Benny Veenhof, director of technology management at Auxiliary Services, said dining services at the university has been aiming to make this change for a while. Veenhof said the problem was with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards that made the use of debit and credit cards unavailable in dining’s sytem until this year.

“Many payment application vendors had to rewrite a lot of their software to be in compliance with new payment application data security standards,” Veenhof said. “Blackboard, our vendor, was listed on the PCI security standards Web site to be complaint as of July 17, 2009. The university was then able to upgrade the MaineCard system to this new system.”

Director of dining operations Kathy Kittridge said once the university upgraded to this new system, it purchased the software needed to fix the current one and now has to wait.

“What happens is when you swipe a credit card, the number [of the card] doesn’t get stored anywhere, and that’s called PCI Compliance. We didn’t have the software that could do that on our old registers, and that was sort of a newer compliance issue. So we purchased the software this summer in August, and now we’re waiting on the software company to install this piece for us, which is supposed to be completed and ready to go by January,” Kittridge said.

Kittridge said there is no specific date for the debit and credit card system to begin in January; dining services is ready to accommodate the new system at any time.

“If it’s ready sooner, we’re ready as far as taking them sooner,” Kittridge said, “but it’s just a matter of getting the last piece of the software in place.”

Since dining services is self-operated and not funded by UMaine, Kittridge said it will cost a little more to add the system and that after each swipe of a debit or credit card, dining will be charged between 20 to 70 cents. Kittridge hopes the new service will increase business enough to cover the new charge.

“Every time there’s a transaction, there is a cost to dining services,” Kittridge said. “We don’t anticipate raising [food] prices to cover it; certainly that is not the plan. The plan is to make it more convenient so that hopefully it will generate enough additional revenue to cover the costs of the transactions.”

Ross Wolland, vice president of Student Government Inc., said it is rare for students to not own a debit or credit card, and the new system will be a helpful convenience.

“Debit cards are just extremely prevalent in our society today. Most students don’t come to campus without a debit card or a credit card,” Wolland said. “I think it’s important that when they get here, that we have a system that they’re used to. It sort of becomes inconvenient to make sure that you have dining funds or cash on you just in case you go to the Union. So it’s just good to have it.”

Claire Folsom, a member of Wilde Stein in 2004 and a current graduate student, said the event was for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students who felt they could not go home or could not be themselves in front of their own family and who could feel more at home with the Thanksgiving group on campus. Wilde Stein held the event Nov. 19 this year.

“The concern was, at the time, that a lot of our students were not welcomed home or when they went home they couldn’t really be themselves because parents weren’t accepting,” Folsom said.

Folsom said the gay Thanksgiving on campus provides Thanksgiving for anyone not wishing to spend it with his or her family.

“Thanksgiving is hard anyways because it’s the first major time you go home initially as a freshman. The first time you’re home, it’s very tempting to come out to everybody. For a major holiday though, it’s really not the best idea. So we wanted to have an event where people could be themselves and still celebrate the holiday, and maybe get that part out of their system a bit before going home. Just to be accepted,” Folsom said.

Folsom remembers how small the first gay Thanksgiving turned out.

“We had maybe 20 people the first time we did it, and that was a big success. We had about as much food as is on the dessert table, but it was a big success, and it was everything we wanted it to be,” Folsom said. The dessert table at the Thanksgiving event was small and held a few items. “It went from 20 people five years ago to this. I never thought that it would get to be this big.”

One of the most successful gay Thanksgivings was last year, when a little more than 100 people attended. Jill Tremblay, a volunteer for the event, said that while the event last year was tight, its regular following has grown.

“That year it was in the Union, and it was really tight,” Tremblay said. “But even now we definitely have a lot of people bringing friends, and that’s not how it used to be.”

Every person who came to the dinner on Thursday brought food to share. Volunteers helped to carve turkeys and set up dishes of food, while students talked and joked with each other. Tremblay said, for the students, this event gives them a different type of family to be with, rather than the hostile ones they possibly go home to.

“It’s different than being with your family,” Tremblay said. “This is a different kind of family than that is.”

Before they dug into their meals, each person would go around the table to say what they are thankful for in life. Tremblay said a huge aspect students were thankful for was simply to have a place to be accepted.

“Early on we would go around and say what we were thankful for,” Tremblay said. “As a gay person, you might live all the time making decisions about how much you say or how you behave, but then there are places like this where you don’t have to think about that anymore. It feels very nice.”

Tremblay added that while anyone of any sexual orientation is allowed at the Thanksgiving, for gay people it has more meaning because straight people have a harder time understanding what gay people go through.

“It’s really hard for you to understand [if you are straight], because there’s no place where you don’t fit in. You don’t have to find your own community, because there are straight people everywhere. But because sexuality often defines who we are, and it’s such a major part of who we are, it’s nice to be able to feel like that doesn’t matter,” Tremblay said.

Third-year Wilde Stein member Kendra Chindler said the gay Thanksgiving is one of the biggest events the group does all year, and it is really just a good time.

“I think this is the biggest event we do all year. It’s not the biggest, like we put a lot of effort into Pride Week and Coming Out Week, but generally for a single night, this has the most people that come, and it’s the most fun I have all year. I love gay Thanksgiving because everyone that is involved in GLBT services shows up, and there’s good food. So what’s not to love?” Chindler said.

Tremblay said that no matter if people come for the food or the acceptance, it is nice to see more and more people going to the gay Thanksgiving.

“It’s exciting to see the difference in the attitude on campus. It’s just
feeling more and more open, and people are more out and accepting. And we have a lot more allies who aren’t gay, but they are really cool and they come to meetings or they participate in functions like this because they are really good friends and are very comfortable with being involved,” Tremblay said.

Folsom knows the event will continue.

“It means so many different things to so many people,” Folsom said. “It’s a time where you can celebrate a holiday even if you can’t with your own family.”

Michael Howard addressed the audience with the question, “Who is responsible for bearing the burdens of climate change?” He answered by mentioning what he called “the first possible solution” to global climate change, stated as “the polluter-pays principle.”

“This statement includes two principles. First, the principle of responsibility, according to which those who have created the pollution should pay. Second is the principle of capacity. Those who are more able to bear the cost should pay, so it’s the ability-to-pay principle. Both of these principles support the conclusion that, quote, ‘Developed nations should take the lead in combating climate change in adverse effects thereof,’” Howard said.

Howard said increasing global temperatures and their effects could be severe if people don’t take the global climate issue seriously and find no solution for it.

“If we continue on our current path, the concentration of CO2 will exceed 1,000 parts per million by 2100. This would mean the average global temperature rise would go from 3 to 7 degrees Celsius. To get an idea of what a temperature rise would mean, note that this would be warming to a higher temperature than any in the last 10,000 years, during which the temperature varied by only about 1 degree Celsius. The change in temperature would be as great as that from the end of the last ice age, when Bangor was under a mile of ice,” Howard said.

Gary McGrane, staff associate of the Bureau of Labor Education, who attended the lecture, agreed with the polluter-pays principle, but believes it needs more work.

“Polluters paying is fair because they are the ones contributing to the issues confronting us today,” McGrane said. “Polluter- pays principle is not a new idea but needs more work. We need major polluters to pay, not the general public. We are already paying with higher health care costs and a lower life expectance rate in this country. What we need are politicians with the political will to do the right thing.”

Howard mapped out the correlations between the changes in the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere with a PowerPoint presentation.

“There’s a striking correlation over the last million years between the changes in the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of CO2 methane in the atmosphere. While these concentrations initially follow temperature increases from increases in solar radiation, as greenhouse gases, they contribute in the positive feedback group to continue warming,” Howard said.

Howard said the longer people wait to reduce carbon emissions, “the steeper the reductions will need to be.”

“If emissions were stopped in 2012, we could expect elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for a very long time. To keep the temperature at or below 2 degrees Celsius, emissions would need to cease by 2050. If emissions continue on the current path to the end of the century and then cease, we can expect a rise in the average global temperature of 4 degrees or more, with catastrophic and irreversible consequences,” Howard said.

Daniel Huy, a student who attended the lecture, said he thinks an issue like this does not really hit students until they hear about it.

“We don’t really know about it until we’re lectured about all these climate changes, like today,” Huy said. “It’s kind of uncomfortable knowing how CO2 levels can be so dangerous to our environment.”

This application can help you escape the harsh reality of college by, oddly enough, building your very own farm. To establish a successful farm, you must plant and harvest crops in a timely manner. You can then make your own profit, collecting coins that allow you to buy more crops, animals and decorations for your farm. It is a game where you cultivate crops in a shortened amount of time with less work than real farming. You use the coins you earn to increase the amount of crops you can plant and how conveniently you can do it. For example, you can buy a harvester or a tractor. You can also increase the size of your farm as you move up to higher levels of the game.

I admit, I am one of the millions of FarmVille users who occasionally plays to plant some new crops, harvest my fully-grown rice or get rid of my withered strawberries. The sad truth is that there are FarmVille users out there who are addicted to the game.

If you read this and say, “Strawberries? She’s only on level one. I’m at level 25!” you prove my point.

Just the other day as I ate my lunch, I overheard a woman on the radio confess to millions of listeners that she is addicted to FarmVille. She told everyone about how successful her farm became and what she was doing to her farm at that very moment.

As if that isn’t bad enough, a friend of mine left his room and, on his way out, asked his roommate to watch his farm for him while he was gone. He asked his roommate if, when his crops were done, he would not mind harvesting them.

These two people are not the only ones out there who consistently open the FarmVille application to make sure everything in their second world is well and settled.

Apparently, FarmVille has become so popular that once you go to the application on your Facebook page, you can bookmark the game, allowing you to bypass logging in to Facebook at all.

Let me ask the obvious question here: Why is it necessary to bookmark an application on Facebook? Imagine if those 66 million users all decided to bookmark FarmVille. Does this mean that those users will eventually make FarmVille their homepage? Going from a homepage of either Yahoo, Google or AOL, where you can at least find news or something half-way intellectual, to FarmVille will significantly decrease the amount of intelligence in the world.

While this seems like a completely far-fetched, irrelevant and elementary argument to a college student, if you are a FarmVille user, think of how often the topic of FarmVille is brought up on a daily basis in your life.

What is it about FarmVille that is so addicting to millions of people? According to an online article on igreenbaum.com, a son confessed to his dad he is addicted to FarmVille. He tells his dad, “I soon found myself increasing the area of my land greatly, trying to get myself as many coins as possible, making sure my crops hadn’t gone bad and other remedial tasks that proved that I truly had nothing good to do with my time.”

Following the article were three comments, all of which were people also admitting to the fact that they are addicted to FarmVille. One 28-year-old woman went as far to say, “If Democrats really want people to get behind universal health care, just start inserting subliminal messages. At this point, I’ll do whatever [FarmVille] says!”

If FarmVille seriously begins to shape people’s perspectives on critical issues, I will be speechless.

I agree that users such as the above-mentioned women must lack a good amount of common sense. Though you have to wonder how many of those millions of users think this way.

There is nothing wrong with playing FarmVille, but if you are so addicted that you sit and wait for your crops to be ready to harvest, or the game can actually dictate your opinions about the important decisions in life, then you need a reality check. It is just a game.

Kaitlynn Perreault is assistant news editor for The Maine Campus.

Alan Kezis, chair of the Graduation Rate and Retention Improvement Team, said two years ago first-years were mixed with upperclassmen in campus dorms. As part of the effort to increase the first-year retention rate to more than 80 percent and the graduation rate to more than 59 percent, first-year students now live in the Hilltop region on campus. Kezis said this makes a difference in rates because students feel happier and have others to work with while learning how to become a college student.

“Upperclassmen and freshmen were mixed. It’s a fairly large change over the last couple of years, since we’ve put all the freshmen together and tried to concentrate all the efforts on them right there,” Kezis said. “I think we’ve learned over the years that being engaged makes you happier. It gives you a peer group to work with, helps you set the goals and learn how to become a college student. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

Kezis said the university moved the new students into the dorms a few days early at the beginning of the academic year to engage them in the first-year program, which continues throughout the year.

“Here at this college, we run a number of programs with our freshmen where we take them away for a number of days before school starts to basically get them indoctrinated with the academics,” Kezis said. “System campus-wide, we’re also running the Academic Recovery Program. … It’s basically putting our staff around them to find out what the issues are. Grades are bluntly a signal, and more often than not it’s [bad grades.] Not because they don’t have the academic capability, it’s because something else is going on that’s a major problem. So basically they just meet once a week. We make sure they go to classes, we find tutoring for them and all those kinds of things. Persistent rates increased dramatically this year by doing that.”

AnneMarie Reed, associate director of Residence Life, said there are a wide range of first-year programs the university runs to increase first-year student involvement on campus.

“For example, if there are issues on a particular floor that students are facing, like somebody’s done some vandalism along the way, we would then provide training opportunities and information to the students about that, what that involves when there’s clean up costs and so forth. So we spend a lot of time providing information in that way to our students,” Reed said.

Residence Life offers academic support along with dorm-wide programs, according to Reed.

“We also coordinate and run the academic study tables, which are five nights a week in the Hilltop commons. Students can go there for some individual tutoring. We already have a list of roughly 100 students who have attended study tables this semester,” Reed said.

All the programs incorporated into the first-year experience are part of a much larger plan the board of trustees approved Nov. 16, called the “New Challenges, New Directions Initiative.”

The plan has three main goals: to measure up to the changing education needs of the public, businesses and organizations; to keep the cost of baccalaureate and graduate education low for students by moderating tuition increases; and to bring spending in line with available resources.

Some of the sub-goals in the plan aimed at retention and graduation rates at the University of Maine system include allowing students to obtain their baccalaureate degree in three years rather than four, doubling the number of students enrolled in online degree programs and increasing the number of allied health profession programs graduates by 20 percent.

Kezis sees the outline of the plan in more basic terms.

“It is a major plan system wide, basically, to try to bring [retention and graduation rates] in line with the reality of what our budgets are,” Kezis said.

The Kennebec Journal recently compared the university to private institutions, two of which were Harvard and Yale. Kezis said this is an unfair comparison. Because UMaine is a public university, it has a better chance to bring in students with issues outside of education.

“This is a public institution where we are providing [public] access, so we have much more diverse population in terms of all kinds of different things,” Kezis said. “If you took our students who match up to the students at the private [institutions] academically, you will find that our retention rates are just as good. So it’s not a rational comparison.”

Kezis said regardless of the numbers, there are outside factors UMaine needs to consider before it can compare its retention and graduation rates to a private institution’s.

“If you take a look at retention rates and graduation rates, they are distinctly different based on the student’s academic profile, income of the family, all those types of things. If you compare our students to comparable students, they actually do better here than other peers,” Kezis said.

Dean of Students Robert Dana said that while the university has not seen an increase in retention rates, 20 percent of first-year students used to leave the dorms by the end of the year. Now first-year students are more likely to remain in the dorms because of first-year programs.

First-year student Kevin Dube said his experience is going well, but believes — despite the programs — a student’s decision to leave will be made on their own terms.

“I feel like UMaine has a bunch of great programs and has a very welcoming community. Freshmen like myself typically find it easy to find friends and things to do most nights, but the classes are in the hands of the individual, and if they choose to transfer or drop out due to the classes, that is out of the hands of the school.” Dube said.

Kezis believes there is no reason retention and graduation rates have to take the back seat to nonacademic issues.

“We are always seeing what we can do to help retain students and help them to graduate. Our rates right now are above what you would expect with our student profile, but that doesn’t mean we still aren’t trying to improve it. We’re always trying to see what works and what works better,” Kezis said.

Seven sororities came together, with members totaling approximately 200 women, to relax and treat themselves to a formal dinner for the hard work they do to give back to their community, according to Vice President of the Panhellenic Council Chiara Amendola.

“In February, we hosted the Polar Bear Dip, which benefits the Penobscot Nation Boys and Girls Club. This past year, we raised just over $2,000 for the cause. In April, we annually host a blood drive on campus, and this past year incorporated an additional bone marrow drive, in which we got 326 people signed up for the bone marrow registry. In October, we raise canned goods for local food pantries. In fact, we just raised over 1,000 nonperishable food items for the Black Bear Exchange,” Amendola said.

The gala cost about $2,000, which the sororities accumulated through fundraising, according to Amendola.

Rebecca Davison, president of the Panhellenic Council, told the group about the importance of sororities on college campuses. She said on Dec. 24, 1902, seven sororities created the first Panhellenic Conference in Chicago, which resulted in the first inter-fraternity associations and the first inter-group organizations on college campuses.

“The most important thing we can learn is that we have the ability to affect all the sides of campus community when we pull our talents together,” Amendola said. “Think of how much good we can do for the world if we all, as women, came together to support each chapter’s charitable causes. Now more than ever, we can make a significant, positive impact not only on the University of Maine campus, but in the surrounding communities.”

Dean of Students Robert Dana spoke at the gala to show his support for the sororities.

“Not worrying about your backyard, but worrying about the global community — that’s what will save this society, and that, my friends, that is exactly what distinguishes you from so, so many students,” Dana said.

Davison hopes to diminish sorority stereotypes.

“We’re all aware of the stereotypes that face sororities. The media portrays girls in sororities as females that drink too much, party too hard, get bad grades and are superficial. I don’t know about anyone else, but I know that here, it’s completely different. Here, each chapter has a GPA requirement for its members. Here, the all-sorority GPA is consistently higher than the all-women and all-student GPA,” Davison said. “We’re obviously doing something right.”

Davison and Amendola hope to make the gala an annual event, and new Delta Zeta member Hannah Palmer hopes it will continue.

“I think it’s a really good experience because we get to know all the other different girls in the sororities. Going through new-member period, we only really hung out with our [own] sorority. So it’s a chance to branch out and meet others,” Palmer said. “I would definitely come back again next year if they have it, and hopefully they will. Hopefully as the years keep going, we will get to know more and more girls outside of our own chapters.”

Before ending his address, Dana gave one last statement to motivate the women: “I know many of you, and I consider many of you my friends, and I know you do it from your hearts. It’s not for show. It’s not to look good on your resume. It’s because you’re good people, and with good people the society will thrive.”

At the beginning of this school year, dining services administrators decided to remove the wait staff from the Bear’s Den and create a more limited menu. Director of operations at Black Bear dining, Kathy Kittridge, noticed an instant disapproval from students.

“The students were not pleased with that, so we added to the menu and brought back the wait staff-style service,” Kittridge said.

Each night in the restaurant there are two student-employee waiters or waitresses, one bartender and one cook — similar to last year. Kittridge has seen a high student demand for multiple staffers in the Den.

“We have the waitstaff that is back to serve the food. That was the No. 1 thing that people told us they wanted, was to have the people waiting on them,” Kittridge said.

With the servers back, along came an expanded menu to order from, with items such as chicken and mozzarella sticks.

“We had some items that were requested like chicken wings, whole pizzas made to order and mozzarella sticks,” Kittridge said. “Some of the other food items that were requested were things that people could share as a group or just more pub-food type items, so we kind of expanded back into some of the more popular items from last year.”

As of now, students who purchase food from the Marketplace are allowed to bring it into the Bear’s Den. Depending on business in the restaurant, this is subject to change, according to Assistant Manager of the Marketplace Al McAvoy.

“That might be changed if it gets busy in there. What they might do is try to keep the seating for just people who are ordering off the menu,” McAvoy said.

For now, Kittridge said allowing Marketplace food in the Bear’s Den is a favorable feature among students, and there are no plans to change the rule yet.

Josh Sjostrom, a fourth-year forestry student, said he noticed the reductions in dining services on campus at the beginning of the semester. He said he comes into the Bear’s Den everytime he eats in the Union so he can watch TV.

“[It] seemed like everything was always closed,” said Sjostrom, who added he found the Bear’s Den and other venues closed at inopportune times at the beginning of the year.

Sjostrom said the expanded staff and menu is an improvement to the Bear’s Den.

“When we started out this school year, we were allowing food from the Marketplace into the Bear’s Den, and we’re going to continue that to see how it goes throughout the semester because the students at some student meetings did indicate that they liked that feature,” Kittridge said.

In addition to the renewed wait staff and menu, Glenn Taylor, director of Culinary Services at the university, said the restaurant may undergo some appearance changes.

“We’re putting some mark-up drawings together to see if we want to change the look of the place. We’re at the point now of just trying to see who the right committee is that would review things like that. We do have a marketing consultant that is kind of looking at doing some mark-ups with new tables, booths, lighting, painting, to see what that look might look like. So we’re just kind of getting all that information together,” Taylor said.

Taylor added that if the changes were to take place, they would happen during Winter break.

“If we get the approval and the committee to look at tables and chairs, we could potentially have that in place beginning of second semester,” Taylor said. “We just want to make sure we’re making the right decisions and that the right people are involved.”

Kittridge and Taylor agreed their biggest focus is to promote the Bear’s Den. The two hope to have nightly specials such as “wing night Wednesdays” or a similar event to make the Bear’s Den more attractive to students.

“If you go to the Bear Brew or if you go to Margaritas, there are certain things that happen on certain nights. We need to get the Bear’s Den to have the same kind of thing going where it’s the place to be because it’s this [event] happening on Tuesday, and on Wednesday it’s this [event]. That’s what we’re working on right now,” Taylor said.

With all of these changes combined, McAvoy believes that — in the end — all of the work will pay off and create a more inviting atmosphere.

“I think it’s a work in progress. The difference now is I think there’s a determination there to make the Bear’s Den successful, to make it a place that students want to hang out in. They want to go there and they want to relax and enjoy each other’s company. From this point forward, I think there’s a real determination there to make that happen,” McAvoy said. “It’s just a matter of reinventing. It’s a matter of finding the right atmosphere with the right menu items, and I think it will all come together.”

“The reason we stand here is not so we can get our name out there, but it’s more in remembrance of the veterans on campus,” said Matthew Colpitts, midshipmen first class. “The professors, the students, anyone who is walking by — this is so they can see we still care about them and that we appreciate what they do for us.”

Colpitts served overseas once before with his twin brother. The experience hit home for Colpitt, and on a day like Veterans Day, he said it means a lot to him.

“It’s something I have really enjoyed. There’s nothing like serving overseas with your twin brother in a country like that. So it’s a bonding experience like you’ll never have before,” Colpitts said.

Gamma Sigma Sigma members honored the veterans by tabling in the first floor of the Memorial Union. Students came up to the table and wrote on a yellow ribbon the names of those they have known who have served the United States.

A member of the sorority, Morgin Cossar, said honoring the veterans meant a lot to her, as her father served in the first Gulf War.

“I’m definitely proud of my father and the time he has served for his country. So doing something like this, I feel is a grand gesture,” Cossar said, “but I usually just tell him myself what it means to me.”

Another member of the sorority, Samantha Spires, believes that while not everyone agrees with the wars, everyone needs to show support for Veterans.

“We all need to show a little more respect. People are definitely appreciative, but I don’t think we say it enough. People need to be a little bit more outspoken and be like, ‘Thank you for what you do,’ and maybe show it a bit more than we do on a regular basis,” Spires said. “None of us would ever just willingly go out there and risk our lives day in and day out like they do. So you just have to say ‘thank you’ and let them know we’re thinking of them and that we want them all to come home safe.”

Colpitts said today’s veterans do not ask for any recognition, which is the reason to recognize them on Veterans Day.

“This day is really for them to give them remembrance for what they did. A lot of times they walk through the streets, they walk around campus, not asking for recognition and not asking for anything but to serve the country. This is the day of the year that we show appreciation and support for them, and say, ‘thank you,’” Colpitts said.

Spires recommended students get involved — not necessarily by joining the Army or Navy, but simply by being active, for example by becoming a greeter to welcome the troops home.

“Students could volunteer to be troop greeters. Just go to the airport and welcome them home. If more people get involved, I think they’d appreciate it if they see younger faces, people their own ages coming out, instead of just the older generations,” Spires said.

Nyssa Gatcombe

Gatcombe is running with a platform of previous experience and involvement.

“Vice president is kind of in charge of running meetings, all that fun and stuff. You have to be able to lead people because you’re in charge of all those 35 senators on track and schedule, making sure they’re doing their job,” Gatcombe said.

“I’m president of a couple of organizations, like the Student Alumni Association and all sorts of others. You also have to be able not to just lead, but also help people when they fall down or are struggling.”

If elected, Gatcombe plans to use the first month before taking office to figure out what procedures work as vice president and which do not.

“Well, we have a little over a month from when we’re elected to when we take office officially. So in that time I will be working closely with current Vice President Ross Wolland and trying to learn the ropes about what he’s doing. I’m friends with quite a few former vice presidents so I plan to sit down with them and be like, ‘What did you do that worked and didn’t work?’ See how exactly I want to run the meetings and how exactly I want to do everything,” Gatcombe said.

Twelve percent of students voted in the election last year. Gatcombe has a plan for raising that percentage.

“I think the best way to get students to vote is to run the best and [most] effective campaign as possible. I’ve been up here tabling and speaking to students. I’ve gone around to meetings, just trying to get out there and meet as many students as possible. The more students we as candidates meet and tell them to vote Nov. 12, the more likely they are to vote. I mean, there’s only so much we can do via Facebook or flyers and all that stuff,” Gatcombe said.

If not elected, Gatcombe plans to keep her current positions in the organizations she is involved with, as well as remain a senator.

“I’m at the moment considering whether I can do more good as a senator or putting all my effort into being president of Student Alumni Association. Currently I am doing both, and I feel like, though I am giving 110 percent to both, that if I wasn’t giving so much [to one] as compared to the other I would be excelling in the other,” Gatcombe said. I do know that if I win vice president I will be quitting senate, obviously, because you can’t be both.”

Timothy Smith

Smith stands on a platform of accessibility and passion.

“I’m accessible. I’m user-friendly to the average student, and I am passionate about representing their interests. I have things that are concrete, things that will happen if I am elected. I think this makes me distinct from any other candidate for vice president right now,” Smith said.

If Smith is elected, his first move would be to submit informative articles to The Maine Campus describing what is going on in senate to hopefully inform students of Student Government’s actions. He also plans to draft a pamphlet on using the rules of procedure to create quicker senate meetings through a stricter adherence to those rules.

“I would get started right away on the articles to prevent people from coming in and feeling like they can’t be [there] because of this strict procedure,” Smith said. “I would draft [them], with [help from the] membership committee, probably more informative pamphlet on how to use the rules of procedure. What will be used, what’s going to change from Ross’s Vice Presidency to my own if elected, and what they can expect.”

Smith feels getting the word out to students is the most important part of increasing student voting in SG elections.

“Twelve percent of people is just underwhelming. I mean, we really need more student participation, and I think the way we can do that is by putting information out there,” Smith said. “When I was tabling this past week, I took the time to talk to people. My favorite people to talk to about Student Government are people who do not like Student Government and who are so upset about it, because these are the people we need to get in touch with. I think the problem is that those who could be involved don’t have enough information and analysis about what is important about Student Government and what is going on.”

Smith also plans to stay involved if he isn’t elected by keeping his position as a senator.

Smith said if he’s not elected he “will keep working as policy and procedure [chairperson] because I really like policy and procedure. I love the way systems work. I love rules. I love making them work for certain people I like following discourse.”

UMaine students can vote through their FirstClass accounts.

Vice President of Wilde Stein Charles Chapin opened the ceremony to let the supporters know while the election outcome was not what the No on 1 campaign hoped for, the university community voted for same-sex marriage by more than 800 votes on Election Day.

“Not only did we take this campus, but we took it by over 800 votes. That’s because of people like you, everybody that helped the No on 1 campaign, everybody that voted got a friend to go out and vote,” Chapin said. “It’s because of people like you why, in the end, equal rights will win, and that this fight is far from over.”

President of Wilde Stein Zachary Knox said he wants supporters who are gay or straight to know that despite their own beliefs, they are not “second-class citizens.”

“Never have I felt such contempt for people who disagreed with me. Never have I felt more like a second-class citizen, because yesterday 291,000 people in the state of Maine said I wasn’t worthy of the institute of commitment for love, because I might love a man and not a woman,” Knox said. “I can’t tell you how many times I heard people say, ‘I don’t hate gay people, dude, but I don’t agree with gay marriage.’ But the people who voted against us yesterday have just put on the biggest show of bigotry and hate since Proposition 8 in California.”

Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Dana stood to tell supporters the university does not support the election outcome and that UMaine is a place for students to feel accepted.

“It’s never the right time to do wrong, and wrong has been done,” Dana said. “Every one of us, the people who think about fairness and kindness and compassion and justice, every one of those people thought, ‘Yes, that this was going to happen,’ and we believed it. You have expressed yourselves so publicly and personally. You expressed yourself so eloquently, and you have been slapped in the face. You have been done [wrong] to in a very public way, a very personal wrong, and here at the University of Maine, you are loved. You are cared for, and you are part of this community. I support you, and the University of Maine will support you. There is no room here for hate. There is no room here for intolerance, and there is no room here for injustice. I am furious about this and I know that the pain you are feeling is pain that I share and people across the university share.”

Dana said the university plans to do everything to celebrate equality and push for equal rights.

“We will go forward with this because we will not tolerate it. I am committed to that, and I can assure you that the university is committed,” Dana said.

Coordinator of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender services on campus Danielle Steele said the election results have inspired Wilde Stein to persevere.

“I’m inspired, for one, by my students. This morning, the first thing I see on my phone is, ‘We’re having a meeting. We’re going to find out what we’re going to do now.’ Because our president of Wilde Stein said, ‘Where do we go, what do we do? What can we do now?’” Steele said.

Chapin said Wilde Stein plans to continue working closely with deans and within their group to push on for equality.

“We’re going to keep working closely with the organizers with the No on 1 campaign to see what we can do next, what our options are, what exactly we can do to get the University of Maine to help. We work closely with Dean Dana and Dean Loredo. We have a good group here that’s pretty much willing to do whatever we can to get civil rights,” Chapin said.

No matter the outcome, Dana announced the pride flag is not coming down anytime soon.

“We will fly it high until it’s shredded,” Dana said.