A Community Web

Just before the semester ended, Library Media Technician Sandy Olson stopped by Unity House to talk about her other job -- as a volunteer community builder.  Many of us at Unity College are forever grateful to Sandy for helping us solve a frustrating technical problem.  She almost always seems to have the answers when it comes to questions about instructional technology. Friendliness and expertise are both qualities of our Unity College Community.


It's no surprise, then, that Sandy is helping her residential community as well. Along with a few other residents of Troy, she has developed and maintained the Troy Maine Local News site, "a news website that we hope you will come to use like a virtual town hub, a central place to find out about all things local." Features include information about people (births, weddings, deaths), as well as articles about happenings like the Town Meeting, pictured here.

Sandy's interest in this project developed as a confluence of several more specific avocations. She has been a skilled practitioner of digital photography for more than a dozen years, and maintains a website that showcases some of her work.  She says her latest series of photo essays, Watershed, "came about gradually as I spent more time locally exploring both the culture and the nature of where I live."

She is also committed to the concept of community narrative, and to exploring how digital media can connect, or reconnect, people who live in particular geographic areas. "I think it's important to be grounded," she says.  She notes that many Troy residents now work out of town (as compared to 30 or 40 years ago), and that there are only one or two active members of the Grange.  However, in recent years, a number of town committees have been formed, and residents have developed a sense of being some place special.  Troy, for example, is different from Unity -- it is a more rural community, with its own character and landmarks, like the Troy Union Church.

"I'm learning through the whole process," Sandy says, "about the town, the Sebasticook watershed, the local narrative.  And it's all changing so fast." Like many Mainers, Sandy is in favor of nurturing the local economy. One way of doing so might be to expand the website: she hopes to list farmers' produce soon.  But Sandy's main concern seems to be an overarching sense of community.  "How do we connect to each other," she asks, "to the land, to the past?  Is narrative the thread?"

It's All About Service

. .Four members of the Service Squad visited Unity House on April 23rd.  President and founder Kelly Barber was joined by club officers Rachelanne Vander Werf, Summer Nay, and Zeidy Candelario. The squad has forty-four members in all who join together to complete a variety of local and regional service projects. Community-Based Learning coordinator Jen Olin is the club's advisor.

Kelly saw a need for the squad when flooding from Hurricane Irene devastated areas of New England. She says her service ethic may have developed during her freshman experience at Unity College in the Neighbor Warming Neighbor project and she got that warm, fuzzy "I'm a volunteer" feeling, which was enhanced during her Alternative Spring Break trip..

Now, Kelly's motive for engaging in volunteer work is "not for me to feel good, but to insure people are in a better place when I've left." Rachelanne likes to keep busy -- and she likes putting a smile on other people's faces.  Summer and Zeidy both worked as volunteers during high school; for Summer, that early experience "made me feel appreciated."  For Zeidy, volunteering is something of a family tradition; her older sister, Unity alumna Hannia Candelario, was a role model for her in college, and when they were growing up in Miami. 

All four participated in an April disaster relief training sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention. This included training in safe, effective chainsaw use, equipment management, mold identification, and mud-out techniques.  All of the women valued this training, and all were pleased that the church members "were so welcoming, even though we weren't a part of the church." And, the leaders of this session said they would be willing to conduct a disaster relief training session here at Unity College.

Kelly is graduating this year, and she is sad to leave her baby -- the Service Squad -- behind.  Luckily, she has highly motivated colleagues who will carry on the work.  Summer will work to expand options for volunteering; Zeidy will work toward a Dean's Cup event for service to promote volunteerism on campus; Rachelanne will help students "find their fit." The list of service opportunities is long: Unity Barn Raisers, Addie's Attic Clothing Bank, Volunteer Regional Food Pantry, and Avian Haven are just a few in the region.  Get involved -- and who knows, you might get some cookies!
 

Music Making at Unity House

The musical genius of The Unity Chorus visited Unity House on April 9th.  Chorus members are yet another example of Unity's unsung (excuse the pun) heroes. Rebecca Zerlin, club president, says many of the members sang in high school, but there is no experience necessary to join this group.

Under director Ciara Hargrove, and with the help of faculty advisor Janet Preston (who also sings) members put in many hours of practice, ultimately bringing the magic of chorale music to campus events like the Spring Preview and Earth Day as well as to community audiences like the residents of Clearview Manor.

 
Ciara first took the chorus through a variety of vocal warm ups. Heather, our golden retriever, was kind enough to act as a sort of assistant director, using her tail as a metronome to help keep a steady tempo. While the chorus is currently composed of all women, they would welcome men.  Three lower register singers -- Janet, Shalonda, and Katie -- now take the tenor parts. As Bethany Decker says, they do a good job of working with what they have, but the addition of male voices would expand the range of the chorus.

My favorite song of the evening was "The Night the Pinatas Came Back," which tells the story of vengeful pinatas, ending with the admonition, "Violence and candy don't mix." Sound (sorry about that pun) advice, in my view.

And singing isn't the only area where these folks exhibit creativity. On April 19th from noon to 1:30 in the Tozier Gymnasium, the Unity Chorus will hold the most inventive fundraiser I've heard of: faculty members Emma Creaser and Barry Woods have volunteered to be duct-taped to a wall, and the club will be selling duct tape at $1.00 per yard. Students who've found themselves tied up in knots over marine biology or statistics, here's your chance!

Search and Rescue at Unity House

The Search and Rescue Club hosted a talk by Lieutenant Keven Adam at Unity House on April 2, 2012.  Lt. Adam has been with the Maine Warden Service since September 14, 1992.  He grew up in Marlboro, Massachusetts, and most importantly for us, he is an alum of Unity College, having graduated in 1988.

Eighteen club members, including president Melanie Renell, attended. The purpose of the evening's meeting was to give club members information and insight into search and rescue protocols from Lt. Adam, who serves as the state's search and rescue coordinator. Lt. Adam's  first search and rescue experience was with Tim Peabody, now an Associate Professor in the Conservation Law Enforcement program here at the college. "They didn't have this club when I was at Unity," he says, "but I wish they had!"

Unity College Search and Rescue Club members are an all-volunteer, non-profit service provided by the students, faculty, and staff of Unity College.   The rewards are intangible, but extraordinary. "It's very exciting and very uplifting," as Keven Adam says, "to find someone alive."

Remarking on the role of his college education in his professional life, Lt. Adam said "Unity taught me everything I needed to know about the Warden's test except discretion -- for that you have to go out and ride with experienced people." He feels that the diversity of environmental perspectives at Unity prepared him for his job because he sees people from all of those perspectives in his work. He advises students who want to rise to the level of lieutenant or higher in law enforcement to take writing, business, and accounting courses.  "I need those skills for writing and managing grants" he says. "College increases a person's writing, oral communication, and public speaking skills -- skills game wardens use every day."

Club members agreed that future students may be inspired to work for the Warden Service by television shows like North Woods Law, a production of the Animal Planet network. This show features our state's wardens in a variety of situations, including wildlife rescue and poaching investigations. The club, however, participates only in search and rescue operations. Professor Mick Womersley serves as club advisor, having experience as a mountain rescue specialist in addition to his PhD in policy studies. He is also the Blogmeister for the Unity College Search and Rescue Blog. The college community values the club's work.  We all feel uplifted by their courage, dedication, and professionalism.

Sugar Makers -- Tap That!

Led by their superbly organized president, Jen Moran, The Sugar Makers Club held their March 26th meeting at Unity House.




Club business focused mostly on scheduling and signing up volunteers for a wide variety of events, including the popular Pancake Breakfast and Earth Day. Other tasks included taking buckets down, removing taps from trees, and cleaning this equipment for storage until the next season. There was no shortage of volunteers; everyone at the meeting was eager to participate.
Club members voiced some concern over whether they would have enough syrup for the Pancake Breakfast. Jen reported that the unusual heat wave in mid-March resulted in a short season for sap collection. Although the club still had about 50 gallons of sap left to boil as of the date of the meeting, it expects to produce only 4 gallons of maple syrup this year as opposed to the 14 gallons it produced last year. A recent Associated Press article in the Maine Sunday Telegram indicates that the heat wave produced similar problems in states as far away as Wisconsin.


The club boils sap and stores equipment in the Sugar Shack, pictured at right, which was built by club members in 2007. Sap runs when temperatures fall below freezing at night and rise to above freezing during the day, so the season here usually runs from the end of February until early April. Stephen popped in to tell us that climate change will affect this pattern. For a very readable study on this topic from the Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment , click here.



It's easy to see why the Sugar Makers are a popular club at Unity College: they have a diverse and dedicated membership, they produce a highly-valued, traditional New England treat, and they also make some pretty stylish jackets available for members who complete a certain number of service hours. Deborah was gracious enough to model her jacket in these photos.

Stephen and I will both be looking forward to the Pancake Breakfast this year and to checking out the Sugar Shack in upcoming seasons!

 

It Gets Better at Unity House

This evening, Stephen and I hosted two overlapping meetings: the first for the Diversity and Equality Club, and the second for a group of folks putting together a video here for the It Gets Better project, which was "created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential and positivity their lives will reach -- if they can just get through their teen years."

The D & E Club worked on the details of their ambitious agenda for the next few weeks: presentations at this Saturday's Open House event and our April 22nd Earth Day celebration, as well as activism for this year's Day of Silence on April 20th  -- the largest student-led day of action in America. Stephen and Keeper helped by closely overseeing the proceedings. 

The tone of both meetings was warm and positive -- with a little humor, cheese and crackers thrown in. We had enough serious focus, though -- as you can see from this photo of Katie, Jessie, and Mark -- to make important decisions and set dates for filming our own It Gets Better video here on campus.

Look for a campus wide email soon, inviting you to be a part of the filming on April 9 and April 13.  And maybe we'll send another message, inviting you to participate in a study to determine whether or not Stephen and Keeper are actually twins.  

What's green and off the coast?

The collaboration between Unity College and a long-time Maine literary magazine!

On Tuesday, March 6th, Unity House hosted a marathon nine hour editorial meeting for Off the Coast: Maine's International  Poetry Journal.  The journal is collaborating with students in AR 2113: Poetry of Social Change.

Five editors -- Michael Brown, Valerie Lawson, Gerry George, Ellen Powers, and Jack Reece -- joined me at Unity House.

The fun began, though, when students started showing up -- a total of twenty students who were ready to raise their hands (or not) in support of particular poems.  Our task was to decide which poems submitted for a special GREEN issue of Off the Coast would make the final cut.  The magazine received nearly 1,000 submissions for this issue, which were reviewed earlier in the semester by editors and students through Submishmash, an online submission manager.

 
Students were only required to attend during our regular class period (4:00 pm to 5:15 pm), but a number of students -- like Frances Roth and Josiah Coyle -- took advantage of the opportunity to begin early.


Some students came early and stayed late, or stayed late and stayed for dinner, or all of the above, like Zach Wigham, Franco Napoletano, Alexandria Campbell, Becky Suzenski, and Rachel Smedley.  We reviewed eighty poems, and finally concluded the meeting at 11:00 pm -- nine hours of solid work, interrupted only by dinner, followed by another hour of conversation.

I made a mac & cheese casserole, and Crosstrax provided the rest of the meal: chili, cornbread and salad.  The cookies I made -- blueberry-sunflower seed-oatmeal -- were not as popular as the cookies I got from Bell the Cat in Belfast, but here's the recipe:

• ½ pound (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
• ½ c. granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1½ c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp. salt (optional)
• 2 1/2 c. oats
• 1½ c. dried blueberries
• 1/2 c. sunflower seeds
   

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats, sunflower seeds, and dried blueberries.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown.

Look for the special GREEN issue of Off the Coast around campus on May 1st!