The UMaine Board of Trustees should endorse Shawn Moody for Governor.

Endorsing Shawn Moody for Governor would merely make official the Board of Trustees’ right-wing Republican slant and ingratiate the Governor-elect with the UME System and perhaps increase state funding. Since Moody is already a Trustee of not only the UMaine System but also the UME Community College System, an endorsement would not violate the fantasy […]

SENATOR COLLINS: Please spare UME graduations from your identification with Margaret Chase Smith

Many of us listened to your cliche-filled UME commencement address not that many years ago, and it is interesting that you’d get a return engagement this year. I don’t know of any other person ever getting a return engagement like you. But the Collins family and, by extension, the Republican Party nowadays controls public higher […]

Can the Bangor Schools administration stop the media from covering today’s student protests?

After the Bangor Schools administration prevented any media coverage of last Friday’s protest by many Bangor High students over gun ownership and safety, the Republicans who control public education in Bangor must be besides themselves with anxiety over today’s protests across Maine and across the nation. At a minimum, some school administrators should be out […]

If politically conservative students were protesting, would any administrators object?

If any Maine students wished to leave school for seventeen minutes in order to demand greater access to guns and to lower (or maintain) the age at which weapons  could be purchased, would most Maine school authorities object? Hardly. And if these or other conservative students wished to leave school for seventeen minutes  to wave […]

SAD 13 Supt. is teaching her students and staff the wrong lesson

As many school districts and systems across Maine and across America are allowing students and sometimes staff to participate in peaceful protests about gun violence in recent and future weeks, Maine has a Superintendent, Virginia Rebar, who has no interest in such presumably “liberal” activities. Rebar oversees schools in Moscow and Bingham and made clear […]

Lost Chance to Promote “One University” during the Superbowl

The UMaine System had a golden opportunity to promote around the world its pioneering and widely applauded “One University” reconfiguration during the Superbowl. Might have generated lots more applications. If, to be sure, the System is getting considerably more applicants, many of those students are in fact dropping out in their first year. True, the […]

Does Senator Collins care about Education Secretary DeVos’ love of for-profit schools?

The Attorneys General of Massachusetts, Illinois, and  New York  have filed a third  lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education. According to the lawsuit, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has failed to assist the tens of thousands of victims of for-profit colleges. Specifically, the agency has allegedly violated federal laws with its endless delays in […]