President's Message

President Robert A. Kennedy

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As a modern land grant, the University of Maine is committed to growing and strengthening its capacity to adapt to changing needs and conditions. We are constantly exploring initiatives to strengthen our academic and research foundations. We're seeking creative solutions to emerging problems through the development of partnerships and collaborations that build on our strengths.

Such a progressive approach requires new ways of realizing solutions, incorporating innovation and visualizing the world around us. Examples of that kind of thinking are just what you'll find in each of the stories in this issue of UMaine Today magazine.

Oceanographer Larry Mayer's perspective on our coastal mudflats has sparked new questions about how animal life on a planet could start. Sculptor Sam van Aken's art has prompted us to reevaluate our media-saturated culture. Instructor Ginger Yang Hwalek's inspirational pedagogy has earned her the title of best music teacher in the nation. The Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research is fulfilling its role as an incubator for aquaculture innovation; in this case, a business helping to fill the gap left by a diminishing natural resource.

And YoBons. New ways of thinking about our world don't get any sweeter than that.

The research and creative achievement of these people and their programs are just a sample of what makes UMaine great. This spring, we also added a new, innovative project to further support Maine's economic development — and the state's future.

UMaine is launching a $10.35 million research program to develop the infrastructure for forest biorefining in Maine. The research will provide the private sector with the science and engineering needed to build and support a forest bioproducts industry that will add jobs in the state. Forest bioproducts research is a priority for the university, giving Maine an advantage in building this industry into an economic success.

An integrated forest biorefinery, like so many other UMaine economic development initiatives, is part of our R&D momentum. It is key to our emergence as a new model land-grant university and to our role as a leader in Maine.