-drums rock concert.”

“What’s most exciting about Emery is the philosophy behind it,” said Pane. “It will bring together all forms of art to the same building which gives each discipline the chance to work together and create something new like music in the gallery and art in the performing space,” he added.

UMF has been a leader in building environmentally-responsible LEED certified facilities. Like the University’s Education Center, the new ECAC will be constructed using advanced climate control systems and other environmentally-responsible technology.

Visual & Performing Arts Department Enlivens Merrill Hall

The arts have been enlivened at UMF’s Merrill Hall. Summer 2008 saw exciting changes as the Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA) found a new home on the recently renovated upper floors. The renovation marks the first time that art, music and dance have been brought together in one building—promoting the sharing of intellectual ideas, classrooms and resources. Theater faculty and facilities will continue to be located nearby in the Alumni Theater.

The second floor of Merrill Hall is a contemporary mix of new and old with colorful, light-filled drawing and painting rooms; a state-of-the-art digital media and audio lab; an electro-acoustic lab; a video production studio complete with a green screen and adjoining sound booth; and the historic Nordica Auditorium.

The sunny and spacious third and fourth floors are home to the piano lab; music rehearsal rooms; and the majority of the VAPA faculty who teach art history; new media; musical composition; sculpture; art; dance; and musicology. Faculty offices are connected by a central room, coined the “Piazza,” which is used as a conference room, a reading and listening room, and a common space for students and faculty to exchange ideas and develop projects.

The dynamic integration of the arts is expected to have a positive impact on VAPA’s ability to interact with the campus, the community and each other. “The collaborative opportunities are unbelievable,” said Steve Pane, associate professor of music. “The physical coming together of the department is symbolic of the way we teach 21st century arts. It’s all about connecting and integrating disciplines to give the students more applicable and transferable skills in our modern society.”

UMF Responds to the 21st Century Arts

Arts integration extends to VAPA’s curriculum as well. Over the past decade, the curriculum has moved from an academic philosophy based on ideals established after World War II, to one that prepares students for a post-911 world. Students develop an understanding of what it means to be a contemporary artist while exploring and experimenting with concepts, techniques and methods to create significant, accomplished work.

An electro-acoustic music class, for instance, begins with a cultural examination of sound, silence, and noise before moving to the software and the exploration of how to use it most effectively within a contemporary dialogue. Students in a drawing class approach still-life as an expression of culture while fueling their own work with objects and concepts that represent their own contemporary world. VAPA will continue to explore a common foundations course for all arts students that addresses over-arching theories and cultural critiques that engages students in a dialogue that will continue to develop throughout their degree program and beyond. This will give each arts student a foundation that will help them engage other disciplines through the arts.

More About VAPA

The Visual and Performing Arts Department offers courses in art, dance, music, and theatre, as well as interdisciplinary courses which integrate the arts with other fields. VAPA’s performing organizations—the orchestra, band, chorus, chamber choir, Theatre UMF, and the UMF Dancers—present multiple productions and concerts each year. The Art Gallery mounts a wide range of exhibitions, including the eagerly-anticipated show in the spring for graduating art majors. VAPA frequently collaborates with the broader western Maine arts community.

Over the past decade, the curriculum has moved from an academic philosophy based on ideals established after World War II, to one that prepares students for a post-911 world. VAPA investigates ways in which faculty and students can consistently interact as an intellectual community, sharing and engaging ideas, as well as staying connected to the contemporary world. Some examples already in place are Arts Week, Ministry of Experimental Arts, Sketch Box, UMF Dancers, and Art Renegades.


VAPA’s department website can be found at: http://vapa.umf.maine.edu/index.php