Poet and performer Tracie Morris read and presented her work on Thursday as part of the New Writing Series at the Black Box Theater at the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center on the University of Maine campus.

The poet, who is equally grounded in music, acting and sound, read both poems contained by page and poems which derive from sound and what Morris explained as the “feel of the audience.” Morris has won many awards and presented at places such as MoMA and the Whitney Bicentennial.

“I don’t write autobiographical poems,” Morris said. “It’s not about me but something I feel needs to be said.”

Morris’ poems include a variety of social themes including social equality and many cultural critiques. Her first sound poem, “A Little,” relates to the story of a young girl who was sexually abused.

A professor and the coordinator of performance and performance studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., Morris’ sound poems are based on one line and music. “I try to grasp what is the best sound for this moment,” Morris said. She explained, “I’m just as surprised as you are,” about what sound she chooses.

“The only thing I know is the story and the title,” Morris said. She performed the first poem, in which she experimented with sound: “Project Princess,” one of her more famous poems from 1993. The performance involved her tapping the podium from where she spoke with a beat, which imitated the Double Dutch jump roping she spoke of in the poem.

Morris is influenced by hip hop and the way DJs take “non musical” sounds such as a car horn and turn it into music people enjoy. Yet during the question and answer portion of the reading, she explained her “almost political position” in her mind to not use technology to alter her voice. It is something she would say is cheating.

“My voice [is what I have]; I have to work hard with this instrument,” she said.

Steve Evans of the English department said in his introduction of Morris that the poet shows the listener that “the human voice is an astonishing instrument in its own right.”

Morris started her reading with the poem “Plutonic,” a page-based work inspired by the Greek Persephone myth. She chose to begin the reading with a few poems inspired by “older literature” because of a conversation she had with the Honors Cultural Odyssey class, many of whom were in attendance.

Morris’s reading was split into three sections, page-based poems, sound poems and questions and answers. Although Morris is trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and as a musician, she considers herself “first, last and always a page-based poet.”

Morris’ newest poetry collection — which was raffled off at the event to sophomore Mike Schuman — is called “Rhyme Scheme” and includes a CD of her sound poetry.

During the question and answer section Morris spoke extensively about the differences in inspiration and process between her written and sound poetry.

Her page-based poems are more concrete while her sound poems change as she grows.

“They’re fragile,” she said noting the poems have to “sustain within her consciousness.”

Her sound poems often derive from the music she hears in walking down the street or taking a shower.

“They’re usually pretty stubborn, my poems,” she said.

“I hear all sounds, including musical sounds, as poetic in some way. So I think of music as poetry,” she said in an email.

This is Morris’ second trip to Maine but first trip to the university where she bought a “U of M sweatshirt,” which for her has dual meaning insinuating the M stands for Morris.

The next NWS reading will be March 27 in Hill Auditorium where Christine Hume — poetry and hybrid genre — will read.

Thirty-two years ago, the University of Maine System was one of the first 10 universities in the United States to pull the system’s principle portfolio money — $3 million — entirely out of corporations and banks doing business in apartheid South Africa. Twelve years later, in 1994, South Africa had a multi-racial democratic election, selecting Nelson Mandela as president.

The University of Maine System’s divestment was the part of the spark that ignited the anti-apartheid movement, giving it the extra push it needed. Now, the UMS is facing a different divestment call: to stop investing in fossil fuel companies, which contribute to climate change.

On Thursday, Feb. 27 at 1 p.m. UMaine student group Divest UMaine will present to the UMS board of trustees and demand “immediate freezing of all new assets invested in the top 200 fossil fuel companies and their remaining endowments with fossil fuel companies within the next five years.” They then will ask the board to reinvest in a sustainable, socially responsible alternative, according to a press release from the group on Friday.

Divestment is a national movement encouraging universities’ and colleges’ endowment controllers to withdraw their investments from unfavorable causes. The movement has been used as a tool for social awareness and to make a stand against corporations, such as those operating in 1982 apartheid South Africa or those producing fossil fuels today.

“It’s a fairly novel way to get the message across to fossil fuel companies,” said Daniel Dixon, University of Maine sustainability coordinator. “It says ‘We are noticing what they are doing, we care about the environment and we want them to respond in an appropriate manner, like cleaning up their act,’” he said.

The UMS is made up of seven schools. The UMS board of trustees controls the endowment for the entire system. Of the endowment, $7.5 million dollars are invested in the some of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. Nine colleges in the U.S. have committed to fossil fuel divestment thus far, two of them — Unity College and College of the Atlantic — in Maine.

To further the fossil fuel divestment movement throughout Maine, student representatives from every school in the state gather as part of Maine Students for Climate Justice, with the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine being two leaders in the group.

With the upcoming meeting, UMS board of trustees Chancellor James Page released a letter to the “university community” in February regarding the board’s views on divestment from fossil fuels. In the letter he explained the University of Maine System’s stewardship of the environment is important to the entire community. Page cites sustainable design principles and utilizing renewable energy sources as example of their commitment to sustainability.

“Perhaps most importantly,” Page wrote, “our dedicated teaching and research programs are instilling core values of sustainability in our students and communities.”

Education is also an important tool for the Divest UMaine group who plans to use it to “craft a better future for ourselves, and a better world for others. That is our reason for paying tuition; we are investing in our futures,” according to the groups press release.

“With this said, we cannot allow the UMaine system to continue to invest our endowment in industries that will make our collective future unlivable. In fact divesting the UMaine system endowment would be consistent with our institution’s mission statement,” the release states.

The University of Maine mission statement includes text stating: “The University of Maine improves the quality of life for people in Maine and around the world, and promotes responsible stewardship of human, natural and financial resources.”

Doug Allen, professor of philosophy at UMaine, was a part of the anti-apartheid divestment movement at UMaine in 1982. The greatest benefit to divestment for Allen is “that we [UMS] do what is right — that we act consistently with the overwhelming scientific and environmental evidence and that we affirm we are an educational institution with values that, educates its students to become human beings and citizens with deep concerns and values,” he said.

Connor Scott, business management student and member of Divest UMaine, The Green Team and Maine Students for Climate Justice, sees divesting from fossil fuels as the next step in the university’s already positive direction.

“We’re staying in line with what we’re already doing. But we’re also helping invest in Maine,” he said.

“It’s not just about money anymore; it’s about the health of society.”

The financial argument for divestment is on the top of the list for both the board of trustees and Divest UMaine.

In Page’s letter, he explained that the university’s Investment Committee has reviewed its portfolios and worked to determine the financial impact of fossil fuel divestment.

“We learned that if we divested of fossil fuels at this time, investment opportunities would be limited and wholesale changes to the portfolios would be required. Such changes would negatively alter the return, risk and diversification profile of our portfolios. Negatively altering returns would adversely impact amounts available for student aid and other critical needs,” he wrote.

According to Dixon, “A green portfolio can at least match your current investment [returns] in the short term and out-perform in the long-term.”

Dixon explained that the board of trustees has the financial burden of securing money for pensions and the university every year; they are, according to Dixon, “understandably careful [with] what they do with that money.”

Mark Anderson, UMaine economics professor specializing in higher education, thinks the financial impacts on the university itself are “not very significant.”

“Endowment is less important for public universities and colleges than it is for private colleges and universities. By divesting in fossil fuels maybe you [would make] a little bit less money,” he said.

Yet finances are only one layer of the argument for divestment from fossil fuels. Moral obligations are also a consideration.

“It’s not just money anymore; it’s about the health of society,” Dixon said.

“We don’t have a tomorrow unless we change today.”

In 2005 the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, entered into force. According to this United Nations framework, “Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of Greenhouse Gas emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities.’”

With Kyoto Protocol and increasing evidence of climate change, president of the Green Team at UMaine Samantha Perez is calling for change at a local level. “UMS is still profiting from the wreckage of the planet — to me that’s a little absurd,” she said.

Dixon, who also has researched climate change through the Climate Change Institute for 12 years said, “The health of society has to come before the economy, or there won’t be an economy, anyway.”

For Scott, divestment from fossil fuels targets the root of the problem, sending a message that UMaine wants to find a clear solution, which will in turn show people they “can make a change on a personal level.”

“It gives us a solution to the problem rather than putting a band aid on it, we don’t have a tomorrow unless we change it today,” he said.

“It’s so much about a love of place.”

As a national leader in sustainability, The University of Maine began its commitment to the environment with its inception as a land-grant university in 1865. According to Dixon, one part of UMaine’s primary mission is public service, what he calls a “core tenet of sustainability. Improving society is inextricably linked [to UMaine] ever since our inception,” he said.

For Scott, divesting in fossil fuels is a way to make sure our natural resources still play an important role in Maine life for generations to come.

“It’s not divesting for divestment’s sake. It is so much about love of place and love of nature. Maine is one of the most prideful states ever. Being able to support and promote and love where you’re from is important — preserving what we have and starting to make a cultural change,” he said.

According to Scott, divesting the University of Maine System is framework and starting point for a conversation about connecting people with their environments.

An example of success

Unity College, in Unity, Maine, was the first college or university in the nation to divest from fossil fuel companies. In November 2012, with the direction of school President Stephen Mulkey, the school finished divesting close to 100 percent of their portfolio from fossil fuel.

The college reported more than a year later that their portfolio had not suffered as a result of divesting in fossil fuels

According to Deborah Cronin, Unity College vice president of Finance and Administration, “over the past five years the portfolio has met or exceeded market benchmarks despite the shift away from fossil fuel holdings. The college’s endowment is managed for the long-term benefit of the college, and it is anticipated that investment earnings will meet long-term market performance benchmarks,” she said.

What’s Next?

“If the system divests we will be one of the greenest college systems in the entire United States,” Dixon said.

Divest UMaine will address the USM board of trustees on Feb. 27 at 1 p.m. in Bangor. They will ask the board to form an ad hoc committee to research and consider divestment from all top 200 fossil fuel companies within five years. If the proposal is accepted the committee will report back in May, when the board of trustees will vote.

“It would be great for the university — something we could be proud of,” Dixon said. “It would serve as an example for other institutions that are afraid of making such a step. If we can prove it can be done with zero risk and zero loss of money. I think there will be many others that follow.”

Winners of the 2014 Steve Grady Awards for Creative Writing read their manuscripts at the Black Box Theater in the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center Thursday night for a crowd of students, faculty and community members as part of the inaugural event for this year’s New Writing Series.

The New Writing Series began in 1999 as part of the English department, providing weekly readings from poets, fiction writers, translators and more. This week the NWS readers were UMaine’s own. Four undergraduate students and four graduate students read. Winners and runner-ups in both degree levels presented in the categories of poetry and fiction.

“The Grady Awards draw a connection between undergrads and graduate students. It creates a conversation I wasn’t lucky enough to have in my undergraduate career,” said Greg Howard, a UMaine English professor, who emceed the awards alongside English professor David Kress.

Seth Dorman, first-prize winner of undergraduate fiction and second-prize winner of undergraduate poetry began the event reading his winning poem “O New Jerusalem!” as well as others.

Dorman, a fourth-year English student, is an opinion columnist for The Maine Campus, poetry editor of The Open Field — an undergraduate literary journal, and editor in chief of the student publication Doulos, a journal of Christian thought. Dorman won the fiction first prize for his pieces “The Creation of Adam” and “Lauds.”

English and history student Reuben Dendinger kicked off the fiction portion of the night with his piece “The Fresco at Diatomacea,” a dystopian story about a man living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. After the main character, Frank, roams around trying to find paint in the dystopian world, the Count of Diatomacea, who says he must complete a fresco for him because he is the “saddest painter in the world,” approaches him, demanding that Frank come with him.

“Faculty like to see at the Grady Awards how much the writer’s work has progressed in four years,” Kress said between performances.

The same applied for graduate work. Rose Wednesday, a graduate student of fiction, won first prize in graduate fiction for “The Artists, from an Unnatural History of Humans in Love.” The judge, Peter Markus, said that Wednesday’s work was “equally grounded in the world of fiction and the sentence.” Instead of reading her winning work, Wednesday read her piece “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Wednesday is the current fiction editor of Stolen Island. Her work is published in Armchair Aesthete and Stolen Island and an upcoming story will be published in Timber Magazine Online.

Fiction judge Peter Markus read in the NWS in spring 2013 along with poetry judge Anna Moschovakis.

Moschovakis said graduate first prize poetry winner Sarah Cook’s “Poem in response to snow and other things” is both self-aware and funny. The poem concerns a snowy day and graduate school but also delves deeper into the greater implications of the two.

“In order to,” a piece by undergraduate first prize winner Sean Miller,“electrifies the page,” according to Moschovakis, who said she is “eager to see what the poet will do next.”

Maurice Burford won second prize in graduate poetry for his pieces “Frostbite” and “The Optimist.” Burford, who is poetry editor of HOUSEFIRE Publishing and is co-editor of Mammoth Editions, both based in Portland, Ore., read from his poem “The Optimist.”

“All good weather is happening to friends in lower altitude,” he read. Burford then read from his poem “How to Turn Into a Tree After You Die,” which brought chatter among the crowd.

Second-prize winner in graduate fiction Alexander Champoux read his award winning piece “Imperfect Tense,” a coming of age story about a teenage girl who volunteers at a nursing home to get over her fear of the elderly. The teen’s plan to leave the home backfires when her teenage writing career, solidified in a piece she wrote about the nursing home, wins an award.

Champoux is the Coordinator of the Writing Program and Farnham Writers’ Center at Colby College.

The next NWS event is on Feb. 25 at 4:30 p.m. in room 104 of the Innovation Media Research and Communication Center. Polish playwright, translator and theater director Philip Boehm will read.

Over 150 members of the University of Maine’s Greek Life played tug of war and jumped into a pool of green Jell-O on Saturday to help raise $900 for The Painted Turtle Camp and terminally ill children.

UMaine’s Delta Zeta chapter has been hosting their “Turtle Tug” event for 11 years, with all proceeds going to benefit the Painted Turtle Camp, located in Lake Hughes, Calif. The camp gives terminally ill children an authentic camp experience for free.

This year was especially significant for Delta Zeta as the camp, funded by Newman’s Own Foundation, experienced the effects of a wildfire which burned down part of the camp. According to event organizer Julia Nacorda, over 500 kids were unable to attend camp this summer.

“It’s important because raising this money will help rebuild the camp so all these kids can go back and have that camp experience,” said Jamie Hoglund, another organizer of the event.

Delta Zeta surpassed their goal of 25 teams with 30 teams participating. Delta Zeta sororities across the country participate in similar events, all benefiting The Painted Turtle Camp.

Philanthropy was an important theme of the event.

“I think a lot of time Greeks get a bad reputation,” said Theo Koboski, president of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. “But really, stuff like this is the reason why we were founded in the first place. Every group is different and every group has different ideals that they strive for, but I think it’s the same thing all across the board in terms of our unifying subject [being] this idea that we benefit so much from the community and we want to have a chance to give back.”

Free doughnuts and pizza were provided. People played the popular backyard game Corn Hole and cheered while teams participated in a fierce tug of war competition.

Phi Mu won the sorority bracket and Alpha Gamma Rho won for the fraternity bracket.

“People really come out and support our philanthropy and we do the same for them,” said Maya Clifford, a sister of Delta Zeta.

Drummond Chapel, a non-denominational meeting space on the third floor of the Memorial Union, was reconfigured this summer to include needed office space for the Bodwell Center for Service and Volunteerism. A wall was built in the chapel, reducing its size by one-third, to 250 square feet.

Many individuals, small prayer groups and other spiritual groups use the chapel. However, the largest group, a weekly meditation gathering, has found it challenging to adapt to the smaller space, which no longer accommodates their needs to the same extent.

“You’d think if you’re going to take a space that’s used for a traditional purpose and begin using it for another purpose, you’d at least [reach] out [to] the people who are using it,” said Hugh Curran, professor in the Peace Studies program at UMaine and leader of the group meditation.

Administration sees the construction as a positive compromise, balancing a need for office space. Assistant Vice President and Senior Associate Dean of Students Kenda Scheele said she would have contacted more people if she had removed the chapel entirely.

“It was meant for students,” Scheele said. “We felt that since the Bodwell Center was a student service, it was at least [in] keeping with the general area. It’s at least a service-to-the-community kind of thing.”

The meditation group worked with Scheele and decided the best alternative was to meet in the Memorial Room located on the central floor of the Union.

“Pretty much every other space is not conducive to meditation,” she said. “The Memorial Room was the best choice of all the spaces we still have.”

Curran finds the Memorial Room adequate, “but it is not a chapel, so I see it as necessary only because the Chapel is no longer of adequate size,” he said.

Members of the meditation group as well as some students not involved in the group are focused on the need for a more appropriate spiritual space for students to go. Marie Hayes, a member of the meditation group and a professor in the psychology department, feels it’s typical for universities to set aside a space for non-denominational spiritual use.

“Realizing students have spiritual needs and they have limited access to quiet spaces, universities and campuses can be very significant in personal transformations,” Hayes said.

Shane Dorval, a third-year student who uses the Drummond Chapel for meditation, agrees.

“It’s absolutely necessary for non-denominational space to be available on campus,” he said. “The university should be sponsoring more spirituality because it is a big stress reliever and [source of] support for students.”

Hayes thinks that it’s up to the Student Government to decide how important a space such as Drummond Chapel is to them.

“It’s worth having a campus community discussion about,” she said.

Despite the disturbance construction caused for the meditation group, Dave Roderick, of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a group who consistently uses the room for prayer discussions, has been able to adjust.

“It just makes us closer together,” he said.

“There are students who use it for prayer or bible study or other types of religious study. I do think it’s adequate, I really do. The Drummond family would be fine with what we’ve done,” Scheele said.

According to Scheele, the idea of making the chapel space into a graphic arts studio in the early 1970s was considered, but that proposition was shot down because the donors didn’t support it. The donors did, however, later agree that the Memorial Union Board, which makes decisions about the building and its operations, could decide how the room was to be used.

Scheele said that the chapel doesn’t need to be able to support larger services that traditional university chapels tend to support.

“It’s a chapel by virtue of its name. Services can be held any number of places. In the letters [describing the original intent for the space], it’s always described as a small chapel,” Scheele said.

According to fourth-year student Emily Puleio, the necessity of the chapel still remains.

“I think it’s necessary and if cutting off the space is cutting off someone’s spiritual education, then I don’t agree with that at all,” Puleio said.

“I would have certainly reached out to the campus community had we decided to eliminate the chapel,” Scheele said. “I myself go there, just to have a quiet space. There’s no phone in there. You can just sort of sit there and take a breath, you know? We all need a space to feel safe to do that.”

The newly renovated chapel still needs some sprucing up; according to Scheele, “it looks kind of stark right now, but we intend — as we have for other spaces in the building — to contact the University of Maine Museum of Art and they will put art on the walls from their collection.”

Two major construction projects, coupled with one of the largest incoming classes in University of Maine’s history, are creating a challenging start to the semester for Parking Services, faculty and students.

Up to 157 parking spaces are currently unavailable due to the construction of the Emera Astronomy Center near the crossing of Long Road and Rangeley Road, and construction on the Memorial Gym and Field House, removing 107 spots and 50 spots, respectively.

Even with the sudden influx of students this semester and first-year housing at full capacity, Alan Stormann, Assistant Director for Security, Parking and Transportation, thinks the situation is under control.

“I think I have enough parking,” Stormann said. “What I don’t have is a lot of convenient parking.”

The first steps in alleviating UMaine’s parking woes have begun with the construction of a new 116-spot commuter parking lot between Nutting Hall and Libby Hall, set to be finished by Thanksgiving. Fourteen new commuter spaces off Rangeley Road near the Advanced Structures and Composite Center and 18 new faculty spots on Gym Drive will also be made available.

For Stormann, helping students with parking stresses doesn’t necessarily mean adding more spaces. Like every year, freshmen were discouraged from bringing their cars to campus, not for the purpose of opening up parking spaces, but to reduce the carbon footprint on campus.

Stormann said there could be 50 to 75 vacant spaces in residential parking near the Hilltop area on any given day before construction began.

In addition, Parking Services annually provides faculty and students free bus transportation through the Black Bear Orono Express bus.

In cooperation with the Town of Orono and the Maine Department of Transportation, Parking Services helped provide 53,000 rides for students and faculty using a 24-passenger bus last year.

“A lot of the business owners and landlords down there are aware of it. So they can encourage their folks to take the bus,”Stormann said, who has also worked with Orchard Trails Apartments to provide a bus run that usually leaves standing room only on the commuter bus, according to Stormann.

Alternatively, students and faculty find convenience in biking to campus. Francois Amar, Dean of the Honors College and chemistry professor, has been riding his bike to campus for many years. Amar finds riding a bike to work reduces the need for added parking on campus while also providing additional exercise.

“I get to campus and don’t worry about parking,” Amar said. “I’d love to see more people biking.”

Parking Services also provides a hotline, accessible by calling 207-581-4636, which provides parking conditions throughout the day. The number of open spaces is reported on a recorded message, which is updated according to class times.

“My guys aren’t out all day writing parking tickets; they’re out there counting parking spaces for you,” Stormann said of his Parking Services employees.

Stormann is confident there will always be parking available, saying, “[The] bottom line is, if you can’t find a parking spot, please call the parking office. We will go out there and find one for you, somewhere.” Parking Services can be reached at 207-581-4047.

For students and faculty trying to find a parking space, Stormann advised: “Be patient, allow time because when you get here your favorite parking spot may not be available.”

In addition to the construction-related parking changes, some first-year residential students who park in the Hilltop lot may have to park in the Aroostook residential lot, according to Public Relations Director Margaret Nagle.

At the New Balance Recreation Center adjacent to the Bridge Family Tennis Courts, 80 spaces are temporarily reassigned to parking limited to clients of the New Balance Recreation Center. The lot is closed from 12:30 am to 5:30 a.m. daily, according to Nagle.