by Pete Lefrense

Two things strike you the first time you enter Cyndi Pratt’s rather expansive office.

The first is the photographs – they’re everywhere. Team photos of virtually every squad she’s coached in field hockey and later softball at UMF, going back to her debut season in 2004. Shelves and window ledges stocked with group photos with her graduating seniors, or from other moments in her student-athletes’ careers. Her filing cabinet covered with photos of her two sons, now both athletes themselves at her former high school alma mater, Farmington’s Mt. Blue High School. A square end table blanketed with photo albums assembled by her players, and left in Coach Pratt’s care at the end of each season.

The second thing is the homemade banners and signs recognizing conference championships and senior-days past, all conveying the gratitude of her student-athletes for their experiences with UMF field hockey. In an office with 12-foot high ceilings and spanning 360 square feet, nearly every block of wall space is covered. So many faces, so many happy memories, of others’ academic and athletic successes.

Yet that kind of focus on her athletes over nine seasons at the helm of UMF field hockey may explain why it was well past the halfway point of the 2012 season before Pratt realized she was on the cusp of her landmark 100th victory as a head coach.

It may also explain why the fiery (on the sidelines, at least…) and ultra-competitive Pratt was so blasé about her own personal achievement when she finally reached the milestone win on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, in the Beavers’ 6-1 victory over Simmons in the quarterfinals of the NAC Tournament.

“I thought about it a little bit and realized it, but then I put it off because we were in the middle of a playoff run and trying to focus…” said Pratt, her voice trailing off. “Maybe when I retire I can look back and think about them, but at that point I was really focused on the team, and making a good run in the playoffs and getting the team ready to do that.”

“If anything, it just made me feel old,” laughed Pratt. “I still think of myself as a young coach.”

She is, but that doesn’t mean Pratt hasn’t already made a name for herself and her program at UMF.

Among the NCAA’s ranking of the top 25 winningest active coaches in Division III by percentage, Pratt began the 2012 season ranked 21st with a .645 winning percentage. Pratt’s 100 wins in nine seasons puts her on a pace to crack the list of top 25 active coaches by wins much earlier in her career than many of her coaching contemporaries.

The congratulatory phone calls and messages rolled in for Pratt, including many from her former players, and one from the coach under whom she did her graduate assistantship at the University of New Hampshire. Pratt’s former high school coach at Mt. Blue, Jean Sickels, whom Pratt called “one of the reasons why I love the sport of field hockey and why I’m a coach right now,” was actually at the game to see her protégé record her 100th victory.

The UMF community recognized Pratt’s 100th career victory during halftime of the men’s basketball game against Colby-Sawyer College on December 8. She was presented with a commemorative field hockey stick, painted maroon, white, and gold, and emblazoned with the opponent, score, and date of the milestone victory.

By then, with the season well in the rear-view mirror, Pratt was able to enjoy the accomplishment with a little more introspection.

“After it (the 100th career win) happened, and our next playoff game and loss at Castleton, I hadn’t thought about it again until they did that presentation at that basketball game – and I had no idea that was coming,” said Pratt.

“That was kind of a neat thing,” added Pratt. “I thought it was a time for me to look back and appreciate it a little more, with some of the players on this team there at that basketball game to celebrate it with me. That was a fun thing.”

Loss-Clouded Eyes Now Clear: A Season to Remember

Story by Beth Lebel ’14

UMF’s 2012 women’s soccer season had its fair share of highs and lows. But even with UMF’s long and proud tradition of success in women’s soccer, the Beavers reached several new benchmarks this season in the continued development of the program. Goalkeeper Beth Lebel, a junior from Lewiston, Maine, puts the end of the season and its accomplishments along the way in perspective.

We all stepped onto the turf field and under the bright lights at Proctor Academy with the same we-want-to-win-this-game mindset; a mindset we held in sync for every game for the season’s entirety. What made this game different, though, was that it was our semifinal playoff game against Colby-Sawyer College.

Colby-Sawyer, the team ranked number one in our conference, finishing its season undefeated; the team we held to a nil-nil tie in our regular season meeting at Prescott Field; the team against which we all felt we could put a couple of soccer balls in the back of the net to begin paving our way to a hopeful North Atlantic Conference (NAC) championship—our collective team goal since day one of preseason.

But the final score was as kind to us as we were to ourselves for losing: 4-1. In that season-ending moment, we couldn’t process all that we had gained in our season. But now, looking back, it’s all very clear.

“We fought really hard in that game,” said our head coach, Molly Wilkie. “We played poorly for maybe one fourth of that game and that’s where the difference was, but I think the takeaway was that even though we got down by a few goals, we never stopped fighting. I preach that a lot—never giving up—but to see that in action, supporting each other and still trying to score, even with ten seconds left, it speaks a lot about the character of our team.”

We finished as the fourth seed in NAC play, and, even though we lost that game, we had made it to the NAC Tournament semifinals with a final season record of 11-7-1—the most wins from women’s soccer since 2007.

“Getting to the ten win mark, it speaks to a team effort,” said Wilkie. “We had plenty of great individual efforts, but most of our success came when we played as a team.”

The ingredient to what made this year’s team so special was as complex as it was simple: team chemistry. I consider team chemistry to be something unexplainable that a team either has or doesn’t have, and for us, this year’s was undeniable. We didn’t need to put forth valiant effort into getting along on and off the field; getting along was organic and something that came naturally.

A lot of us faced unexpected off-the-field adversities centering on family, so when we felt we needed an extra push, we helped each other by reminding one another why we play the game we love and reminding ourselves of who, past and present, we play for.

If it wasn’t for our collaborative success in academics though, we wouldn’t be able to partake in our success on the soccer field. We earned the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s (NSCAA) Team Academic Award, which was the first in our program’s history.

“One of our goals is to have a 3.2 or better team GPA, and the team has bought into the fact that academic experience has to come first,” said Wilkie. “It’s great to be really successful in soccer, but it’s more important to be successful in soccer and academics.”

Our team also places a high value on sportsmanship, which can be reflected in us receiving the NAC Sportsmanship Award for the second consecutive year.

“We try to play with respect and class, and I think our goal would be to be a team that has sportsmanship but is also really competitive,” said Wilkie. “These two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Junior captain Kayla Tuttle agreed Tuttle, who is one of the most humble and hard-working competitors I’ve ever had the privilege of playing soccer with, was named to the NSCAA All-New England Region women’s soccer team in December.

“It makes me want to keep working to get better,” said Tuttle, with a soft pride and happiness in receiving the recognition.

“Kayla deserves that honor,” said Wilkie. “It’s really meaningful because it’s voted on by other coaches in the region, so they’re seeing the caliber of player that she is.”

If there’s one thing Tuttle takes loud pride and happiness in though, it’s the team and the sport itself. “My favorite part is everything and soccer season in general,” she said. “I like how we work really hard, but we can have lots of fun at the same time and how we’re all really close.”

This time, Coach Wilkie agreed. “It was a fun team to be a part of and to watch evolve, and I give all credit to the players for the team’s success.”

Six Inductees Welcomed Into the UMF Athletics Hall of Fame

During ceremonies in September 29, 2012, six inductees joined the 65 individuals and five teams already enshrined in the UMF Athletics Hall of Fame. From left to right: Stacy Pinkham Rice ’99 (field hockey & softball), Troy Norton ’96 (men’s basketball), Crystal Hulit Cormier ’99 (softball), Dawn Anne Higgins-Currie ’95 (women’s basketball), Dave Long ’95 (men’s soccer) and Dan LeGage ’95 (men’s basketball). The UMF Athletics Hall of Fame’s first class was inducted in 1994.

Dick Cavett—the seniors’ choice!—had just offered remarks, preceded by History Professor Ron Walters, then and now a hip and profound guide to cultural change, who challenged graduates to personally reject creeping post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-Taxi Driver “me generationism.”

That evening my family would present three memorable gifts to this wordy, newly minted geography major and aspiring city planner: a lifetime subscription to National Geographic, sixteen volumes in the Time-Life series on Great Cities, and, most cherished of all, two large-format leather-bound portfolios, “Letters from Kate, Vol. I” (containing every missive I sent home in freshman and sophomore years) and “Letters from Kate, Vol., II” (ditto for junior and senior years).

The next day my family and I would pack my Baltimore rowhouse room’s worth of belongings into The Legend, our shared ’66 Dodge Dart. That’s The Legend, with me leaning on it, in the second college-era photo whose vintage I recall as well. It is fall of my junior year and I have just turned 20. I’m going “collegiate” in my camel hair jacket and late-70s big collar. I will soon head to a morning of classes in Statistics, Urban Economics, and Comparative Politics and an afternoon of tennis practice and camaraderie. Life is good.

In preparation for—and now a few months into—the presidency of UMF, I have thought anew not only about my undergraduate days, but about yours, too. Are there for you, as there are for e, sights (and sites!), sounds, and smells that transport you back to college? Do you have pictures and vivid memories of the people, places, and activities shown in them? Have you ribbon-tied bundles of college-era letters or scrap book ephemera that record what you were thinking and doing during your UMF—or Farmington State Normal School or Farmington State College—days?

If so, please consider sharing them in a new “Show and Tell” initiative inspired by UMF’s upcoming 150th Anniversary in 2013- 2014. All it takes is ferretting out and submitting a picture(s), letter(s), or other item(s) of your college experience and accompanying it/them with a paragraph or so of associated memories. Please feel free to include a photo of yourself that captures what you look like today. With your permission, we will post contributions on a UMF 150th Anniversary website, in future editions of Farmington First, or as part of installations or other displays we mount in coming months to enrich the UMF story and kick off the next 150 years.

My early months at UMF have been so heartwarming, in part for the generous welcome on and off campus, and equally so for the messages and reminiscences from you, our alumni and friends. You honor this place, speed my education, and deepen my passion with your stories of Purington and Mallett, Prescott and Hippach, Emery and Merrill, Roberts and Olsen.

Please shower us with more. I so look forward to reading and seeing your recollections and meeting you before long.

“Show and Tell” contributions may
be sent electronically to

150@umf.maine.edu

or by mail to

UMF’s Ferro Alumni Center
242 Main St., Farmington, ME 04938

If you have any questions or need further assistance,
please contact staff members Jennifer Eriksen,
Pat Carpenter or Kate Baum at 207-778-7090.

FF: So tell me – what exactly is the Alumni Council, why is it important and what do you plan to accomplish in the next two years?
SB: Well, the Alumni Council is an elected group that represents the voices of over 14,000 peers. We provide feedback to the administration about initiatives, important fundraising priorities and alumni events. I think the Alumni Council can work to understand how to connect with alumni—listening, understanding their needs, continuing two-way dialogue about what the University can do for them. During the academic year 2013-2014, UMF will be celebrating its 150th anniversary. This is an excellent chance to reach out and find where our alumni are, what they’re doing and what their careers are. We want to provide an opportunity for them to reconnect with UMF. It’s also important that we provide a venue for alumni to connect with each other socially and professionally.

FF: Why is it important for Alumni to get involved with the Alumni Council events and initiatives?
SB: Developing and expanding relationships with other alums is extremely valuable. It’s important to take advantage of these opportunities that the Alumni Council and the Ferro Alumni Center provide. The newly-formed Alumni Career Network on LinkedIn can play an important role in helping alumni succeed in their career. We are hosting professional networking events on and off campus, and organizing informational webinars. If you’re looking for work, you can use professional events to network, which can provide a real competitive advantage. Fellow alumni might know of opportunities in their industries or areas of expertise that could be a good match.
Suddenly, instead of just a résumé, you’re someone they know personally. Plus, if you come to a social event, it’s a fun way to make friends and have a good time.

FF: What are some ways that alumni can become engaged with UMF?
SB: Volunteering is the best way to start. Pick a passion and we’ll find a spot for you. Volunteering might also be the best thing for your résumé if you’re looking to break into a certain field as it can give you some relevant experience. Alumni of any age can help UMF recruit new students. Being an ambassador not only helps you share your pride, you can be a center of influence for prospective students and their families. So, if you know a neighbor, family friend, or niece or nephew—anyone who would be a good fit for UMF—share your experience and encourage them to check us out. An easy way to stay in the loop on UMF and Alumni happenings is to “Like” our Facebook page. We encourage you to share photos and stories of your life and memories. You can also give us feedback, or give us your cool t-shirt slogan ideas or an event you think we should host to celebrate the 150th anniversary. We’re listening! If you like to talk, Ferro Alumni Center would love you to join its Appreciation Campaign where they call alumni donors to simply thank them for their generosity. We’d also love to see you attend an Open House or Accepted Student Day where you can share your personal success stories, chat with potential or incoming students. Call the FerroAlumni Center at (207) 778-7090. They’ll get you started.

FF: Sven, what are you personally gaining from leading the Alumni Council?
SB: I volunteer to lead the Alumni Council because I get a new perspective on how my University is growing and what challenges it’s facing. It’s also a chance for me to share my expertise. Sometimes it’s helpful to be on the outside looking in to give a fresh perspective. At the end of the day, I can make a difference and I can leave UMF better than I found it.

by Lindsay Tice ’98

Kevin Brooks’ goal is simple: show the world that Maine has what it takes to compete. The skills. The expertise. The drive.

As co-owner of Might & Main, a two-year-old Portland branding and design agency that’s won local accolades for its innovative work and national attention for its impressive talent, Brooks, ’04, is making that goal a reality.

“It can be done here,” he said. Brooks, 31, grew up in Lewiston. He began his college career as a journalism student at the University of Maine, but it wasn’t long before he realized that path wasn’t for him. The school was too large; the work in journalism too boring.

“The classes just didn’t click,” he said.

Brooks transferred to the University of Maine at Farmington, where he found a more intimate school and classes that interested him. He majored in secondary education with plans to become an English teacher. Like journalism, though, that path was not to be. Brooks left the education program and focused on earning an English degree. In between classes he served as a DJ, news director, promotions director and technical director at WUMF, the campus radio station. He helped found Lawn Chair Pirates, UMF’s student comedy improv group. And he got a job at the computer center.

It was a job that would change his life.

Brooks decided to redesign the campus intranet — in his spare time. Within a year he was managing the help desk and training other workers. When a job opened up for someone to do graphic design for the college’s marketing department, he was encouraged to apply.

Brooks graduated in 2004, but he stayed on campus as an employee until 2006. He calls his time at UMF his “springboard.”

“They saw something to nurture,” he said. “Without that I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

After leaving UMF, Brooks worked in the creative department at L.L. Bean and supplemented his income with freelance web design projects, “basically building the Internet one website at a time.”

Gradually, his freelance work became a larger part of his income. One day he found he could support himself freelancing only.

But within a few years Brooks accomplished as much as he could as a solo designer. If he wanted more in-depth work and bigger accounts, he couldn’t work alone.“I actually had this asked of me once: ‘What would happen if you got hit by a bus?’” Brooks recalled. “Well, what would happen?” He needed a team.

With fellow designers Sean Wilkinson and Arielle Walrath, Brooks opened Might & Main, a branding and design agency that would, Brooks hoped, take the business world by storm with personalized design—websites, logos, social networking pages, advertising and promotional materials—to help companies build a reputation, market products and connect with people. The firm took on its name as an adaptation of the old English phrase “with might and main,” interpreted as “with all of one’s strength and vigor.” His own website calls it “intelligent brandsmithery.”

“It just seemed to click,” Brooks said. “There was a need out there.” At just two years old, Might & Main is where Brooks hoped it would be at five. It has a slate of local accounts, including OneMaine, Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers, LifeFlight of Maine, Creative Portland and the Portland Museum of Art, whose project included the creation of a Winslow Homer bobblehead doll. Might & Main is also making a national name for itself with the out-of state clients like Stonyfield Farm, the University of Minnesota Press and Jim Beam. Brooks is particularly proud of a compliment he received from a marketing director at White Rock Distilleries, who told him White Rock officials had expected to go with a marketing company in San Francisco right up until Might & Main’s presentation blew them away.

Brooks learned the value of personal attention at UMF, and he’s taken that lesson with him to Might & Main. Brooks and his partners start each project by digging deeply into the client’s history, industry and needs. The company eschews a standard house style in favor of individual design. A health care organization? Think a website with a few graphics, multiple pages and clear, precise language. A Portland oyster bar? Think a mobile-friendly website with rich colors and easy menu access, a restaurant design with lots of airy blue-green, and a hand-painted window sign that shows attention to detail.

“When you’re a customer, you see this,” Brooks said. “You know they’ve done a good job with your food if they’re paying attention to these details.”

That attention to detail is paying off for Brooks and Might & Main as well. Earlier this year the agency won an “entreverge” award from PROPEL, an affiliate of the Portland Regional Chamber. About 100 small businesses were nominated for the award that honors business vision and commitment to Maine. Might & Main was one of five winners.

“It was pretty surprising, I’ll be honest,” Brooks said. “I thought it was cool just to be nominated.” The agency continues to win praise from clients and attention from both inside and outside the state. Brooks credits his business and creative success, in large part, to his time at UMF. His work at the computer center gave him technical skills. Improv taught him to think on his feet. WUMF gave him a business perspective. Coursework taught him critical thinking.

“Liberal arts gave me the great foundation to view the world,” he said. Might & Main employs five people. Brooks could see someday employing up to 10 or 12, but he doesn’t want many more than that.

Although there are other, bigger agencies in Maine that do what Might & Main does, Brooks isn’t interested in competing with them, or joining them. “We don’t want to be them, we don’t want to be that size, but we want to be there with them, working in tandem, showing good quality work coming out of Portland,” he said. “So far I think we’re doing okay.”

To learn more, visit www.might-maine.com.

Story by Danielle LeBlanc ’07
Photo by Mark Rice ’07

Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship has gone to a range of young writers who became legendary — and now to this poet from UMF

Jacques Rancourt ’09 is an athlete of a poet. Since his graduation from the UMF Creative Writing Program, he has not stopped writing, teaching, or seeing his work in print. Most recently, Rancourt competed against over 1,900 writers to be  awarded one of five prestigious Stanford University Wallace Stegner Fellowships for Poetry, a recognition that includes a two year stipend to study and write on the west coast.

Founded in 1946 by environmentalist and writer Wallace Stegner, the fellowship has honored such renowned poets as Donald Hall, Philip Levine, Robert Pinsky—and now Jacques Rancourt. Remarkably, this success is nothing new.

Immediately after Farmington, the South Berwick native left Vacationland to attend The University of Wisconsin-Madison as a fully funded MFA teaching assistant, earning the exclusive Halls Emerging Artist’s Fellowship immediately after graduation to teach an extra year while honing his manuscript. Additionally, Rancourt was awarded a prominent work scholarship to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont this summer, and should we even mention the Pushcart nominations for poems published in small presses? Rancourt has three of these revered honors.

But if you were to sit down and talk poetry with Rancourt today, chances are good he’d forget to mention all that. Despite having poems accepted in such distinguished publications as Beloit Poetry Journal, New England Review, and Colorado Review, Rancourt remains modest and down to earth about his many accomplishments. “It’s important to laugh about it all,” he says. “I still don’t really believe that the Stegner Fellowship is happening,” he muses. “I am so fortunate.”

The notification couldn’t have come at a more exciting moment as Rancourt was attending a recent gathering of his graduate program colleges. “I pull up the email. I read it. I read it again. I show it to a friend. And not 12 seconds later, one of my professors was on a table making an announcement, and everyone was clapping and holding my hands up and squealing. It was just really surreal. It could not have been any better.”

Rancourt leaves behind quite a legacy in Madison, however. In his first semester of graduate school, he co-founded the online literary journal, Devil’s Lake, which can be found at www.devils-lake.org. “It’s sort of blown up in some ways,” he
explains. “We get a lot of hits a month, and it is such a great online journal.” Rancourt continues to serve on the advisory board, despite his busy schedule.

Clearly not one to neglect his roots, Rancourt attributes much of his current achievements to the solid foundation laid by the UMF Creative Writing Department, in particular Jeffrey Thomson, associate professor of creative writing. “Jeff ran his workshop like an MFA class. He gave a lot of authority to the students, and had very high expectations. It was kind of tricky to get a compliment out of him! And I had to fight for it—that sort of pressure really vaulted me. ”

Rancourt believes that the benefit of having a Bachelor of Fine Arts, over a BA, was immeasurable. “We felt like writers from the start, rather than imagined that we would become writers one day. In our free time, outside of class, my friends and I would get together to talk poems. There was a high expectation to take our craft seriously, and I left Farmington ready to work. I would later find out that the workshops at UMF were just as intense as some of the MFA workshops I would go on to take in Madison, so I was very well-prepared.”

While in Farmington, in addition to editing the Sandy River Review, Rancourt was as awarded the 2008 Michael D. Wilson scholarship to research and write while hiking 120 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

“Being given that grant gave me a lot of confidence in myself, made me feel like a real writer and not just an undergrad.” Poems from Rancourt’s Wilson presentation later became the basis for his MFA application portfolio to the University of Wisconsin, launching his graduate career.

“I would later find out that the workshops at UMF were just as intense as some of the MFA workshops I would go on to take in Madison, so I was very well-prepared.”

In his time away from Maine, Rancourt has certainly missed that mountainous landscape. “I couldn’t stop writing about it. The Northeast is very much in my work—such geographic diversity in a single state just doesn’t exist out here.” However, as Rancourt prepares to move even further west, the furthest west he has ever traveled, some of Wisconsin has seeped into his poems. “The landscape of the field has been featuring in my work recently. There is something so hidden but so open about a field—the way it conceals things in the wide open spaces. I have been open to Wisconsin, and it really did permeate me, but my heart lives in Maine.”

Rancourt’s poetic voice has also evolved in ways outside of geography. “I am less concerned with sounding like a poet by using symbolism and higher lyricism; instead I am trying more to use the language that people use. I trust my jumps a lot more—trust the connections that my brain makes, while trying to not over-explain. I used to be too concerned with my writing making sense, when really I just needed to be weirder,” he laughs. “My work has taken huge shifts.”

Taking lessons from his time in Farmington, Rancourt likewise encouraged his own students to aim high. “I’d say, ‘Professionalize yourself immediately. Treat it very seriously, and don’t be too satisfied with your work. Stop thinking of yourself as a student as quickly as you can. You are writing, not practicing.’”

“I used to write out the poems that I loved from famous poets, to see how those words would feel to compose, to imagine that I could make something so good myself. There are prominent poets out there who were published as young as I am now, so I really don’t give myself any excuses not to work hard.”

Rancourt is finalizing his manuscript for publication submissions this year, and his poetic and autobiographical musings can be found on his blog, jacquesjrancourt.com.

by Lindsay Tice, ’98

Mark King ’86 didn’t plan to become an internationally-renowned composting guru. He’d wanted to be a research biologist and work with bats. It was a twist of fate that gave King a life he never expected but loves nonetheless.

“I’ve had a pretty wild ride,” he said.

King grew up in Winthrop. When it came time to look at colleges, he considered both the University of Maine in Orono and the University of Maine at Farmington. He chose UMF because it had the same close-knit feel as his hometown.

“I liked the smaller community appeal,” he said. “I felt like it was a place you could belong.”

King started his college career majoring in English, but he had no career path or plan. That changed when he took a class with UMF biology professor and bat enthusiast Bob Martin.

“He cast a spell on me,” he said. “He was the original bat man.”

Martin would become not only King’s teacher but also UMF adviser and life-long mentor. It was Martin who encouraged King’s interest in research biology and nudged him toward graduate school.
King graduated from UMF in 1986 with a BA in biology. He earned his master’s degree in animal behavior from Southern Illinois University and planned to get his doctorate from the University of Maine in Orono. But that was not to be.

State budget problems prompted the public university to cut the research assistantship it had promised him.

“They said ‘You’re welcome to come, but we can’t pay you anything,’” he recalled.

Without that job, he couldn’t afford to stay in school. So King left school and began looking for work in Maine. He taught special education in Winthrop for a year and worked for the Maine Department of Marine Resources Anadromous Fish Division, where he helped restore the striped bass population. He then worked with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on its shoreland zoning and natural resource projects.
But state budget problems would impact his life once more. The DEP eliminated King’s position. There was a job for him in another program: waste management.

As in sludge.

“I was very unhappy. That was the most undesirable program to be in,” King said.

He tried to make the most of it. His father always told him to find an opportunity and make it his own, and he remembered that. So when his job gave him the chance to oversee the state’s fledgling compost program, he took it — even though he knew almost nothing about composting.

“I said anything’s better than just doing sludge licenses,” he said. But composting, it turned out, was more than just “better than.” “Everything about it was fun. It was exciting,” he said. “It really struck me that (without composting) we’re not eliminating waste, we’re transferring waste.”

He joined the four-member Maine Compost Team to help direct the state’s composting efforts. Four years later, in 1997, that team started the Maine Compost School to fulfill the demand for compost education. People wanted to do something good with their organic waste, but few knew what to do or how to do it right. The school, located in Monmouth, remains one of the only schools of its kind in the United States.

In the 15 years since, the school has educated more than 850 students, many of them more than backyard compost enthusiasts. His students have included private citizens, teachers, farmers, municipal workers, commercial operators, regulators and consultants. In 2000, King and the Maine Compost Team were invited to Australia to present a three-day version of the program followed by a trip to North Carolina to do the same. Most recently, the team was invited to California to offer a weeklong composting program at Cal Poly Tech.

King, who dreamed of becoming a research biologist 26 years ago, is now doing cutting-edge composting research. Along with his team, King found that composting the carcasses of livestock and chickens kills both Foot and Mouth Disease and the Avian Flu. In the past, those animals have been burned or buried, but burning can send bacteria into the air and burial can send it into the water table. Composting kills all traces of the disease. It is now the state’s go-to disposal plan should the diseases wreak havoc in Maine.

King tackles two or three projects each summer. Among this year’s experiments: a 90-gallon portable composting unit for apartments and small communities and a composting method for hazardous waste.

“It is wicked exciting,” he said.

King is also working with communities to encourage composting by restaurants and other businesses. At the request of a former compost school student, he helped start a composting program at the Sandy River Recycling Association in Farmington in 2005. That program is still going strong—and is using waste from UMF’s cafeteria.
The program also has another tie to UMF. Two students are interning there now to get the experience of running a recycling and composting businesses. King is proud that his work has positively impacted the college he loved so much.

“It’s been very gratifying to give back,” he said.

He hopes one day Maine will have the highest composting rate in the nation.

“Farmington’s the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

King has a wife, Susan, and two children, Cassie, 12, and Adam, 10. They live in Winthrop, where King also works for the local ambulance service, teaches EMS classes at the local community college and runs a side business removing bats for people who couldn’t afford the assistance otherwise

He still talks every week with Martin, the professor who got him interested in biology and bats.

“It’s wonderful to have those kinds of connections people make at Farmington, where people care about you,” he said.

King credits his success to Martin’s guidance and the support and education he received at UMF. And then there’s that twist of fate.

“Had I gotten that research assistantship, everything would be different,” he said.

By Marc Meyers

Emma Morrison ’12—pictured with her parents Jack and Terri at women’s lacrosse senior day ceremonies—is the first UMF student athlete since Josh Tanguay ’10 to receive an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

University of Maine at Farmington women’s lacrosse/women’s basketball student-athlete Emma Morrison ’12 was honored as a recipient of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship in July.

The NCAA awards up to 174 postgraduate scholarships annually, 87 for men and 87 for women, across all divisions. These prestigious scholarships are awarded to select student-athletes nominated for excelling academically and athletically and who are at least in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition, and pursuing a graduate degree. The one-time grants of $7,500 are one-time, non-renewable grants.

Morrison is pursuing a master’s degree at North Carolina State University. She is the first UMF student-athlete to receive an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship since former UMF men’s basketball player Josh Tanguay ’10.

Emma Morrison ’12 finished the season with a team-high 27 goals and five assists for 32 points.

Morrison graduated in May with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and a concentration in biology. She finished her UMF career with a grade-point average of 3.953. She was named to the Capital One Academic All-American

Women’s At-Large Third Team in June and the Capital One Academic All-District 1 NCAA Division III First Team honors in women’s basketball in February.

Last summer, the senior attended the six-week Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics at North Carolina State University and received Protecting Human Research Participants Certification, an ethics training required to design and complete research funded by the National Institute of Health.

Morrison, who served as a math tutor and certified tax preparer, presented a biostatistics project at the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges Undergraduate Research Conference and the UMF Math Hour. She was awarded the Clifford Oliver and Wendall H. Towle Memorial scholarships. She also conducted a statistics research project on first-year fitness classes at UMF in the spring of 2011.

Morrison served as the president of the UMF Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. She served as vice president in 2010-2011. She was selected by her peers for the Beaver Pride Award and earned the UMF Female Senior Scholar Athlete of the Year.

On the field, Morrison, along with classmates Amie Daniels and Alyssa Neptune, captained the Beavers’ women’s lacrosse team. The team leader in goals scored (27) and draw controls (46), she earned

All-North Atlantic Conference East Division First Team and All-Academic Team in 2011 and 2012. Morrison was also captain of the women’s basketball team.

Chris Brinegar

In 2008 I spent six months in Nepal teaching in the Biotechnology Department at Kathmandu University on a Fulbright fellowship. I taught part of an undergraduate molecular biology course and most of a graduate research methods course. I also supervised two undergraduates who did their senior research project on the genetics of Nepali potato varieties using the equipment and supplies that I brought along. My wife, Bonnie, and I lived in an apartment in central Kathmandu, a bustling city of 1 million. While I took the 15-mile bus ride on dusty, traffic-congested roads to the campus five days a week, Bonnie would wander the city streets looking for adventure. With the company of our driver, Sachin, or just walking alone, Bonnie met and befriended a wide variety of people, including Kabindra, a guide at the Pashupati Hindu temple. Between Sachin’s and Kabindra’s familes we were given crash courses on Nepali culture and how to celebrate holidays (of which there are many), and we were fed delicious Nepali curries and mounds of rice. We also took some time to see the rest of the country:  the subtropical southern plains on the Indian border where we saw elephants, tigers and crocodiles; the beautiful foothill region of the Annapurna Range in Pokhara; and the Langtang Range of the Himalayas where we accompanied two faculty and three students on a medicinal plant collecting expedition. The latter trip, especially, was a blast. Hiking nearly to the Tibetan border at 13,000 feet, we met several Tibetan Buddhist refugees and got to see lots of yaks up close and personal. Bonnie has returned once since then and we both hope to spend two weeks there at the end of this year. I have an ongoing research project with Nepali colleagues on using DNA barcoding to genetically identify important medicinal and agricultural plants.

Resting with the plant collecting crew at Langtang National Park

Chris and Sachin in front of prayer flags

View of Himalayas from Kathmandu University

Chris with graduating Biotechnology seniors

Bonnie at Kopan Buddhist Monastery

Streets of Kathmandu with Kopan Monastery in distance

Eric Brown

In 2007-08, I spent one year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bergen, Norway.  The academic experience was as challenging and rewarding as any I’ve ever had: it included teaching a yearlong curriculum in American studies, designing new classes on the History of the Gothic and on American Environmentalism, supervising undergraduate and graduate theses, and trying to navigate the remarkable English fluency of Norwegians and the embarrassments of my very limited Norwegian.  While teaching British and American literature, I also spent many months reading and rereading Sigrid Undset and Henrik Ibsen and the old Norse sagas and folktales.  (Bergen is among the rainiest cities in Europe—a great inducement to catching up on one’s reading.)  As a life experience, there were many times that were sublime—touring the fjords, driving through Jotunheimen in the middle of the night, walking into my first lecture and out of my last one—and just as many moments of indecision and downright confusion.  (I devoted an entire seminar to trying to pronounce the students’ names correctly, to no avail, and I still have no idea where the sun went for four months.)

Still, the list of things I miss is long.  It would include the snow on Ulriken, the free handouts at the fishmarket, Edvard Grieg’s dragon bowl, the crooked planks along the Bryggen, and the Ringebu stave church; the soup at Café Opera, the brown cheese, monkfish, reindeer sausage, and aquavit appetizers; skiing in Lillehammer, kayaking in Hardanger, watching a river of clouds in Aurland, and going on a musk-ox safari in Dovrefjell.  My family and I were able to travel throughout Europe and into the Arctic, and to spend time not only with the people of Norway but with an amazing group of fellow Fulbrighters.  Since returning, I have served as the Campus Fulbright Representative here at UMF, and I’m eager to see more students and faculty apply for awards.

Norwegian Moskus

Rob Lively

I attended a Fulbright Seminar for U.S. Administrators in International Education in Germany in 2000. It included meetings and programs on German higher education in Berlin, Dresden, Freiberg, and Leipzig. One of the most important impressions I came away with is the ongoing tension between continuity and change that German higher education is experiencing. What to keep from the past, and what to change? It is reflected in the debate over the move toward the Anglo-American BA/MA credential, and the need to move students along more quickly in the system. Continuity and change is a tension that all organizations and institutions experience and I came away with a greater appreciation of the dynamic and how it plays into my decisions as an administrator at UMF.

I am a founding member of the Fulbright Association of Maine and serve on its Board of Directors.

Rob en-route from Berlin to Saxony

Rod Farmer

I had three Fulbright Summer Seminar Fellowships: 1980 in India, 1982 in Israel and 1986 in Pakistan.  The summer fellowships are academic programs arranged around a series of lectures by scholars in the host nation.  In each case we had some of the foremost scholars in the host nation lecture on history, government, religion, geography and related areas.  The Fulbright to Pakistan had the theme of studying Pakistan as an example of an Islamic republic.  I found myself reading the Koran and the Hadith (The Sayings of Mohammad) in serious depth.  But we also discussed Pakistan-US relations, etc.

To win one of these summer Fulbrights, you applied as am individual and around 20 professors and high school social studies teachers were selected from hundreds of applications for each of the programs.  It is rather competitive.  I use a lot of what I learned from these three Fulbrights (and from other grants to study in Japan and China) in by FYS 100 course: Ideologies of the Ancient World—-which compares five Eastern philosophies: Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Islam.

Led by a procession of University faculty, administrators and dignitaries to the moving music of a local bagpipe group, 387 University of Maine at Farmington bachelor’s and master’s degree recipients, marched Saturday, May 12, in the 2012 UMF Commencement Ceremony.

A milestone in the academic careers of UMF’s graduating class, the day’s commencement was also significant in that it was the final UMF Commencement Ceremony over which President Kalikow would preside.

“This is my eighteenth commencement ceremony as UMF president, and it is just as inspiring as my first,” said Kalikow. “It is always an honor to be a part of this memorable day as our graduates move on to pursue a meaningful life of success, service and contribution. UMF is a special place that for generations has prepared students to become well-educated, thoughtful professionals and leaders in Maine and beyond. I feel privileged to be a part of that tradition.”

Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate, delivered the keynote address to UMF graduates and their families, the UMF community and honored guests. Regarded by U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine as, “one of the great storytellers of contemporary poetry,” McNair was appointed by Maine Governor Paul LePage to a five-year term as Maine Poet Laureate in 2011.

The author of nine volumes of poems, McNair has held grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, two Rockefeller Fellowships, two grants in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Emmy Award.  A UMF professor emeritus and writer in residence, he directed the creative writing program at the University and currently serves as a guest faculty member for UMF’s Longfellow Mountains Young Writers summer workshop.

The University awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters to McNair in recognition for his dedication to expressing through his poetry the deepest experiences of rural people and extending the reach of poetry to all readers. Seth Wescott, American snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist, was also awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition for his passion and tenacity in pursuing his athletic accomplishments at the highest level and being a proud advocate for the State of Maine.

Merissa “Moe” Beaulieu, graduating senior from Monmouth, gave the student address likening the experience of the past four years to the lessons learned by Harry Potter at Hogwarts and reminding fellow graduates to stay true to the values learned at UMF. Marjorie Murray Medd, member of the UMS Board of Trustees, delivered greetings to the graduates from the University of Maine System. Degrees were conferred by UMF President Kalikow and UMF Vice President for Academic Affairs Daniel P. Gunn.

Web Extra! Commencement Speeches and Extended Coverage

Celeste Branham:
I have the honor this morning of introducing our Senior Class Speaker, Merissa Beaulieu.

Merissa “Moe” Beaulieu is from the small town of Monmouth, Maine and attended Monmouth Academy. At UMF she studied Middle/Secondary Education with a concentration in English. During her four years in Farmington she was employed in the Admission office, was a varsity golfer, and studied abroad in Krakow, Poland. She and her trademark bandana can often be found at her favorite place on campus, Mantor Green, catching some ‘rays’ and rocking out to Journey with other sun lovers. Moe will be returning this summer to Poland to volunteer with youth groups at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Education Center. When she returns she looks forward to student teaching and working toward her ultimate life-goal of being the first UMF graduate to summit Mount Everest.

Moe Beaulieu:
Good morning! On behalf of all the people who put lots of time, planning, and love into the magic of this day: welcome!

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

Those two lines changed most of our lives forever: we are the Harry Potter generation. In June of 1997 Harry Potter entered our lives. And until the release of the final movie this year we saw the world with the same excited, curious, and magic filled eyes as our favorite Harry Potter characters. Now we sit before you older, wiser, and wearing silly robes (with a little imagination they are not very different than those worn at our beloved Hogwarts).

Farmington is not much different from the world in which Harry Potter takes place. They have Hogwarts; we have Merrill Hall (which could be just as haunted). The Dugout is our Leaky Cauldron, rugby our quidditch, the Halloween dance our Yule Ball, the Farmington Flyer our Daily Prophet, the UMF vans our Thestrals, and eight am classes our Voldemort.

With each turn of the page growing up, Harry and the gang made those same turns. The pains of growing up, falling in love or love lost, and disappointment all struck a chord within our growing souls. We’ve come a long way, and until recently—along with the grown characters in book 7—we were left wondering what fate Hogwarts would succumb to long after we closed the cover. The last movie installment showed hope for the children of our favorite characters to endure the pains and happiness of adolescence at an embracing Hogwarts. This is just as we felt going through the various stages of our time here at UMF.

Think about our UMF right now. Stepping into the 2012 school year, UMF is losing its Dumbledore- President Theo. (She isn’t dying; she’s actually very much alive.) And with this new chapter in UMF’s history, we also have a role to play in its continued history. Instead of packing up, shipping out, and forgetting the friendships, leadership, and education we have received here; it’s now on our shoulders to ensure that future generations of “beavers” have just as fulfilling an experience as we have had. It’s on us to help continue the legacy that Theo, and all of UMF’s faculty and staff before us have worked so hard to establish.

Like Harry, Hermione, and Ron with Hogwarts, we need to help UMF move forward and continue to be an institution of engaging academics, closeness, friendly banter, good looks, and excellence in our time following this very day.

Some of us were rescued from cupboards under the stairs, others from Muggle parents who didn’t fully understand the “liberal arts”, and some came from families of UMF graduates, who were proud and excited to have their sons or daughters follow in their footsteps. Whatever brought us here, will forever bind us as one. We are something greater than just a graduating class. We stand for something that can’t be fully explained, as we represent a unique chapter in the book of excellence, pride, and history. We are the Class of 2012.

However, it is not time for us to end our series though. Harry and his gang of friends had to live it up in only 7 books and we have a lifetime ahead of us. A lifetime to find and destroy our personal Voldemort, find the Ginny Weasley of our love life, build a friendship with someone like Hagrid, or develop a Chamber of Secrets with our best friends. It all awaits us.

Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book 4) is quoted as saying, “You place too much importance… on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!” No matter who we were four years ago, we can all look back at the growth that led us to where we are today.

Looking out over everyone today, I think of Theo and all of the people who invested time, energy, and money in getting us to this point would agree: we have definitely grown from the wide eyed freshmen we were four years ago to semi-sophisticated young adults. Class of 2012, forget not what we have accomplished here at UMF, but rather look forward to a lifetime of achievement and stay true to the values we have all explored and edited during our time here. Look beyond the sadness of completion and at the beauty in this day (graduation): knowing that we still have time to grow and leave a legacy behind us.

Wesley McNair:

President Kalikow, Members of the Faculty, Parents and other relatives and friends of the graduates, and most importantly, Graduates of the class of 2012:

I am proud that Theo Kalikow invited me to give this address at the last graduation ceremony she will officiate as president, because she is my friend, and one of the most effective presidents this college has ever had. As I’ve told her more than once, I believe she has presided over a kind of renaissance at the University of Maine at Farmington, and I’m glad to have the opportunity now to say so publicly, even though I know that will embarrass her, since she hates talk like this.

What I like best about Theo – what perhaps we all like best – is that she is mercifully free of bluster. Whenever she talked to others during her time here about her desires for UMF or a college project, she didn’t go on and on, as if it were all about her; she spoke from the heart about what mattered to her, and she invited us to do the same as we collaborated with her.

Actually, that’s not a bad approach to poetry writing, at least as I want to practice it: to speak from the heart about what matters to you. So today, to honor Theo and the heartfelt conversation in which she has engaged us over the eighteen years of her presidency, I want to read to you, the graduating class of 2012, three short poems about things that have mattered to me over the course of my life as a poet. Each of these poems has a car in it and involves a journey. And each one will help me to say a few things about your life journey up ahead.

I’ll hazard a guess that all of you have a dream of how you want your life to turn out – a Plan A. And bless you for all your worthy plans. But it’s been my experience that life has a very limited patience for Plan A. When I myself was just your age, graduating from college, I was determined to start right out as a poet, getting a graduate degree that would help me do it. This was my Plan A. But then I got married and started a family and had very little time to be a poet.

Probably the best thing I ever did was to marry my wife, Diane. But the two of us were pretty young when we got married – she was barely 22, and I was 21 – and she brought two children from an even earlier marriage to our marriage, and we quickly had two more, and it was a wild and largely poem-less period, I can tell you. Just to give you an idea of how wild it was, I now read you my first poem, titled “The Rules of the New Car.”

After I got married and became
the stepfather of two children, just before
we had two more, I bought it, the bright
blue sorrowful car that slowly turned
to scratches and the flat black spots
of gum in the seats and stains impossible
to remove from the floor mats. Never again,
I said as our kids, four of them by now,
climbed into the new car. This time,
there will be rules. The first to go
was the rule I made for myself about
cleaning it once a week, though why,
I shouted at the kids in the rearview mirror,
should I have to clean it if they would just
remember to fold their hands. Three years
later, it was the same car I had before,
except for the dent my wife put in the grille
when, ignoring the regulation about snacks,
she reached for a bag of chips on her way
home from work and hit a tow truck. Oh,
the ache I felt for the broken rules,
and the beautiful car that had been lost,
and the car that we now had, on soft
shocks in the driveway, still unpaid for.

Then one day, for no particular reason except
that the car was loaded down with wood
for the fireplace at my in-laws’ camp
and groceries and sheets and clothes
for the week, my wife in the passenger seat,
the dog lightly panting beside the kids in the back,
all innocent anticipation, waiting for me
to join them, I opened the door to my life.

So I opened the door to my life, putting aside my Plan A of becoming a poet. And what I found in the end was that life is mostly Plan B. But that’s not the end of the story, because Plan B is so often life’s true source of opportunity. The bad news for me in my twenties was that I spent much of my time trying to support my family, living in an old, rural farmhouse over in New Hampshire, broken up into apartments. The good news was, I gradually discovered that the rural people living around me – poor farmers, or mill-workers, or elderly widows in their own failed farmhouses – that my country neighbors were making do with the lives they had, just as I was trying to do, and eventually, these very people became the source of all my early work as a poet.

Which is to say, our life journey really begins when we come up against obstacles, and they force us to discover our true path, adjusting our Plan A. Sometime ask your parents and grandparents and other family relatives how Plan B led them to where they’ve ended up in their lives – not to mention Plan C or D. I guarantee they have their own stories. So here’s my first piece of advice. When unforeseen obstacles get in the way of your dream, find another way to dream it. Plan B, graduates, is your secret weapon. Reach out to that car with the big dent in it, and open the door to your life.

Speaking of your family relatives, Graduates, as I just was, I want to read a poem to commemorate them, the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and anybody else who’s helped you along your way to this ceremony today.

Like the first poem I read, this one is about a car and a journey, and it takes place three or four months after my mother-in-law had a terrible stroke that paralyzed her whole left side. But after some physical therapy, she was able to stand up and even walk on her quad-cane, and we decided to take her out to dinner one Sunday afternoon to celebrate. So we packed her with her cane into the front seat of her two-door sedan – I was driving and Diane was in the back of the two-door – and we stopped for my mother-in-law’s sister Dot, a large woman then in her late seventies, who dearly loved to eat out. So I helped Dot into the back seat with Diane, and we drove off to the restaurant.

We got into the parking lot, beautiful day, and something disastrous happened: we couldn’t get Dot out of the back seat. No matter how much we pushed and prodded and rocked her, she was lodged back there. I address this poem to Diane, who was even more distressed than I was to see Dot lodged in the back seat that way, and the poem is called “Happiness.”

Why, Dot asks, stuck in the back
seat of her sister’s two-door, her freckled hand
feeling the roof for the right spot
to pull her wide self up onto her left,
the un-arthritic, ankle – why
does her sister, coaching outside on her cane,
have to make her laugh so, she flops
back just as she was, though now
looking wistfully out through the restaurant
reflected in her back window, she seems bigger,

and couldn’t possibly mean we should go
ahead in without her, she’ll be all right, and so
when you finally place the pillow behind her back
and lift her right out into the sunshine,
all four of us are happy, none more
than she, who straightens the blossoms
on her blouse, says how nice it is to get out
once in awhile, and then goes in to eat
with the greatest delicacy (oh
I could never finish all that) and aplomb
the complete roast beef dinner with apple crisp
and ice cream, just a small scoop.

Now that you’ve heard my poem, graduates, maybe you’re beginning to see why I’ve dedicated it to your family relatives. After all, the poem is about family helping family. And I’m sure you’ll remember the times you yourself have gotten stuck in this journey of yours just like Dot in that poem – times when your parents or relatives have responded to your predicament with concern and a helping hand. As I’ve already suggested, you may well get stuck again, when some well-laid plan you have for your life falls through. So don’t forget to thank your loved ones after this ceremony is over for the help they’ve given you during your last four years, and keep them close by, returning the favor of their help every so often in the future.

And yet. And yet, there are moments in life’s journey when no help from others will quite do – when what you need is not food, as was the case of Dot in my poem, but soul food, which you can only seek and find on your own. So my last poem with a car in it, the shortest of them all, is about an individual sort of travel – travel of an interior, spiritual kind.

In this poem you’re driving all by yourself at night beyond a town or clump of houses where everybody else is, into the pure, untamed darkness of Maine, and you’re on one of those skinny country roads with a solid yellow line that tells you two things: that you’re way off the beaten track, and that there are twists and turns to discover with your headlights as you go. This poem about individual, spiritual travel is called “Driving to Dark Country.”

Past where the last
gang of signs

comes out of the dark
to wave you back,

and past telephone
wires lengthening

with the light of someone
beyond the next hill

just returning,
a slow single line

will take the eye
of your high beam. Around you

will be jewels
of the fox-watch.

Great trees will rise up
to see you passing by

all by yourself,
riding on light.

So on this auspicious morning, Graduates, I recommend three things. First of all, consider the possibilities of Plan B, finding in your very obstacles your truest and best opportunities. Second, value your loved ones, your collaborators in life, who’ve cared enough to help you out of the tight spots you’ve gotten yourself into, whether in the back seat of a car or anywhere else. And finally, never forget the need of your spirit to take that interior journey into your own dark country, all by yourself, riding on light. Congratulations, graduates, and blessings on all your future travels.