March 30 – 12:40 a.m.

Sargent Barrieau of Orono Police Department (OPD) was called by another officer for an incident of potential drunk driving. Barrieau drove to Park Street and met with a male, 21, who had allegedly been driving erratically. The man had bloodshot eyes and his speech was slurred. He admitted to drinking earlier in the night and subsequently failed a field sobriety test. Barrieau arrested him for operating under the influence and brought him back to the station, after which he went to jail. His court date is May 9.

March 31 – 12:30 a.m.

Sergeant Haass of OPD was on patrol in the Avenue Apartment Complex when he saw a car driving without its headlights on at night. Haass followed the vehicle and noticed the driver still did not turn on the car’s headlights even though he was heading toward Park Street, a busy main road. Haass pulled the car over and talked to the driver, 20, who alleged he had no idea why he was stopped. The driver said he and his girlfriend were going home. Haass had him conduct a field sobriety test, which the driver failed, and arrested him for OUI. He was taken to the OPD station and then to jail. His court date is May 9.

March 31 – 1:40 a.m.

Someone called OPD to report a vehicle driving erratically on the interstate northbound into Orono and Old Town. The caller said the vehicle had been swerving across the road before eventually pulling off the interstate onto Stillwater Avenue. Sargent Barrieau managed to find the vehicle and pull it over near the Riverside House of Pizza in Old town. The driver, 20, who said he was going to his girlfriend’s house, was steadfast in claiming that he hadn’t consumed any alcohol that night. Even so, based on the complaint and other indicators, Barrieau did not believe him. After failing a field sobriety test, the driver was arrested for OUI and taken back to the station. His court date is May 9.

April 2 – 12:30 p.m.

The University of Maine Police Department (UMPD) received a complaint that a sign displaying the Greek letters “Beta Theta Pi” was taken from outside the fraternity house on College Avenue of the same name. A representative from the fraternity said the sign was taken sometime between 10 p.m. on March 28 and 1 p.m. on March 29. The estimated cost is $500.

April 4 – 6:45 p.m.

UMPD received a “campus eyes” report of marijuana use on the first floor of Hancock Hall. Officers responded and found the source of the smell in the room of a male, 20. His marijuana was confiscated and he was summoned for possession.

April 4 – 10:05 p.m.

An officer walking on the fourth floor of Knox Hall heard loud music coming from one of the rooms. The officer knocked on the door of the room and was greeted by a first-year student, 19. He let the officer into the room and the officer discovered marijuana and drug paraphernalia and summoned him for possession of both.

Club maintenance

A member of the Nordic Skiing Club came forward and asked the Senate for preliminary recognition. Currently there are about 15 members in this club and they would like to receive recognition in order to reach more students on campus, register as a University of Maine club team and collect funding for transportation. This motion was passed by the Senate.

A member of the Physical Education Student Organization spoke for the club and asked for preliminary recognition so the organization can spread awareness, promote health around the campus and receive funding. About 25 members are already signed up for the club, and the organization is open to anyone who is interested in physical education. This motion was passed by the Senate.

Executive reports

Vice President Bentley Simpson announced there was no report from President Aromando due to his absence, and reminded the Senate that the budget meeting will be held on April 2.

Vice President of Financial Affairs Jack O’Donoghue reported that all student organizations will be in attendance for the budget meeting and that the Student Heritage Alliance Council is asking for $3,140 in funding for their Cultural Mosaic event.

Vice President of Student Organizations Taylor Cray reported that club presentations will be continuing.

Vice President for Student Entertainment Corey Claflin said that a site walkthrough for the spring concert had been finished. He is also finalizing logistics for the concert. He encouraged members of Senate to attend his committee meetings.

Periodic reports

Faculty Senate Student Representative Harrison Ransley reported that there is a faculty senate meeting coming up and he will be in attendance, ready to discuss the issue of lengthening the add/drop class period.

Chair of the Fair Election Practices Commission Matthew Akers reported that the executive debate went well and that the ballots, as well as absentee ballots, are being finalized.

Old Town City Council Liaison Emmeline Willey reported that just as UMaine students are complaining about potholes, the residents of Old Town are complaining as well.

Director of Communications Austin Steward reported that spring concert planning is still in full swing and the Senate photos are being prepared.

Reports of standing committees

Chase Flaherty with the Policy and Procedure Committee reported that he received ideas from the executive debate and is thinking about changes within the committee.

Cameron Bowie with the Political Activism Committee reiterated the idea of changes stemming from ideas brought up at the executive debate. Bowie also reminded the Senate that he will be needing help with the Stillwater cleanup event held at the end of April.

Representative board reports

Ian Johnson with the Commuter and Non-Traditional Students Board reported that there will be a pancake breakfast held Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Interfraternity Council President Andrew Arsenault reported that Greek Week planning has started and CPR training will begin next week.

Panhellenic Council President Stephanie Poirier reported that recruitment dates have been approved and recruitment counselors are being interviewed.

Community association reports:

Student Heritage Alliance Council member Max Zakian reported that the planning for the Cultural Mosaic on March 29 is ongoing.

A Wilde Stein member announced that the previous president, Aiden Ciaffaglione, had stepped down and that the club is preparing for the Lavender Prom on April 22.  

New business

An act to allocate funds for the Student Heritage Alliance Council and their Cultural Mosaic event was presented. They are asking for $3,140 in funding for food and supplies. The event will be held in the union and will include games, food and other events. This was passed by the Senate.

A roll call vote was held to review the cabinets choice to veto funding for the Pre-Law Society’s event. The funding was vetoed by the cabinet due to lack of communication about what the money would be used for. The Senate ruled that the veto stands.

A roll call vote was held to review a veto by the cabinet in regards to the Dungeons and Dragons Club wanting funds for food for an upcoming event. The funds were previously vetoed because the cabinet and Executive Budgetary Committee felt as though this type of funding would not follow precedent. The Senate ruled that the veto stands.

The meeting concluded with an Executive Session, which was not open to the public.

The University of Maine’s Fair Elections Practices Committee (FEPC) hosted and moderated this year’s debate for the new student body president in the Memorial Union Monday, March 11.

The two candidates, third-year political science and economics student and current senator, Harrison Ransley, and third-year marine science student and current vice president, Bentley Simpson, were given the opportunity to make a case for their candidacy and to answer questions from their fellow students. The event was two hours long and was attended by UMaine students and faculty.

Matthew Akers, a third-year biology and pre-med student and the FEPC chairman, served as the debate moderator. Four neutral panelists were chosen by Akers to ask previously submitted questions for the candidates. These questions, chosen by Akers, covered a variety of topics ranging from first-year retention rates to potholes on the university’s roads. Each candidate was given two minutes to provide an answer. By approximately 6:30 p.m., Akers began to allow spectators to ask questions, and after another 30 minutes, the debate ended.

“I feel it was very well structured and that the debate itself was productive,” Ransley said. “It even felt more like a conversation than a debate at times.”

Simpson expressed a similarly confident view.

“I did like that [Akers] flipped who answered questions first,” Simpson said. “I certainly felt that I had an advantage when I was the second to answer a question because it gave me time to jot down my main points before speaking.”

When asked if they had been able to say everything they wished, the two candidates offered mixed responses.

“I wish I could have talked more about [the Student Conduct Code Oversight and Review Committee] and why it is important. I know my friend Simpson … talked about why it’s unnecessary and I feel I never really got the opportunity to give specific changes and examples as to why the student body really needs this,” Sen. Ransley, who is also the chairman of the Senate’s Student Code of Conduct Committee, said.

“I wish there had been some questions on personal leadership styles: our perceived weaknesses, perceived strengths, values, etc,” Simpson said.

Since Simpson will be unable to return to the position of vice president next semester, he explained that should he not win the presidency, he may apply for an officer position or return to serving as a student senator.

“If I don’t win, it is more likely I end up on the senate, because it’s the second-best opportunity to show the senators how much power they really have and groom the younger senators for higher office,” Simpson said.

Sen. Ransley said that he intends to remain part of Student Government no matter the role.

“I really enjoy what I do and the work with Student Government for the students,” Ransley said. “If I don’t win it may impact my projects and the needs of the students I’m trying to help, but I’ll stick around and keep working on it no matter what.”

Dana Carver-Bialer, a coordinator of leadership development at UMaine, was one of the debate’s four panelists.

“It was a privilege to help facilitate the UMSG Presidential Debate,” Carver-Bialer said. “Vice President Simpson and Senator Ransley both exemplified innovative ideas and undeniable passion for serving UMaine’s students.”

Orono Town Manager Sophie Wilson also served on the panel.

“I was pleased to be part of such a respectful, informative and fair forum that allowed the undergraduate student body to learn more about these two thoughtful and engaged candidates for Student Government president,” Wilson said. “I think that an undergrad with no information about the candidates prior to the debate would have gained a fairly good understanding of their approach to governance, leadership style and priorities and been able to select a candidate.”

The debate’s audience included a significant number of student senators who were interested in the election.

“I think the debate questions were fair and both candidates were given an equal shot,” Emma Willey, a second-year media studies student and student senator, said.

As chair of the Senate’s Services Committee, Willey is responsible for improving student services across campus, and she thinks that either of the two candidates will be able to help her in this capacity.

“As a senator, I believe both candidates are fully capable of taking Student Gov. to new heights next year,” Willey stated.

Akers said that he thought the debate went well, and the only change he would make would be in the timing of the debate to make it more convenient for students to attend.

“I think that the debate really showed that we have two great options for the president and the student body is going to have a tough decision to choose between these two qualified candidates,” Akers said.

With little more than a week left in the election, each candidate will need to spend their spring break tirelessly campaigning.

“I’m just going to try to get the word out, present to groups, and have a strong social media presence,” Ransley said. “I’ll also spread the word of [the Student Conduct Code Oversight and Review Committee] because this campaign, no matter what, can help that project and it is something that students really need across the whole system, not just here.”

Simpson, when asked for his plans, replied that he intends to “keep pushing via word of mouth.”

On March 25, voting for the new president will be available for students online through the student portal and in person in the Wade Center in the Memorial Union until 5 p.m.

The inauguration ceremony for UMaine’s newly elected student body president will be held on April 30 in the Memorial Union.

The Community Connector bus system that links the greater-Bangor area through public transit is considering changes in the way it operates. A recent public survey available during February asked people in the surrounding communities to give their feedback on the current system.

After the survey closes, public opinion data will then be used to determine what sorts of changes will be most beneficial to the area’s residents, according to Laurie Linscott, Bangor bus superintendent.

“People want different things now than they did 10 years ago,” Linscott said. “Transit is just one of those things that has to be evolved in a community and change with the community. And if it doesn’t, it just stays stagnant and you don’t keep the ridership.”

In the transit industry, Linscott noted, major overhauls like this are attempted every 10 or so years. The last time the Bangor-area transit system was revisited was around 2010.

In 2003, the Bangor bus system underwent substantial rebranding changes, including the introduction of a new logo, a new name and new uniforms. Throughout the rest of the decade, other major changes were made in bus routes and operation times.

This time, new changes could include a modernization of the technology on the buses and changes to operation times. Ultimately the specific changes will be highly dependent on feedback and suggestions made by the contactor.

“[It] would be great if the bus ran more often than hourly, but there’s not enough riders for that,” Alex Perry, a third-year anthropology major, said. “But the transit aspect is fine for the area we live in.”

In regard to the Orono and Old Town routes, Linscott predicts that the contractor may suggest increasing the frequency and operation times of busses going to and from Bangor and Orono.

“I’m hoping that this transit study and all the changes that come with it really move us up the chain in becoming more of a professional transit system,” Linscott said.

In December of last year the Bangor City Council voted to approve nearly $100,000 for the study, which is being contracted out to Stantec, an Edmonton, Alberta, based design and consulting firm. In 2015, the Chicago Transit Authority selected Stantec to be the lead designer on a $2.1 billion project to modernize and reconstruct sections of Chicago’s metro system.

Under the current Community Connector system, students from the University of Maine, Husson University, Eastern Maine Community College, Beal College and the University of Maine at Augusta ride free in Bangor.

After this period of public feedback, surveys will be released to employers and employees in the area to determine how they use or could be using public transit. UMaine is among the organizations whose feedback will be sought in the coming months.

“The employer and employee surveys are for unmet need,” Linscott said. “We’re trying to really tap into the businesses,” Linscott said.

Stantec’s recommendations for changes to the Community Connector system will be due around the end of May, Liscott said.

The survey to provide feedback on the is available until Feb. 27 and can be found at http://bangortransit.study/.

Feb. 16 – 9:43 p.m.

University of Maine Police Department (UMPD) officers responded to the fourth floor of Androscoggin Hall and found a student, 19, who they then summoned for possession of alcohol by a minor, possession of marijuana by a person under 21 and possession of paraphernalia of persons under 21.

Feb. 17 – 12:15 a.m.

Officers responded to a call from the fourth floor of Androscoggin Hall regarding an incident involving a resident. The resident admitted to consuming alcohol and was summoned for possession of alcohol by a minor.

Feb. 17 – 1:15 a.m.

Officer Oko of Orono Police Department (OPD) was parked at the Avenue Apartment Complex when a car pulled up next to him. The female driver, 21, was visibly intoxicated. Officer Oko called Sergeant Barrieau for assistance. The officers, who noticed that the driver was making strange comments, which they believed were indicative of her level of intoxication, talked to her and found out that she had had a few drinks at a local bar earlier in the night. She was arrested for operating under the influence and taken to the OPD station, where she blew over the legal limit. She was given a March 21 court date.

Feb. 17 – 10:30 p.m.

Officers were walking around Knox Hall when they heard loud music coming from a room. The officer knocked and found a first-year student in possession of alcohol. He was summoned for possession of alcohol by a minor.

Feb. 17 – 11:00 p.m.

Officer Irish of OPD received a complaint of an erratic driver on College Ave. The complainant, who said that the driver had not been keeping a consistent speed and had hit a snowbank, followed the car to where it parked on Pierce Street. Irish arrived and talked to the female driver, 22, who said that she was coming from a bar in Bangor. He conducted a field sobriety test and took the driver back to the station where she refused an intoxication test. She was taken to jail and given a court date of March 21.

A recent ranking of college recreation centers across the nation placed the University of Maine’s New Balance Student Recreation Center at number three on the “50 Great College Gymnasiums and Recreation Centers for 2019” list.

The survey conducted by Great Value Colleges ranked recreation centers on a number of factors, including: ranking according to other organizations’ lists, “evidence of commitment to future upgrades, evidence of supplementary facilities (such as outdoor spaces) and evidence of innovation.”

Information for the survey was collected from the individual rankings by different websites of the best college and campus gyms nationwide. That information was then analyzed to see which facilities were consistently ranked highest.

“I think a couple things stand out about our Rec Center,” Director of Campus Recreation Jeff Hunt said. “The design works, there is very little wasted space, it has great natural light, and is open and welcoming. Also the location next to the forest trails is unique.”

The construction of UMaine’s $25 million Recreation Center started in 2007 and was finished by August of that year, when the facility opened. Previously, students utilized the Athletic Department-managed Memorial Gym and had to plan around the schedules of sports teams utilizing the facilities. The Recreation Center, is now managed by Campus Recreation and is open to all members of the community.

“On one hand, honestly I am a little surprised that after 11 years we are still being recognized as there are a lot newer and bigger centers out there,” Hunt said. “[On] the other hand I am not surprised … our center is well used, well taken care of, and stands the test of time.”

Since its construction, the Recreation Center has received recognition from numerous publications, including Athletic Business Magazine in 2008 and Men’s Health Magazine in 2014, and is consistently ranked among the best college gyms in the nation.

Great Value Colleges is a website whose mission is to help prospective college students make informed decisions about where they want to go to school. The website does this in part by creating lists like this, where prospective students can see how different universities compare. In addition to ranking recreation facilities, Great Value Colleges has also ranked schools based on affordability by program and location.

“[The Recreation Center] has a key role in creating a healthy and active community for all,” Hunt said. “Before the Rec Center none of us had an idea how it would change the culture. The old fitness area in the field house saw 1,500 visit a week, the Rec Center sees between 1,800-2,200 a day.”

In regard to future upgrades, one of the criteria used by Great Value Colleges in its ranking, Hunt said that there are some ideas for internal and external improvements but that a timeline on these could not be provided at the moment.

Among the Recreation Center’s facilities are workout spaces, pools, a sauna, basketball and multi-use sport courts and more than 15 miles of outdoor trails in DeMeritt Forest. The Recreation Center is also considered to be an environmentally friendly building, a fact represented by the facility’s silver certification by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Last month, the Newman Center — a space for Catholic students and members of the community to come together to participate in focus groups, missions, Sunday mass and prayer — announced that it would be seeking money for renovations. Currently, the space is unable to operate at full capacity in holding its many events for the Orono community.

According to Tim Ward, one of the center’s members, the Newman Center was built in the 1970s, but since then it has experienced structural issues. Mold has been a big issue for the Center, and the roof and beams are out of date. They are also looking to redo the bathrooms and the kitchen, install stained-glass and add a new bell tower.

The renovations and additions for the Center are predicted to take about 16 months and the budget for the project is $2.2 million, with money coming from a combination of donations from supporters of the Center and fundraising. There has been talk of solar panels also being donated to the Newman Center to make it more up to date and eco–friendly.

“The primary challenge we’re facing is raising the money,” according to third-year new media student Jacob Buttarazzi, a regular attendee of events at the Newman Center. “A lot of the people that go to the Newman Center are students with no money to donate or community members who have already given what they can.”

Renovations to Orono’s Newman Center are part of a larger project announced last month by the Roman Catholic Diocese in Portland to raise $3.5 million for churches in the Orono and Old Town area. The main target of the financing mission and the location likely to receive a bulk of capital investment is the the Newman Center.

Additional properties that are set to receive structural, aesthetic and infrastructural improvements include St. Ann’s church on Indian Island, St. Ann’s in Bradley and Holy Family in Old Town — all members of the Parish of the Resurrection of the Lord.

The Center’s mission for the renovations, according to Tim Ward, is to give a space for prayer and for the community of the Newman Center to grow. The Center brings in a lot of students for its prayer groups and the dinners they hold every Wednesday. The kitchen, as of right now, is not fit to hold the amount of students that attend.

With these new renovations, the Newman Center plans to create a space that resembles more of a church than it does right now. They plan to put in pews and make a larger space for the chorus to sing, in addition to bringing the floor up a level and raising the roof and beams in the ceiling.

“Right now, our social space is right at the back of the main church with nothing separating the two,” Buttarazzi said. “It can be very disruptive if we want to host an event for students at the same time the community is trying to have time in prayer in the church. We also have dinners at the Newman Center twice a week, Wednesday and Sunday nights, and they’re open to the public, but we can’t always fit everyone in one room. With the new building, we’ll have plenty of space for anyone who wants to come and we will never be disrupting anyone.

According to the Newman Center’s website, the center was established in a restaurant on College Ave in 1946 by a group of Catholic students, faculty, staff and administrators. The current center at 83 College Ave. was dedicated to the Newman Center in 1971.

In late December, Captain Michael Flanagan of the University of Maine’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) unit sent out letters that were going to change lives. He notified 10 students from around the county that they had been accepted into the NROTC Pathways to Engineering program, a new initiative at UMaine to provide funding for students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to college.

“A five-year — effectively for the student — full boat,” Flanagan said. “Tuition fees, room and board, stipend — the whole thing.”

Applicants to the program are generally graduates of their respective high schools’ Naval Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (NJROTC) programs. Flanagan said they often represent the top of their respective classes in academics.

Through the program, new students will enroll in a pre-engineering course of study. UMaine will bankroll expenses for the first year, with years two through five being paid for through a combination of UMaine funds for room and board and Navy funds for tuition fees, living stipend and books.

One major goal is to provide an opportunity for higher education to students who would not otherwise have the means to pursue it.

“College would be a pipe dream [for the students], but it would never come to fruition had it not been for this venture,” Flanagan said.

That statement rings especially true for one student committed to the program, high school student Brian Sanchez from Soledad, California. Sanchez discovered he was accepted into the Pathways to Engineering program last month and accepted the offer not long after.

Originally born in California, Sanchez moved with his parents back to Mexico for the first four years of his life. When he moved back to the U.S., Sanchez had to adjust to life in America and learn English.

“In third grade, my parents asked me if I wanted to continue my education,” Sanchez said. “They didn’t complete theirs … They said they regretted it and they encouraged me to do it … So I tried my best to get the best grades I possibly could.”

For him, being accepted to this program at UMaine means financial security, a defined path forward and the opportunity to travel to a new part of the country.

“It means that I finally have a solid path to follow for the next [several] years of my life,” Sanchez said. “And it makes me more more comfortable, less stressed … I feel more relaxed now that I know what I’m going to do with my life for the next couple years.”

Traveling, Sanchez said, was a major motivator in pursuing a career in the Navy. In the fall, he will relocate to UMaine for up to five years of fully funded undergraduate education, completing a trip of more than 3,000 miles from California.

In addition to the opportunity for new students, Flanagan said that this initiative is a way to accentuate an increasingly positive relationship between his program and UMaine administration.

“[Our relationship with the University] has never been as good as it is now and it is only getting better,” Flanagan said. “The University’s hitting the ‘I believe’ button on Naval science.”

The NROTC program administration occupies a small house on College Avenue. Currently, there are only 16 students enrolled in the program, but Flanagan anticipates both increased attention and increased enrollment in the coming years. This year, there were 77 applicants for 10 spots in the Pathways to Engineering program.

“In five years time, we’re going to have 100 plus students from all over the country coming here, to the University of Maine, most of whom would have had no shot to ever go to college,” Flanagan said.

He noted that, should this first class of the program’s midshipmen candidates demonstrate academic and military success in their first few years at UMaine, the possibility exists to bump the number of spots up from 10 to 20.

Beginning this semester, University of Maine Dining is getting some of its products from a new vendor, World Centric, a company based out of Petaluma, California. Among the most prominent additions to the selection are new compostable plant-based bioplastic packages for food in the Memorial Union.

Dan Dixon, a research assistant professor for the Climate Change Institute and the director of sustainability on campus, said the key feature of the new packages is that they are “produced from non-fossil, plant-based oils.”

Director of Dining Services Glenn Taylor said the selection of these new products was made during a vendor showcase at the annual meeting of the National Association of Collegiate and University Food Services in July. The primary consideration for Taylor was aesthetics, but he noted, “sustainability is always on our mind.”

When he got back to Maine, Taylor contacted UMaine Dining’s paper contractor based in Augusta, Performance Food Group NorthCenter, about switching over to World Centric’s products, which the company’s website says are compostable.

Even though Taylor’s decision wasn’t motivated primarily by notions of sustainability, it was something that he considered after the fact. Taylor enlisted the help of different organizations on campus, including the Office of Sustainability, to test the new products.

“I took a box of [the new] serving container samples for testing at the new Coastal Resources of Maine waste handling facility currently being constructed in Hampden,” Dixon said.

According to the Office of Sustainability’s website, in 2012 UMaine purchased a 40-foot-long composting system from Green Mountain Technologies. This system is housed on campus and is able to process 450,000 pounds of food waste per year.

While the materials and composition of dining products is an important consideration in their compostability, Taylor said half the fight is making sure that people are disposing of waste properly so that it goes to composting facilities.

“It involves us identifying ‘How is a customer, how are you going to know which container to put this stuff in to make sure that that product gets up to the compost site?’” Taylor said. “That’s always the hardest thing, even for me.”

For UMaine Dining, the recent switch to World Centric’s products is one part of a larger effort toward more sustainable food practices on campus.

“We have a composter in Hilltop, a digester at Wells,” Taylor said. “We’re trying to take our products and our waste and get it composted properly, and we also have a food recovery system where Black Bear Exchange is picking up food every week.”

During Taylor’s 44 years at UMaine, he has seen many changes in the way sustainability is handled in on-campus dining. Among the most significant changers, he said, were 2007 renovations that allowed for the installation of a pulper machine at Hilltop Dining.

“It can take hundreds of pounds of everything from the paper napkins to all the food waste and grind it into a mush … before ‘07 that was all trash,” Taylor said.

Dixon noted that such changes are prime examples of the “good effort” UMaine Dining is making toward more sustainable practices.

“[UMaine Dining has] managed to achieve an annual average of 20 percent local food served campuswide,” Dixon said. “They have financed, constructed, and now operate an in-vessel composting system on campus to handle pre-consumer food waste. They have installed digesters in some of the commons kitchens to handle post-consumer food waste.”

For Taylor, initiatives toward sustainability in UMaine Dining such as the introduction of compostable packages are opportunities to learn and grow — for the community, dining services and himself.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Taylor said. “It’s all education. Food is education.”

In the lead up to Veterans Day on Nov. 12, the University of Maine celebrated a week of events to recognize veterans. This week featured two lectures, a veterans BBQ and a ceremony hosted by the Old Town chapter of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). The week culminated with an unveiling of the Digital Book of Memory on Nov. 9, a database containing information about and photos of UMaine’s 261 fallen veterans.

“We try to hit the recognition portion from both angles, which is why we’ll sometimes do events that are memorials to honor the veterans that came before, and then we’ll also do outreach programs, like the BBQ,” said Tony Llerena, coordinator for UMaine Veterans Education and Transition Services (VETS).

According the the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs GI Bill comparison tool, UMaine currently has 396 students taking advantage of GI Bill benefits. Llerena noted that there are more veterans studying here who choose not to identify themselves, either for fear of being “judged” or for other personal reasons.

He said that this week was all about the community’s coming together for those service men and women — both the ones who are officially recognized by the university and those who are not.

“We try to come up with different events that can create outreach, recognition that student veterans are on campus, they’re in your classes and they’re valuable to this community,” Llerena said.

A major component of this week’s outreach effort, the principal event on Friday, was the unveiling the of the digital Book of Memory.

The original book was created 1946 after World War II in order to remember UMaine’s alumni who died in previous wars. Llerena said when he took his position as coordinator of VETS, he was told that one of the only copies of the Book of Memory had been stolen from the Memorial Room in the Memorial Union some years prior. The remaining book was locked away in a secured cabinet.

For a time, it appeared that there would be a gap of information about UMaine’s fallen veterans. But then a new copy was discovered in Raymond H. Fogler Library’s Special Collections.

“We didn’t know there was a book with pictures until Margaret Nagle from Marketing said ‘hey, this might be of interest to you,’” Llerena said. “We sat down and we created the database and we started transcribing all 181 biographies, and we started adding all the names we had from the Spanish-American War, World War I.”

Then, four years ago, after a reading of fallen veterans names on the steps of Fogler Library, Llerena got a call from a Korean War veteran.

“He said ‘you forgot my war,’” Llerena said.

The man provided Llerena with three names of his fallen fraternity brothers who died 50 years prior. Another reading was held for the new names, and Llerena realized that a continuous and evolving medium would be useful to keep a record of new UMaine fallen veterans who came to light.

This was the beginning of the digital Book of Memory project, which was compiled and organized over the last two years.

Finding information about UMaine’s fallen veterans is now as easy as typing in a hometown, name or war. And for Llerena, years of work have come to fruition.