Grad Student’s Master’s Thesis Focus of BDN Column
University of Maine graduate student and Fort Kent native Lisa Lavoie’s master’s thesis on her borderland community was the focus of a Bangor Daily News column titled “French, family connections endure in Valley despite changes at border crossing.” Lavoie’s thesis, which she defended in April, looks at changes along the Fort Kent-Clair border since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Since 9/11, the people living in the Fort Kent-Clair borderlands have experienced a sea change in their habitual and casual border crossing,” Lavoie wrote. “The United States transformed a border that had been essentially a non-entity for 200 years into a barrier as a response to real or perceived threats to the country after 9/11.” Lavoie enrolled at UMaine in a master’s degree program in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in Maine studies, according to the article. “The opportunity [distance learning] presents for those of us in the north country is amazing,” she said.