Mar 23, 2017 | News |
By Lakota Monzo, Contributing Writer
UMF students help to find a match for USM soccer player Ally Little. (Photo Courtesy of Twitter)
The UMF Women’s soccer team hosted a successful Bone Marrow Registry drive in the Olsen Student Center last week to support USM soccer player Ally Little.
Little is a student at University of Southern Maine (USM) who has been diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. “We hope to find a match to our fellow soccer player, Ally,” said soccer team member Lydia Roy.
The UMF women’s soccer team plays USM during their non-conference season. “When we heard about Ally’s situation we wanted to help in any way that we could,” said soccer team member Sophie Manning. After hearing that USM’s drive went well, the team wanted to see if they could do the same at UMF.
“There’s a lot of prep work for this event,” said Roy. To get ready for the event the team promoted the drive during lunch hours, and also handed out flyers around campus.
“All of this preparation is time consuming,” said Roy, “and there is a lot of uncertainty involved.” She hopes that the end results will make everything worth it though.
One of the biggest hurdles the team faced was informing everyone how the drive actually works. “Many people hear the words bone marrow drive and they immediately think about huge needles being stuck in them,” said Manning, “this, however, is the old way, and is only really used for about 20% of the procedures nowadays.”
The process takes about ten to fifteen minutes, in which paperwork is filled out then the inside of the cheek is swabbed. After that the person becomes apart of the registry and has the chance to save a life if they match with someone.
“The team is hoping to get anywhere from 100 to 200 people to join the registry,” said Manning. Tallies following the drive confirm that the team met their goal with a total of 139 participants.
The soccer team was at the event all day helping out in any way they could and answering questions that had come up.
The biggest point the UMF women’s soccer team is trying to get across is for people to join the national registry. This will help people who need a bone marrow transplant to find their matches.
Anyone who missed the drive but is interested in joining the Bone Marrow Registry to potentially become a donor can visit bethematch.org for more information.
Mar 23, 2017 | News |
By Harley Davis, Contributing Writer
Comedian Bob Marley. (Photo Courtesy of The Daily Bulldog)
Comedian and UMF alum Bob Marley visited UMF, bringing laughter and cheer to the campus to raise money for Operation Giveback, a semester-long campaign to bring awareness to childhood poverty in Franklin County. After a long week filled with the snowy weather that spring brought to Maine, a little laughter was exactly what the community needed.
“Bob Marley was chosen since he attended UMF, and he would be a great person to help with this charity event since he’s so well known,” said Ceilya Cooley, executive director of the Association for Campus Entertainment (ACE). “We haven’t had him on campus as a performer in ages.”
UMF’s Student Maine Education Association (Student MEA) was happy to partner with ACE to bring Bob Marley to campus. “We were lucky enough to have ACE cover the cost of bringing Bob to campus so that we get to keep the ticket sales,” said Stephen Riitano, president of UMF’s Student MEA.
“The goal for our fundraiser is to combat childhood poverty,” said Riitano. “All proceeds from ticket sales go to Student MEA’s Operation Giveback in which we are creating back to school backpack kits for students and teachers in the local schools.” These backpack kits will be given out during the beginning of the school year next fall.
According to Student MEA, the Bob Marley event was a success. About 135 people attended the show, generating over $1000 in ticket sales for the club to use to give back to children in the community.
“Operation Giveback is a semester long campaign designed to not only spread awareness to the greater Franklin County area about childhood poverty, but also doing something about it,” said Rittano.
Student MEA began Operation Giveback in January with a panel discussion on childhood poverty in Franklin County. The club will continue its semester-long campaign through April to give back to the community as much as possible.
“We are in preparation for designing a “Kids Day” in April free for all kids around the area to come and have a day full of activities to promote awareness and give back to the children of the community,” said Riitano. “We are also cosponsoring a workshop event on April 19 for education majors to come and learn about many different opportunities to get involved, childhood poverty, and other essential skills that educators need.”
Operation Giveback will end in April. “We are going to be wrapping up our campaign this semester at Symposium, come see our presentation,” said Riitano. Symposium will take place on April 26.
ACE is also gearing up for a fun-filled spring semester. “We have Samuel Comroe who is a comedian, as well as a motivational speaker/hypnotist coming in April,” said Cooley continuing, “April should be a fun month!”
Mar 20, 2017 | Exclusive |
By Sarita Crandall, Contributing Writer
UMF’s new Athletics Communication Director Cameron Eggeman (Photo Courtesy of UMF Athletics)
UMF has selected Cameron Eggeman for the position of the Athletic Communications Director that was vacant this fall. The position requires Eggeman to have extensive knowledge about many applications such as Photoshop and Adobe InDesign to name a few. Eggeman uses these applications to create one of a kind schedules, covers for game days as well as athlete specific Photoshop images.
“The stuff you see on our Instagram page, our Baseball Coach Chris Bessey makes those,” Eggeman said. “We try to communicate so we don’t put the same people on every image, get a variety of athletes.”
Eggeman has been at UMF for the majority of the Basketball season and made a unique cover for the “Play 4 Kay” game. The cover for this game did not have a spotlight player on the cover Eggeman clarified, “This game was a little different, it was the pink game and we had to advertise what Play 4 Kay is.”
Every sports team at UMF has a “pink game” where the athletes wear some item of pink to support breast cancer awareness. During the “Play 4 Kay” game money is donated and then collected to go to an organization that supports research for finding a cure.
Eggeman is originally from Rhode Island and the same area that UMF Softball player Alison Hamilton hails from. Hamilton notices that Eggeman is compatible with the staff within the athletic department. “I see him talking to the other coaches and the trainers, he seems to fit in really well,” said Hamilton.
Not everyone gets an internship within their college career, but Eggeman did when he was a freshman at St. Joe’s. It was part of a class assignment to help at a sporting event and Eggeman had originally missed his event due to a change of dates without his knowledge. So instead of working a field hockey game Eggeman announced stats for a basketball game. “For my class I had to have him (the Athletic Director) sign a piece of paper saying I was there and on the paper he wrote, ‘If you want a job come see me.’ So I said ‘okay!’” Eggeman recounted. He was the intern for the next three years.
Hamilton seems pleased with what Eggeman is doing for the athletes of UMF. She applauds him with creating new fresh images with the help of Bessey. “I mean they’re definitely new and it doesn’t look old, it’s relevant,” Hamilton said.
“I had played against his younger sister in softball, we were town rival towns,” said Hamilton, “He still wears the Middletown Blue and I’m like ‘take that off!’” Soon enough Eggeman will have more maroon in his closet than blue.
Eggeman has offered to any students at UMF to come visit him below Dearborn. “Always looking for help, can never have too much help especially in these offices. If anyone wants to learn a program, I’m all for it!”
Mar 12, 2017 | News |
By Jordan Glassock, Contributing Writer
The Restless Atlantic performs at the 2016 Battle of the Bands. (Photo Courtesy of WUMF 91.5)
91.5 WUMF is gearing up to host the annual 2017 Battle of the Bands this April in the South Dining Hall.
“Battle of the Bands is essentially a massive concert,” said Julia Lent, the Music Director for WUMF.
The popular event attracts bands from all around New England. “Last year we had people as far away as Massachusetts come to play,” said Lent, “They compete with each other and put on a wicked good show for everybody in the area.”
Richard Southard, the Production Manager for WUMF, said that while there is a competitive aspect to Battle of the Bands, “It really is about just showing off lesser known local bands and really trying to get them out to the ears of the community.”
Local bands are usually invited by WUMF to perform at Battle of the Bands, but Lent and Southard said that it can work both ways. “Sometimes bands will see advertisements that we put up and they’ll be like ‘Hey, we wanna be in Battle,’” said Lent.
Southard and Lent said that preparing for Battle is a long process. “As far as getting the music goes, until up to the event, it’s more or less constant, because we’re either always sending out to bands, or people contact us.”
Once bands respond to the invitation to come to Battle of the Bands, they send in audition tapes that feature a few tracks that they consider their best work. After listening to the tracks, members of WUMF select six to eight bands that they want to perform at the event.
Selecting which bands WUMF would like to perform is only one part of the process. As far as the event itself, Southard said, “It’s an all day and almost all evening operation, straight from early as five in the morning all the way to three o’clock in the evening. It’s something we just mark off the entire day for.”
“We have to break down the entire South Dining Hall,” said Lent. “We have to set up all of our equipment and be ready to go for sound checks before any of the bands arrive. And they arrive still hours before the event. So, for us, it’s incredibly intense, but once the show starts it’s all worth it.”
“We wanna have everything as perfect and as pinpoint as possible,” said Southard. “We usually have a large audience, and of course we wanna make everything as best we can for the groups that are actually performing,” he said.
The winning band last year was The Restless Atlantic. Competitors for the upcoming battle have yet to be announced.
According to Lent, the size of the audience has only gotten larger since she’s been a part of WUMF. “It gets bigger every year, and the bands get better every year.”
Mar 9, 2017 | News |
By Lakota Monzo, Contributing Writer
Student lounge in the new Beaver Lodge.
UMF’s new Beaver Lodge opened its doors last month following an extensive renovation of the old snack bar. Apart from some early problems with the ordering system which have since been resolved, staff and students appear to be settling into the new space, which now features comfortable, updated seating and a smoothie bar, among other upgrades.
The idea for the project which would later become the Beaver Lodge was proposed when UMF made the switch from Aramark to Sodexo for dining services.
“It was a small area that hadn’t been updated in awhile,” said Adam Vigue, General Manager of Sodexo at UMF. “Making the Beaver Lodge what it is now was a long road coming, It turned out better than what I thought,” said Vigue. He explained that the new space now has two times the equipment it previously had, a juice bar, and it features storage for all the staff to take advantage of.
“I think the school needed this update, it’s a way of showcasing the school,” said Vigue.
Audrey Gidman, a Sodexo worker at the new juice bar, is enjoying her first year working for Sodexo. “It was tricky at first with the new system, but I got into the swing of it now,” she said.
With the Beaver Lodge being accessible to the community and to students, Gidman explained that it opens them up to the public.
The first couple days the Beaver Lodge opened it’s doors, it was packed with curious students, and members of the community to see all the changes that had been made. So far, it seems that the new eatery has been well received.
“I like to spend my time here now,” said sophomore Emileigh Parsons, “it’s a comfortable environment that I can get my work done in.”
Gidman also spoke highly of the completed project. “I think Sodexo is very smart and organized,” said Gidman, “and put a lot of care into listening to students and their needs.”
With the newness of everything it is hard to see if anything needs to be changed just yet. “It’s like getting a new pair of shoes, you have to break them in before you decide if you need to change something,” said Gidman.
There were some problems with the ordering system in the first couple of days, but now the problems are worked out. “It was a learning curve for everyone,” said Parsons.
Parsons attended UMF last year with the original snack bar and said, “I’m so happy with all the changes that have been made.”
The walls are now covered with an assortment of new decorations that make it a relaxing place to get work done, which is a big change from the painted cement walls that the snack bar had last year.
“It looks super classy, and upbeat,” said Parsons.
The new Beaver Lodge is good place to go when you need a change in scenery, there is no other place like this on campus. It is located on the ground floor of the Student Center and open all day during the week.
