On Monday, April 22, Rape Response Services and Partners for Peace produced the Clothesline Project installation on the University Mall. The project is made up of t-shirts that are created by survivors of sexual assault or created in honor of someone who has experienced violence. It shows a visual representation of the violence that women face everywhere, even in Maine. The project is a part of the Sexual Assault Awareness Month programming at the University of Maine.

The Clothesline Project was created in Hyannis, Massachusetts. In 1990 when members of Cape Cod’s Women’s Defense Agenda learned that during the Vietnam war, 58,000 men were killed in combat but back home, 51,000 women “were killed by men who claimed to have loved them,” according to the Clothesline Project website. The project began with 31 shirts and has continued to grow.

The project provides visual evidence that forms of sexual violence are present in our community. It also gives a voice to those who have not always had one. It aims to stir the public to action. They believe that the public must be informed about violence in order to act to prevent it. Rape Response Services and Partners for Peace had tables at the event to help educate and talk to students.

“This event is important to host at UMaine because it creates a visible representation of the violence that is prevalent in our society. Raising awareness as well as offering support and services to victims and survivors is essential, this event allows us another opportunity to make sure that survivors/victims are seen and validated,” Amy Coleman, a graduate assistant in the women, gender and sexuality studies program and the Rising Tide Center, said.

The installation on the Mall is made of only shirts from UMaine community members and features shirts from installation in the past year as well. Over a dozen shirts were added this year and the project has continued to grow. The goal is to spread awareness and provide support and resources for those affected by violence.

“The Clothesline can offer an opportunity for victims [and] survivors to write down their story and have the opportunity to turn their back and walk away from it, many people find this healing and having the opportunity to share stories with others and find new support systems is essential to creating systems that continue to advocate for victims and survivors,” Coleman said.

The shirts were decorated in unique and colorful ways. Some featured names of survivors, while others had messages of hope or quotes. But all stood as a message for the ongoing issue of sexual assault and violence in our country.

The goal of the project is to educate the community that violence is a problem everywhere and that there is help for survivors as well as paths to healing.

“The University has been very welcoming and open to the event and has provided support to not only our department in facilitating these difficult dialogues but also in creating spaces that allow our community members access to counseling services specifically from Rape Response Services and Partners for Peace. We appreciate the continued collaboration,” Coleman said.

The installation ran from Monday through Thursday. On Wednesday, the project ran in conjunction with Denim Day. Community members were encouraged to wear denim to stand in solidarity with survivors and educate themselves about all forms of sexual violence.

An organization called Peace Over Violence has been running Denim Day for the past 20 years. It was created after the Italian Supreme Court overturned a rape conviction because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans, she must have helped the man who assaulted her remove them, therefore implying consent. The following day, female Italian Parliament members wore jeans in solidarity with the survivor.

Denim Day now serves as a reminder that there is no excuse for violence. Denim Day activities included free buttons and educational material provided by Rape Response Services and Partners for Peace.

“Against My Will UMaine” is another exhibit on the Mall during the month of April, as a part of UMaine’s sexual assault awareness month programming. Artist Tracy Molloy painted UMaine students and faculty members who are survivors of sexual assault. Her work was displayed on the Mall until April 27.

Rating: Five Stars

The podcast market has become increasingly saturated and it can be hard to find a news podcast that is quick, nonpartisan and is not merely a regurgitation of the day’s headlines. Membership-based news company, theSkimm recently launched a daily podcast titled “Skimm This” to offset their email newsletters. “Skimm This” is the perfect podcast for individuals who want to stay up to date on the most current events, but do not have a lot of time. As a busy college student, I find “Skimm This” to be the most beneficial podcast for me.

The “Skimm This” podcast is roughly 10 minutes long and is structured similarly to their weekday emails. But unlike most news podcasts, “Skimm This” is not just a round-up of the headlines from the day. Instead, it features three to four major events and breaks down pertinent information, provides context on the event and shares various views on the story. The company says that they offer contextualized, nonpartisan coverage. It also covers the most important national and international headlines.

According to theSkimm website, “the news is constantly changing. And in today’s world, context is clarity. Skimm This breaks down the biggest stories of the day and connects the dots on why they matter.”

The podcast is released at 5 p.m. every Monday through Friday when people are coming home from work, going to the gym, prepping for dinner, or just want to catch up on the day’s events. It is perfect for college students that want to keep up with the latest news in the world but are short on time with classwork, job and other commitments.

“Skimm This” was released on March 4 and has discussed a multitude of events including election primaries, sexual abuse in Boy Scouts of America, border vigilantes and the mass shooting in Sri Lanka. Through the short episodes, they provide listeners with well-researched information and an unbiased view which allows listeners to form their own opinion on different subjects.

TheSkimm releases a newsletter every weekday morning and it features major headlines from the previous day. The articles are brief and deliver facts in a quick and entertaining way. They break down the most important news events and integrates stories from politics, technology, culture and they even include brief profiles on subscribers at the end of each newsletter. The Daily Skimm newsletter is sent straight to subscribers’ emails each morning.

“Skimm This” is the second podcast that theSkimm has launched. In February 2018, the company launched “Skimm’d From the Couch.” This is a weekly podcast hosted by theSkimm’s co-founders and CEOs Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg. The two interview female leaders about their paths to success.

Zakin and Weisberg began theSkimm in 2012 after the presidential election. The two quit their jobs as newscasters at NBC and started their daily newsletters from their couch. Their podcast “Skimm’d From the Couch” is a return to the two hosts’ roots and is targeted toward millennial women.

As theSkimm has grown to include over seven million subscribers, they have worked to create a variety of products to find something that everyone can enjoy. They recently released a new book, created a video series and even have an app.

Listen to “Skimm This” on your favorite streaming service and sign up for their newsletter on their website, www.theskimm.com/.

Mackenzie Peacock began acting in high school, and has performed in countless plays at John Stark Regional High School, the University of Maine and various theater companies, including the Ten Bucks Theater Company in Bangor. But on Thursday, April 18, she sat in the audience of Hauck Auditorium and watched the premiere of her play “I’m Still Alive,” changing her perspective from actor to playwright for the first time.

In high school, Peacock auditioned for a one-act play after her older brother Zack encouraged her to audition. She loved theater and it was always something she had wanted to be involved in, but she needed someone to guide her in that direction. She auditioned for the one-act play, titled “Fortress,” which sparked her love for acting.

“I caught the theater bug and since then theater has always been something that I have to do. I can’t just be doing school work … I have to do theater or I would go insane,” Peacock said.

She continued to act throughout high school and participate in productions. Her passion for the arts led her to the University of Maine, where she is pursuing a double major in theater and communication.

Peacock prides herself on having a versatile skill set that helps her become a better performer. She has taken multiple acting classes at UMaine, singing lessons with Karen Pendleton, a voice instructor at UMaine, and began writing her own plays in her spare time.

“I consider myself, first and foremost, an actor. I also enjoy doing other things, like playwriting. I’ve always considered myself a writer ever since elementary school. I’ve always written poems and stories just in my spare time,” Peacock said.

“I’m Still Alive” was produced by the Maine Masque as a completely student-led play. Peacock pulled inspiration from different events in her life and her characters were inspired by people that she has met through high school and college. In high school, she was a part of the Anti-Defamation League and was a peer leader. Both of these groups focused on facilitating lessons with underclassmen in high school that were not easy to talk about, such as mental health, domestic violence and bullying. She began to ask herself what provokes people to bully each other in middle school and high school. Through research and her own experiences, she began to formulate her play.

“[The play] was just one of those things that I was writing just for fun in high school and it just sort of snowballed into this much bigger project,” Peacock said.

She began writing this play in her free time during high school but put it away for a couple of years to focus on her acting and school work. It wasn’t until she had to write a one-act play for a creative writing class that she pulled it back out.

After spending time refining and editing, Peacock realized that she wanted to have her play produced and performed. Along with director Noah Lovejoy, she pitched her play to the UMaine School of Performing Arts Board and the Maine Masque. “I’m Still Alive” was selected as the 2019 spring student-run production and cast 13 undergraduate students.

“Through entertainment and art, we can talk about issues like bullying and mental health through performance and spectacle. It is an easy way to get to people. I find that if you just read a statistic, like this number of people were bullied or the percent of people who commit suicide every year because of bullying, I find that this is not effective,” Peacock said. “I feel like numbers are important … but when you experience something, like a play, you actually understand the issues being portrayed.”

“I’m Still Alive” features a high school aged boy named Will and his struggles with Cam, the boy who bullies him. Peacock shows how different events and circumstances can play into a person’s behavior and feelings toward others. She marries her drama with supernatural elements such as when Will’s best friend Johnny comes back from the dead to help him get revenge.

As the play goes on, the audience learns more about the hardships that each character endures and how events in their lives shape their actions and responses to circumstances in their present life. By touching on the topic of bullying, suicide and domestic violence, Peacock hoped to begin a conversation among audience members about these difficult subjects.

After its final performance at UMaine, Peacock wants to refine the play further and hopefully have it produced in high schools and colleges to further continue the discussion of these difficult topics.

After graduating this spring, Peacock will be attending graduate school at UMaine and hopes to stay involved in the arts. The theater has been the largest part of her life over the last seven years and she does not plan to stop any time soon. She plans to stay involved with the School of Performing Arts at UMaine and will continue to write in her spare time.

Rating: 3.5 stars

“Pet Sematary” is one of Stephen King’s most frightening and disturbing novels to date. The newly released movie, however, is not as hair-raising as other film adaptations of his novels, such as “It,” which was remade in 2017.

While it falls short in the horror category and is unlikely to cause nightmares, “Pet Sematary” still has an eerie premise that will captivate viewers. Directors Kevin Klosch and Dennis Widmyer capture many of the novel’s elements, as well as incorporating more character development than is usual for the genre.

The plot follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clark) and his wife, Rachel (Amy Seimetz), who recently relocated from Boston to a rural town in Maine. After their daughter’s cat dies, the couple discovers a dark and creepy graveyard deep in the woods behind their house. Dr. Creed speaks to his neighbor about the graveyard, setting off a chain reaction of horrific events.

Horror movies usually utilize tropes such as supernatural elements, suspense, jump scares and creepy music, and “Pet Sematary” is no different. In addition to these elements, this film also relies heavily on the parents’ fear of losing a child, and the emotional stress that accompanies it. A lot of the horror elements and eerie premise are based on death and the resurrection of the dead.

King’s plot was originally brought to the big screen by director Mary Lambert in 1989. The original film received mixed reviews from viewers, who begged for the film to be remade. Thirty years later, the remake contains a variety of plot changes from the original movie and book. The deviation from the 1989 movie provides a fresh take on the film that will surprise even the most loyal King followers.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, King describes how the events and places in the movie are actually based on his former home.

“Everything in the book up to the point of the supernatural stuff is true,” King said.

The book was based on King’s memories of his former house in Orrington, Maine. He moved into the house with his family when he was offered a job as a writer in residence at the University of Maine. In the back of the house was a pet cemetery. King’s daughter even buried her cat there. The book also describes the busy road that the Creed family lived on, and King described that his family’s house was the inspiration for this road.

In the same interview, King admitted it took a few years to publish the book after he finished writing it.

“If I had my way about it, I still would not have published ‘Pet Sematary.’ I don’t like it. It’s a terrible book — not in terms of the writing, but it just spirals down into darkness. It seems to be saying that nothing works and nothing is worth it, and I don’t really believe that,” King said.

Despite the film’s proclaimed plunge into darkness, it provides an interesting take on death and what can happen after. Though it follows typical horror movie guidelines, it offers a fresh take on the supernatural.

Lisa Klein, the author of the book “Ophelia,” visited the University of Maine on Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13 as the final speaker of the year in the Stephen E. King Chair Lecture Series. Klein was previously a professor at Ohio State University where she taught English, which often included Shakespeare. In her lecture titled “Hamlet’s Girlfriend Gets a Life,” Klein spoke about her book and discussed how we can rethink the familiar in our own lives.

Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” is arguably one of his most famous pieces of work. The 17th-century tragedy features Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, and his plan to exact revenge on his uncle. The story of Hamlet has been retold through countless plays, books and films, including a 1990 movie, titled “Hamlet,” starring Mel Gibson and Disney’s 1994 movie, “The Lion King.” Each adaptation features similar characters, plot points and themes as Shakespeare’s original play.

Caroline Bicks, the Stephen E. King Chair at UMaine, brought Klein to campus as a speaker in the King Chair Lecture Series. In the last year, the lecture series has featured other speakers like Leigh Gilmore and Adam Barr.

“My goal for the King Chair Lecture Series is to bring artists to campus who have taken their skills and passions as humanities practitioners into the wider world to address social issues and challenge assumptions,” Bicks said.

Klein is the author of “Ophelia,” a spinoff on the original plot of Hamlet. In the original play, Ophelia is a young noblewoman who is poised to marry Hamlet. However, she submerges into insanity, eventually drowning in a river. Klein imagined a world where Ophelia’s death in the play was not the end of her story. Instead, she uses it as a launching point for her book, believing that Ophelia faked her death. Through her reinterpretation, Klein asks that her audience rethinks the ordinary and presents voices of characters that are largely unheard.

“Through her fiction, Klein has made a career of asking readers to rethink the familiar and imagine alternative perspectives,” Bicks said. “In both her public lecture and in the fiction-writing workshop she offered to our students and staff, she brought awareness to the importance of crafting stories that allow previously unheard voices to come forward.”

Klein believed that modern renditions of the play have undercut Ophelia’s part and whittled down her role in the play. She described her book as a collection of the “what if’s” of Shakespeare’s original play and used those scenarios to reimagine the story.

“I doubt [Ophelia’s] madness, but I also doubt her death … I wanted to retell Ophelia’s story in a way that maintained the original integrity of Shakespeare’s play. There is nothing in the novel that contradicts the play … I wrote it between the lines, so to speak,” Klein said.

Klein’s book is also being made into a movie, starring Daisy Ridley as Ophelia, that is set to be released in June 2019. Klein said that the movie takes several deviations from her book, but it gives a voice to contemporary movements, such as the #MeToo movement, which further perpetuates Klein’s message of giving a voice to those who previously have not had one.

The King Lecture Series will resume in the fall of 2019 where it will continue to bring in people who have used their skills and passion for the humanities to address broader social issues within our society.

Traci Molloy recently displayed her art exhibit titled “Against My Will UMaine,” on the Mall of the University of Maine. Her exhibit features 20 students and staff members from UMaine that are survivors of sexual assault.

Molloy created an installation under the same title, “Against My Will,” in October of 2018 for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. She featured 22 sexual assault survivors from Alfred University, her alma mater. Similar paintings were hung around the Mall. But her new installation shows the effects of sexual assault and violence on the UMaine campus. By including our own staff and peers, the project will show that even if Maine is a “safe state,” sexual assault and violence still occurs. The UMaine survivors featured are only a small percentage of survivors on this campus.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Molloy, along with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality program at UMaine and the Rising Tide Center, hosted a discussion to talk about the relevancy of both her work and the topic of sexual assault.

Molloy began the discussion by involving the audience in a visual exercise.

“I would like everyone who identifies as female to stand up,” Molloy said. “Now, I would like you all to count off one through five. Now everyone who is not a number one, please sit down. One in five women reports being sexually assaulted at some point in their life.”

Through her work, Molloy hopes to spark conversation about topics that are not typically talked about.

“I like to collaborate a lot. For almost 20 years now, I have been working in partnership with people that have experienced trauma,” Molloy said. “I don’t work exclusively with sexual assault survivors … but in the last four years, I have begun to collaborate on a large scale with sexual assault survivors.”

By working with survivors of sexual assault, she wants to create a dialogue about the depths of sexual assault and the trauma that survivors can experience. She also hopes that universities will begin to question what they are and are not teaching their students and staff, as well as what they need to do to ensure that students are safe on their campuses.

The rest of the discussion featured a panel made up of participants from Molloy’s exhibit. The women that participated shared their stories as survivors and how their experiences have shaped their lives since. Students and staff bravely shared their stories and hoped that other survivors both on the panel and in the audience could share solace in the fact that they are not alone.

“[This art] provides a platform for people to talk when talking is too complicated. And it provides a safety net for them,” Molloy said.

During the conversation, Molloy made sure to hear from a variety of voices in attendance. She said that until both men and women are willing to discuss issues like sexual assault, then no progress can be made.

“When I was here in the fall, I happened to walk past a class. It was a mixed class … and all of a sudden you’re hearing things from the men, and men are hearing things from the women and they’re like “we don’t talk about this.” With sexual assault, it’s taboo. It’s not discussed. Talking helps people have a better understanding, a better grasp of what sexual assault is and the depth of trauma that it can cause,” Molloy said.

Molloy began working on her exhibit when she was on the UMaine campus in October 2018. She began painting late in January once she finalized the 20 participants that she would include in the project. From there, she painted for six to seven hours a day. Molloy would draw her piece based on a photograph that was sent to her. Then she would paint over her sketch, spending two or three days on each participant’s photo.

The paintings are de-identified, meaning only certain features of the participant are shown. There is a basic outline of the person, including their hair and face shape, but only one or two other features, like their eyebrows or mouth, are painted. This keeps the participants anonymous and they are able to share their story without fear of people finding out who they are.

Each painting also includes a statement written by each participant. The women wrote out their personal experiences with sexual assault in their own handwriting, adding a very personal element to the piece.

Each painting is hung on a different posts around the Mall. The exhibit will be up until the end of April. Molloy’s exhibit is designed in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is a campaign designed to raise public awareness about sexual assault and abuse. This is her second year in a row producing an exhibit at UMaine in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

On Wednesday, March 27, Campus Activities and Student Engagement (CASE) hosted their second annual Tunnel of Oppression exhibit in the Memorial Union. The exhibit is a part of the University of Maine’s Women’s History Month programming.

The tunnel is an immersive experience designed to make attendees uncomfortable. It forces people to step into the lives of oppressed groups that are present on the UMaine campus and worldwide. Many campus organizations helped create the tunnel, including the Multicultural Center, the UMaine Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and UMaine LGBTQ services.

Five different rooms made up the tunnel, depicting experiences of oppressed groups on campus. They included skits put on by student volunteers, statistics and short videos relating to ableism, mental health, religion, transgender and nonbinary identities and Title IX. The final room, the “Room of Hope,” was designed to encourage conversation among viewers about various topics.

“[The tunnel] covers issues that are not necessarily being talked about on campus … it highlights what they go through on top of academics and social and family life,” Benjamin Evans, the coordinator of CASE, said.

CASE facilitators and student volunteers guided groups through the tunnel and explained the significance of each room. The exhibit began in a room dedicated to religion which included Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The walls were covered in news articles, personal stories and facts about religious oppression and misconceptions around the world. This room was created by the Wilson Center, a multi-faith, spiritual exploration group.

The tour then went on to cover topics pertaining to mental health, which was organized by the Counseling Center. Two student volunteers acted out a skit depicting one roommate dealing with a mental health issue and another roommate who did not understand what she was going through. Evans noted that this room showed what symptoms of mental illness can look like.

The next section placed participants in the shoes of transgender and nonbinary persons. Student volunteers read questions and statements that are often made to transgender and nonbinary people. The statements included people’s personal beliefs about gender, common misconceptions and prejudices that transgender and nonbinary people face every day.

Student Accessibility Services (SAS) showed videos of two students on campus who have disabilities and provided statistics relating to disabilities at UMaine. There are currently 920 students with disabilities enrolled in the university and working with SAS. According to Sara Henry, director of SAS, this room highlighted 11 different types of disabilities that students at UMaine are living with.

Title IX services focuses on gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and assault, violence and stalking, and educates students about their rights under Title IX and the Violence Against Women Act. Volunteers acted out a scene at a party that ended in sexual assault.

The final room, the “Room of Hope,” brought participants together to discuss what they learned and what they were surprised by, and allowed individuals to share their personal experiences. Psychologists participating in the event encouraged students to speak and listen with intention, and tend to the wellbeing of the group in the room. Chuck McKay, a counselor at the Counseling Center on campus, discussed the idea of challenge by choice, which means individuals have the power to challenge pre-existing social norms and begin having difficult conversations encouraged by the Tunnel of Oppression.

Campus partners have been working on the exhibit since early September. They met once a month to develop their topics and find volunteers. In an attempt to show a variety of experiences, Evans said they made a conscious effort to feature different topics than they did the year before to demonstrate the range of oppression that individuals can face.

Five stars

For those who are huge history buffs or want to learn more than your high school history class taught you, the podcast “Stuff You Missed in History Class” discusses various events throughout history that are seldom talked about. They cover topics like transatlantic travel before the Titanic, the history of ballet and the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.

The podcast is produced by HowStuffWorks and is hosted by Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey. The podcast was originally titled “Fact or Fiction? History Stuff for the History Buff” and has had many different hosts throughout its evolution. Wilson and Frey have both been working with the podcast since 2013.

Episodes can seem slow at first, but they often provide contextual background about events that are definitely worth listening to if you would like to learn more about history. The podcast’s archives date back over ten years to 2008 and cover almost any topic you can think of. There is sure to be something of interest for everyone.

It is clear that the hosts of the show have done their research and are very knowledgeable about every topic on their show. They also convey information in a fun, engaging way that does not come across like a normal history class lecture.

In addition to sharing historical information, the hosts provide commentary on how these issues pertain to our modern world, as well as how they impacted society at the time. “Stuff You Missed in History Class” has been accused of covering too many topics about women in history and they are criticized for being biased towards talking about women over men.

Wilson and Frey stated on their website that “Even though it should not be a problem to talk about women more than we talk about men, we’ve gone back into the archive and looked, and what we’ve found is that a sound majority of our shows that could be classified as ‘men’ or ‘women’ are about men. Even through dedicated, continual effort to talk about women, we still don’t even come close to a 50/50 split.”

According to data compiled on their website, 45 percent of their episodes are ungendered. On average, they focus on male figures in 34 percent of their episodes and female figures in 21 percent.

As the two hosts become more comfortable with their craft, their episodes sound less scripted and are better at engaging listeners. Their episodes have also increased in length from about five minutes to 30 to 40 minutes.

Despite criticisms of gender bias and being too scripted, the podcast provides factual accounts of events in history and shares the truth about events to clear up common misconceptions.

In addition to the podcast, which can be found on iTunes, Spotify and their website, missedinhistory.com, Wilson and Frey host live shows to discuss historical events that pertain to the cities that they are visiting.

Congress voted to pass the 19th amendment in 1919, giving women the right to vote in the United States. 100 years later, women are still fighting for equality in America. At the University of Maine, groups like the Women’s Resource Center and Feminist Collective, as well as departments like the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, are working to give a voice to students on campus by organizing events like those in recognition and celebration of Women’s History Month and the 100-year anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement.

During the week of March 11, the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) hosted the “History of the Women’s Resource Center” in the Walker Room of Memorial Union.

“We decided to do this event to preserve our history as a student activist based organization. One of our goals as a previously defunded center is to ensure the future of the WRC and that it stays on campus. Showing folks how the WRC has changed campus climate through the years will garner support and awareness for what we do as a center. The event is also in honor of Women’s History Month at UMaine, and the 100th anniversary of (white) women’s suffrage in Maine, as we honor Maine women activists,” Ashlee Atchinson, current co-director of the WRC, said.

UMaine’s WRC was founded by Sharon Barker in 1991. She served as an activist for women and girls in Maine and served as the director of the WRC from 1991 until she retired in 2015.

Barker was awarded the Steve Gould Award in 1994 for her services at UMaine. The award is in memory of Steve Gould and honors individuals or groups that demonstrate superior qualities of unselfishness and compassion in their pursuit of service to the university, according to the selection committee’s website. Baker was recognized in 1999 as Woman of the Year in Maine and awarded the American Association of University Women Award in 2009.

Despite the success of the WRC on campus, it was defunded in 2015 when Barker retired. The funds were re-allocated to the Rising Tide Center. The Rising Tide Center was established in 2010 and aimed to increase job satisfaction among female STEM faculty members and exceed their goals in recruiting, retaining and advancing women in STEM fields.

The Student Women’s Association began working to reinstate the WRC, led by future co-directors Sam Saucier and Lori Loftin. Thousands of students signed petitions to reopen the center, but they were still denied. It was not until 2016 that Saucier and Loftin were able to reopen the WRC. UMaine declined to provide funding, but the center still thrived.

In 2018, current co-directors Julia Haberstick and Atchinson secured funding and a home for the WRC. It is located in room 227 of the Memorial Union in the Student Life section, along with the Rainbow Resource Center and the Office of Multicultural Student Life.

The goal of the WRC is to help facilitate a safer campus that is more accepting for all students at UMaine. Their Facebook page further states: “We believe in equality and are dedicated to raising awareness around feminist issues. Visit us for free resources such as condoms, confidential and accurate sexual health information, emergency contraception, pregnancy tests, menstrual hygiene products, our feminist library, and peer support.”

The WRC puts on various events around campus, including the Take Back the Night Walk with the Student Women’s Association (SWA). The first Take Back the Night was in 1997. The event brings awareness to survivors of domestic and sexual assault, and gives the survivors a platform to come together to share their stories. The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program continues to organize this event on campus in conjunction with the WRC and SWA.

By 1999, the WRC was publishing its own guide called “The Loop.” It was designed by women for women, and it served as a guide on surviving at UMaine. The WRC continued to sponsor events, like Take Back the Night, and introduced the Vagina Monologues. The Vagina Monologues are now hosted by the Feminist Collective and raise awareness about violence against women and girls.

In the 2000s, the WRC began offering classes and training to employees around campus. They provided training to resident assistants, titled “Ending a Culture of Violence,” and began the Safe Campus Project which trained over 800 UMaine employees on relationship abuse in the workplace.

The WRC continues to host events, like Dine-in Discourse and Walkout for Survivors. In addition, they bring in guest speakers to further educate students on sexual health and reproductive justice. They provide menstrual products, contraceptives and other health products. The WRC provides students access to their feminist library as well as a safe and supportive environment to visit.

Information about the WRC can be found on their Facebook page. Students can also contact them through Facebook or at their email, wrcumaine@gmail.com.

Rating: 4.5 stars

ABC’s new show “Whiskey Cavalier” merges the best of drama and comedy following FBI agent Will Chase (Scott Foley) and CIA operative Frankie Trowbridge (Lauren Cohan) as they lead a dual-agency cooperative.

The show has plenty of fight scenes, explosions, comedy, drama and romance, and offers elements of a wide variety of genres making it appealing to almost everyone.

Foley and Cohan are both good fits for the show. Trowbridge, codenamed Fiery Tribune, meets Chase, codenamed Whiskey Cavalier, at a bar while the two are on separate missions at the same site. Trowbridge plays a strong co-lead that is not afraid of conflict and is cold and ruthless in her endeavors. Chase undergoes an emotional breakup in the beginning of the show. He keeps trying to move forward from it, but his ex-girlfriend, Gigi, pops up at inopportune times. He continues to be the emotional character throughout the first two episodes, a subversion of stereotypical gender norms which gives the show a progressive feel.

Even though the spy drama series was popular in the 1980s, shows like “MacGyver” and “Remington Steele” showcased strong male leads, while women took the back seat. “Whiskey Cavalier,” however, pairs Trowbridge right alongside Chase and the two share the spotlight equally. This show offers a more culturally relevant take on the espionage dramedy that has been largely nonexistent on television in the past 30 years.

Chase and Trowbridge’s unique dynamic often creates conflict between the two. They both want to be the head of their ragtag cooperative team, but neither is willing to relinquish control. Their relationship is further complicated by elements of romantic interest between them.

In addition to dealing with this tension, the two are fighting various enemies in an attempt to maintain order in the world. This show often falls back on classic and expected tropes. There are big explosions and gunfire, witty jokes and the aforementioned romance. All of this has been done before — this is not a unique take on the basic building blocks of an action-comedy.

However, Chase and Trowbridge are charismatic co-leads that have chemistry on the screen. The plot is not overly creative but includes fun technology and spy gear that is a feature of any action show. But the acting brings a new and relatable take on the classic dramedy formula.

Bill Lawrence, an executive producer of the show, also produced shows “Cougar Town” and “Ground Floor,” which both had solid plots that inevitably fell flat. It will be interesting to see where the writers will go from here with “Whiskey Cavalier.” The first two episodes offered a stable launching point for the show, and if the action and witty banter between Chase and Trowbridge continues, the show could be a success.