Being strapped for cash is a common situation for college students. Though many students get financial support from their parents through meal plans and housing payments, there are those who come from households of more limited means. And the increasing demands on students’ time and energy as they progress through school make holding down a job more difficult; that, combined with the gradual decrease of parental assistance, means many upperclassmen and graduate students have to be careful with their spending, regardless of family income.

It is with these struggles in mind that the Black Bear Exchange program was created.

The Bodwell Center in the Memorial Union has long been the epicenter of volunteer programs at University of Maine, and in 2009, the Black Bear Exchange was formed to give cash-strapped students a means of getting food and new clothes for extremely low prices.

It consists of a thrift store, which features donated clothing for very low prices, as well as a food pantry for those in need. Most recently it has expanded to include an “interview closet,” which will include suits and formal clothing for students who need to look sharp for job interviews.

Lisa Morin has been the director of the Bodwell Center since 2010 and is very proud of the work they do to help students in need.

“Many seniors don’t budget well when living [in their own] home and they don’t qualify for food stamps because they’re students. Our biggest focus is on them.” Morin said.

Lisa has lived in Old Town for the last 20 years and has worked for the River Coalition, which is a community nonprofit organization in Old Town, for the last five years.

“I have a passion for service.” Morin said.

Most of the donations to the program come from within the student community. People who come in and exchange their old clothes can also get credits toward other clothing items in the store.

“The clothes are things that people have owned before and like. It’s not [low quality] like stuff you would find at Wal-Mart.” Morin said.

The organization also receives clothing from the Clean Sweep sales that occur on campus after students move out of the dorms. Any clothing or items that are left behind go toward the sale and can find their way to the Black Bear Exchange’s stockpile.

Most of the food that the organization receives is through private donations and food drives that are run on campus. Many student and university organizations on campus have come together to support the Bodwell Center and the Black Bear Exchange.

“There’s power in numbers.” Morin said.

Deanna Chambers, a second-year elementary education student at UMaine, has been inspired by Morin and the Black Bear Exchange program to the point where she herself has gotten very involved in the program.

“If you can help someone, you should. I wanted to assist in any way I could.” Chambers said.

Chambers, a native of Old Town, first learned of the program when her mother brought her to an event on campus to exchange some clothes and buy some new outfits. Recently, Chambers has reached out to local businesses in Orono and Old Town, such as Pat’s Pizza and The Roost, to donate any unclaimed forgotten or lost clothing to the Black Bear Exchange.

Lance Cowan, general manager of The Roost, was more than glad to donate to the program.

“We’re always looking for a place to bring stuff that gets left behind.” Cowan said. “We usually keep clothes for one semester. [If no one comes] we usually take it to Goodwill. [The Black Bear Exchange] is just as good.”

Chambers has thus far been pleasantly surprised by the response from these businesses.

“I literally got a construction bag full of laundry.” she said, referring to The Roost’s donation. “I believe in helping your neighbor first. With a lot of these businesses, the reason they’re here is because of the university.”

Chambers hopes to keep luring in businesses from surrounding towns to follow suit and donate. According to Chambers, you have to “start close and work your way out.”

In addition to the Black Bear Exchange, the Bodwell Center is also responsible for a number of other community activities on campus. Blood drives, the Welcome Weekend, the Black Bear Leaders and the Black Bear Mentors programs, which involve upperclassmen volunteers engaging and mentoring freshmen and elementary school students, are also run out of the Bodwell Center.

For those looking for more information or to donate, the Bodwell Center is located in Room 311 of the Memorial Union and the Black Bear Exchange is located at 55 York Village. The Exchange is open Mondays from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m, Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and can also be found on Facebook.

On Saturday, Sept. 7, a stovetop fire in Building 11 of the Orchard Trails apartment complex resulted in four tenants losing their home and eight tenants living with severe water damage.

At approximately 7:15 p.m., emergency services were called to Orchard Trails in Orono after smoke in the apartment triggered the sprinkler and alarm systems. The small fire was quickly doused by the building’s sprinkler system.

According to Captain Joel Sides of the Orono Fire Department, the fire was caused by cooking oil being heated on the stovetop. “A friend of the tenants was heating cooking oil on the stovetop and it ignited,” Sides said.

A full building evacuation was put into effect and the tenants of the apartment in question are now living in rooms at the University Inn. Eight other tenants in the building — below and beside the source of the fire — experienced water damage to their apartments as a result of the sprinkler system going off.

9/7  

12:10 a.m. : Authorities were called to the Steam Plant parking lot for a disturbance call and found that a massive fight had broken out between brothers of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon and some other people. Around 30 people were involved in the melee. The fight ended and everyone involved scattered when police arrived. One person was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center for treatment. Investigation into this incident is ongoing.

1:23 a.m. : Adam Ogden, 20, was found to be in possession of alcohol in York Hall and was arrested for a violation of his release agreement. Ogden had been arrested one year prior for an OUI and was on conditional release. He was bailed out of Penobscot County Jail later that evening.

11:02 p.m. : Three students in the freshman dorms were referred for illegal possession of alcohol by a minor. Two 18-year-old males and one 18-year-old female were referred to Judicial Affairs. The female was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bangor for treatment of her high blood alcohol content.

9/8

2:18 a.m. : Officers on patrol in the Steam Plant parking lot found a Chrysler Sebring convertible that had been broken into. The cloth top had been cut apart, resulting in $2,000 worth of damages. Two more robbed vehicles were found, making the count three cars in total. Stolen items include a Kenwood stereo valued at $130; a TomTom GPS valued at $90; an interstate EZ Pass; and a University of Maine parking permit.

9/9

11:05 p.m. : Daniel Jacques, 19, was found to be in possession of a usable amount of marijuana in Aroostook Hall. One of the Resident Assistants reported an odor of marijuana and proceeded to call the police who then found the source of the odor in Jacques’ room.

9/10

6:10 p.m. : Three students were charged with illegal possession of drugs, transportation of drugs by a minor and sale and use of drug paraphernalia. Troy Tourigny, 18, was driving with 18-year-old Antony Alves and 20-year-old Sean Randall when they were pulled over for not wearing seat belts. The officer smelled marijuana and upon searching the vehicle found a marijuana and a pipe. Tourigny was charged with transporting drugs while Alves and Randall were respectively charged with possession, and sale and use.

by Christopher Burns

for The Maine Campus

Much of the creative process happens behind closed doors. To bring the fruits of the creative process to the public, the Downtown Bangor Arts Collaborative brought the ArtWalk to Bangor.

The fall art walk was held Friday, Sept. 13 from 5 to 9 p.m. Visitors to downtown were free to tour the galleries and studios along Main, Central, Harlow and Park Streets. Friday’s walk was the third this year, with the winter walk scheduled for Nov. 15.

Downtown Bangor has undergone many transformations over the years. There was the lumber boom of the 19th century and the Great Fire of 1911, for example. Over the last five years, the art scene downtown has taken hold and experienced tremendous growth.

The success of the arts in Bangor owes much to work done by the Downtown Bangor Arts Collaborative. Conceived in 2008, the DBAC is made up of local artists and business owners dedicated to fostering a healthy relationship between Bangor and the arts. “Our focus is to create a community focused around bringing people to see and experience art,” said Brian Monahan, member of the DBAC and owner of Monahan Design.

In 2010, the DBAC was officially recognized by the state of Maine as a nonprofit cultural organization.

The art walk is the centerpiece of the DBAC’s activities. It is a “celebration” of the work and energy brought to downtown by artists. For the fall walk, a diverse group of art was featured. Nearly one hundred artists participated along the 28 stops on the walk. A broad spectrum of art was represented among them from dance and music, to jewelry and virtual art, to interactive and installation art, to sculpture and textiles, to painting and photography.

When the art walk began in 2008, it was held once a year. As it nears the end of its fifth year, it has evolved into a quarterly event, with a walk for each season. Monahan hopes that the walks will expand further into multi-day affairs and further bridge the gap between Bangor and outlying communities.

When asked about the success of the DBAC and the art walks, Monahan credited the “willingness” of local artists and their recognizing the “value” of the walk. The value of the walk is the exposure it brings to the artists and their art.

“If you are an artist and want to succeed as an artist, you need exposure. We [DBAC] help by bringing that exposure,” Monahan said.

Additionally, “listen[ing] to the community” has been integral to the success of the walk, Monahan said. “Knowing what works for both the community and artists helps to ensure the walk will be sustainable and continue to grow.

“We are creating the ladder for the community to climb up and see what these artists are doing,” Monahan said.

New to the walk was a shuttle from Orono to Bangor. To help bring the University of Maine to the ArtWalk, Liam Riordan, a member of the University of Maine Humanities Initiative Advisory Board, organized the ride with funding from Dean of Students Dr. Robert Dana. Students boarded a Cyr Bus Lines bus at the Collins Center for the Arts at 4:30 p.m. and arrived in Bangor outside the Maine Discovery Museum. City Councilor Joe Baldacci met the students there for a reception.

At 6:30 p.m., students were given a guided tour of the University of Maine Museum of Art in Norumbega Hall by George Kinghorn, director and curator of the museum. He led them through the galleries that currently feature work by Joanne Freeman, Rachelle Agundes, Sean Downey and Emily Trenholm. The museum has many classic works of art in its permanent collection, including work by Edward Hopper, Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso and Winslow Homer. After the tour students were shuttled back to UMaine.

Also new this year was a large-scale mural on the side of the Central Street Farmhouse at 30 Central St. The mural painting was organized by a local artist who goes by the moniker Pigeon, with the cooperation of Central Street Farmhouse who provided the side of their building. Walkers were invited to take a brush and paint the wall. The theme of the mural was “This is downtown Bangor. I love being here because…”

The mural will be left up until spring, when it will be taken down and a new public mural will be constructed. Over the next few art walks, the mural will become “a changing expression of who is in downtown Bangor,” an organizer said.

The weather turned during the walk and rain marred much of the evening. Despite the rain, the presence of the art walk remained strong and walkers gathered at each of the galleries for discussion and silent contemplation. The will of the walkers to stick it out proved a testament to the power and importance of the arts in downtown.

“The creative community is a strong community where it is possible for people to talk and collaborate,” Monahan said.

More information about the ArtWalk and the Downtown Bangor Arts Collaborative can be found at www.dbac.org or their Facebook page.

Since it opened its doors in 2000, the Advanced Structures and Composites (ASC) Center on the University of Maine campus has been at the cutting edge of innovation within the engineering program. Initially, the main focus of the ASC Center was the development of new wood and fiber technologies for mills and various companies that would spend millions of dollars funding research. The workforce within the lab consists of hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students who use its state-of-the-art equipment to design and test various technologies for real world applications.

The size and scope of the building’s operations have since expanded to include the Offshore Wind Laboratory, which was completed in 2011. This lab required a massive expansion of the old building and has the capability of stress testing and constructing massive turbine blades for energy-harvesting windmills. This laboratory was developed for the DeepCwind Consortium, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy with the goal of harnessing wind energy from the strong ocean winds off the coast of Maine.

Dr. Habib Dagher is the director of the ASC Center and a professor of civil engineering at UMaine and is very excited about the prospect of harnessing offshore wind.

“Some of the strongest winds in the U.S. are in the ocean right off the coast of Maine,” Dagher said. “The energy of this wind is 156 gigawatts, 50 miles offshore. This is equivalent to 156 nuclear power plants right offshore.”

On June 13, a large step was taken toward this lofty goal when the first “VolturnUS” windmill developed at the ASC Center was put into operation just off the coast of Dyce Point in Castine, Maine. The windmill is a one-eighth scale prototype that stands 57 feet tall and is currently delivering enough electricity to the power grid to power between four and five homes. The real purpose of this is to determine how the windmill will behave in more controlled conditions before the full scale models are built and trialled.

This isn’t the first time that the possibility of harnessing offshore wind has been explored. Europe currently leads in the number of offshore windmills it uses. However, Europe’s windmills are connected to the ocean floor and do not float, limiting the distance they can travel from the shoreline and in turn limiting the strength of the winds it can harness. It is also more expensive, as the windmills can not be assembled dockside and are far more difficult to move. If the VolturnUS program is a success, it would be far more cost efficient.

“It’s a large experiment,” Dagher said. “[VolturnUS] is the world’s first offshore floating windmill. Before we can move to the next step and build the big ones we must see how this does.”

Anthony Viselli is a mechanical engineer and is currently working towards attaining his doctorate at UMaine. He is the lead design engineer for the VolturnUS windmills. “With VolturnUS, we’re eliminating the problem with land based windmills. It could create a whole industry,” said Viselli, one of many great engineers and engineering students who have been part of the design and manufacturing process. In fact, the name VolturnUS, a clever mix of the words “volt,” “turn,” and “U.S.,” was coined by an undergraduate student who assists with the project in the ASC lab.

As with any ambitious design, the VolturnUS windmill must be properly tested before any large scale manufacturing is to take place. With its concrete triple-hull design and composite blade tower, the VolturnUS is the world’s first floating concrete structure and has proven to be very stable out on the water. The one-eighth scale prototype’s parts were fabricated in the ASC Center and then brought to the Cianbro Modular Manufacturing Facility in Brewer to be assembled. From there it was towed by two tugboats down the Penobscot river to its current location just off Dyce Point.

At one point in the journey there was a rain storm which resulted in 6-foot waves. On aone-eighth scale, a 6-foot wave would be equivalent to the full size VolturnUS taking on 48-foot waves — hurricane conditions. VolturnUS passed the test with flying colors. “During the storm, the captain of the tugboat wanted to be on the VolturnUS because it was so stable,” Dagher said.

The next step in the process is to have established a pilot wind farm consisting of two full size VolturnUS windmills by 2017. Once the VolturnUS has been tested in the harsher winter months a grant from the Advanced Tech Demo Program will help fund the next step in the process. If all goes according to plan, by the year 2030 there will be a wind farm consisting of 83 full-size VolturnUS windmills standing 600 feet tall 50 miles off the coastline which will harness five gigawatts of electricity. The windmills will be moored together in groups and will collectively send electricity via cable to the shore to help power Maine’s electrical grid.

The success of the program would be very positive for Maine’s economy, as it would stimulate manufacturing and port-side economies and keep more money in Maine.

“Industries don’t just come out of the blue. You need to prime the pump,” Dagher said. “It’s like the beginning of an era.”

8/31

8:10 p.m. :  A small group of students were found to be in illegal possession of liquor and marijuana at the Martin Luther King Jr. plaza near the Union. Officers on patrol smelled marijuana and proceeded to confiscate half of a fifth of Captain Morgan and a vaporizer. Nathaniel Smart, 19, has been charged with possession.

10:20 p.m. : A summons was handed out to Matthew Norton on the first floor of Androscoggin Hall for possession of drug paraphernalia. Officers were dispatched when someone reported an odor of marijuana in the building. A grinder, vaporizer and water pipe were found.

9/3

8:43 p.m. : Nineteen-year-old Oliver Stone was charged with the sale and use of marijuana after officers were called to the second floor of Gannett Hall because of an odor of marijuana.

9:15 p.m. : Officers dispatched to Gannett Hall for an odor of marijuana found 18-year-old Louis Vertullo to be in possession of a vaporizer and a small amount of marijuana. Two people were involved but only one charged.

9/5

9:51 p.m. : Brendan Smith and James Mills, both 18, were charged with possession of liquor and a usable amount of marijuana in Somerset Hall. Officers on patrol investigated noise in Somerset and found a group of students drinking. Vodka and Mike’s Hard Lemonade were confiscated. A follow-up investigation resulted in two charges for furnishing for two female students in Cumberland Hall.

April at the University of Maine that means several things are fast approaching for students: final exams, summertime and Chickenfest.

Chickenfest is an annual underground music festival held in remote locations that are, more often than not, private lands. The event has recently come under heavy fire from law enforcement officials. During a press conference held Thursday, Maine State Police Officer Lt. Wesley Hassey spoke with Sgt. Ron Dunham of the Maine Warden Service in a bid to enlist the public in preventing this year’s event.

“It started as Bumstock, an event that was held on the [UMaine] campus. It has since moved off campus and grown in size and scope,” Wesley said. “What has prompted us to be more proactive this year is there was a death at it last year.”

The death Hassey referred to was that of Dean Levasseur, a musician who was scheduled to perform at Chickenfest 2012 in Howland. Levasseur’s body was found two days after the event; his death was ruled a suicide. According to Dunham, the follow-up investigation, which included the search for Levasseur and cleanup of the land, cost Maine taxpayers more than $30,000.

“The aftermath that a lot of people don’t hear about is the land closure and abuse of property,” Dunham said, referring to the closure of the clearing where last year’s event was held.

“It’s an event without any supervision. There’s no security. There’s no staffing. It’s a thrown-together event,” Hassey said. “Every year we get reports of assaults and crimes, [such as] underage drinking and sexual assaults. When these things happen, the responsibility is on the organizers.”

He added that, based on their offenses, partygoers can face anything from fines to jail time.

“We don’t want people to jeopardize their futures for a party,” Dunham said.

Chickenfest typically takes place at the end of April, just before finals week. The majority of attendees are college students, but there have been reports of middle-aged people and high school students in past attendance. Not much is known about the event’s organizers, who tend to keep the timing and location of the event secret until the day of the event itself.

“We suspect they use social media to get the word out,” Hassey said. “They usually send out a mass text message, often only hours beforehand. We usually figure it out when we see lots of traffic flowing.”

This last-minute notification makes responding to the event before it escalates extremely difficult, according to authorities. With attendance often reaching into the hundreds, the party soon becomes something that even law enforcement can’t stop. State and local police departments, from Penobscot and Hancock Counties, have teamed with the Maine Warden Service and UMaine Police Department to increase surveillance in an attempt to put a stop to the event before it can start.

Dunham and Hassey urge parents, students and landowners to help by watching out for large gatherings and strange traffic patterns. To make an anonymous tip text “Penquis” to 207-274-637 or call UMaine Campus Eyes at 207-581-9255.

“Events are run all the time. It takes organization and willingness [to do it appropriately]. This is unsafe,” Hassey said.

It’s not guns that kill people…

…it’s people who kill people. For all the flack that the NRA have taken in the mainstream media for their admittedly bullheaded political moves, their slogan holds a substantial measure of truth. The shootings that have occurred over the last couple years here in the U.S. that ultimately culminated in the Newtown massacre have caused quite a scare, leading many to see strict gun legislation as the answer. However, though this seems at first glance to be an appropriate solution, it should really be taken with a grain of salt.

On Tuesday, March 9, the Lone Star College near Houston, Texas, experienced another scare. This time it came in the form of Dylan Quick, a 20-year-old student who attended the college and lacerated 14 of his fellow classmates with an X-Acto knife. Thankfully, no one was killed. Quick was arrested after being taken to the ground by another student. He now faces three charges of aggravated assault, though his mental health has been called into question by the defense after it was discovered that Quick has an obsession with serial killers.

If the scenario at Lone Star College sounds familiar, that would be because a shooting occurred on the Harris County campus, Jan. 22 of this year. Several students were shot. The frequency of these events is definitely something of concern, but the fact that this latest rampage was carried out with a knife just reinforces the NRA’s slogan: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.

The near instantaneous coverage of the rampages creates a feeling of connectedness with the event. But with the latest news being reported as it happens and the number of people who can access the news from anywhere gives the illusion that attacks like this are something new.

On May 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe blew up the north wing of Bath Consolidated School in Clinton County, Mich., using a stockpile of dynamite from his home. The blast killed 44 people. This will have happened 86 years ago next month. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.

For those who say that strict European gun laws should be adopted here in the U.S., one need only look at the 2011 Norway attacks, when Anders Behring Breivik shot and killed 69 members of a youth camp and eight more with a car bomb. All of this occurred in a country where government licenses and strict background checks are required to purchase firearms.

Outbreaks of violence like this could have resulted from any number of causes. Politically charged radicals, including Breivik, are just as much a menace as criminally obsessed mental cases like Quick. However, in the case of Kehoe, sometimes it just takes the right amount of stress in one’s life. Before banning guns, perhaps we should have a look at what it is about our culture that breeds people of this calibre.

Cameron Paquette is a third-year journalism student.

The University of Maine’s annual Taste of the World event was held March 27, giving students the chance to sample different flavors and learn about the cultures the cuisines came from. Each residence dining hall featured foods from a different part of the world: York featured Indian, Wells Central served Moroccan and Hilltop dished out Italian.

In 2005, the then-ailing Taste of America program was replaced by Taste of the World in an attempt to broaden students’ palates and minds. Every year, each dining hall on campus decides to feature a different culture.

“We try to break down the borders and let the students taste the world,” said Glenn Taylor, UMaine’s culinary director, who oversees the operation of the dining halls.

Taylor oversees dining hall operations. He relishes the opportunity to show students different culinary tastes. Every year, he and UMaine’s executive sous chef, David Noonan, attend the Culinary Conference at the University of Massachusetts, along with chefs from around the world. It is here that they pick up various techniques that different cultures use when preparing dishes. This is only part of a yearlong process, which involves extensive research into the cultures that are chosen to be represented in an attempt to create the most authentic experience possible.

“It’s a step-by-step process,” Noonan said. “We try to make it as authentic as possible and bring the students something they’ve never had before.”

Each dining hall had two trial runs while students were away for winter and spring break. These trial runs involved serving the dishes to up to 75 gathered campus employees. The purpose of this is to make sure that the recipes could be mass-produced while retaining their authentic flavor.

“If a Moroccan student tries any of the food [in Wells], I want him to think it’s authentic,” Noonan said.

Changes weren’t limited to the menu; each dining hall took extra steps to create an atmosphere to represent their respective culture. Wells featured a replica of a Moroccan farmers market, with spices and vegetables that were all used in the actual recipes. York was decorated with Indian celebratory tapestries, as well as a number of props from UMaine’s theatre department; Indian pop music was also heard throughout the building. This year, York has entered into the running to receive an award from the National Association of College and University food services for special events.

Susan Pond, who acts as the dining-service manager at York, was very excited to host the event.

“This is my last event, and I wanted it to be more than just about the food this time,” Pond said.

To make sure that everything was perfect, Pond enlisted the help of Sugandha Shankar, an Indian graduate student who is pursuing her Ph.D. at UMaine after graduating from college in India.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Shankar said of the redesigned hall and menu. “They did a good job.”

Pond considers Shankar’s input essential to portraying Indian culture accurately.

“This is the first time I’ve contacted a student for something like this,” Pond said of Shankar. “She educated us.”

The attention to detail was evident. The lamb stew at York was a South Indian dish with a bold spicy flavor that was very distinct; the mango apricot chicken served at Wells also had a distinct, tangy flavor; and students enjoyed the diverse flavors on hand, with many praising the spiciness of the Indian food in particular.

In the next few months, research will begin again as the dining halls prepare for the festivities featured at next year’s Taste of the World.

No one was injured after a small fire occurred in downtown Orono early Thursday morning. The fire occurred in a single-family house on Summer St. A group of friends rented out the home, but only one of them was home at the time. The one tenant managed to call for emergency services when he detected smoke in the house.

The Orono Fire Department quickly responded and doused the fire. Fire Marshal Henry Vaughan deemed that the cause of the fire was attributed to wiring in the house.

“A wire in the sap between the second floor ceiling and the floor of the attic overheated and started the fire,” Vaughn said. “The wire was too resistant to the electrical current, which caused it to overheat.”

The attic received the worst of the fire damage. Damage was also reported in the second floor bathroom as well as in a bedroom. There was some additional water damage in the bathroom, presumably due to efforts to put out the blaze.

According to one of the tenants, the tenants had complained about electrical issues in the house, including the lights turning off on its own. Despite the complains, the landlord hadn’t been by to check out the situation, according to a tenant.

The landlord, Derrick Williams, said he found out about the fire from the Orono Fire Department, and that he doesn’t believe the fire was caused by the lighting issues.

“It’s inconclusive,” Williams said.

Check mainecampus.com for updates.

Jesse Scardina contributed to this article.