Sandra Caron, UMaine professor who helped college students better understand sexuality and family relationships, retires

When Sandra Caron arrived on the University of Maine campus as an undergraduate student in 1975, it was the height of the sexual revolution. Landmark events like the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision and the Stonewall riots in New York City were just a few years old. Birth control had only recently become widely available and accepted. Meanwhile, books, magazines, TV shows, movies and other aspects of the culture were starting to reflect more liberalized attitudes around sex and sexuality.

Coming of age in this shifting environment, Caron decided before coming to college that she wanted to pursue a career as a sex educator.

“I came from a family in which education was important, except in sexuality — we didn’t talk about it. I saw the impact of that among classmates and friends, whether it was unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections or just not knowing how to communicate their sexuality,” says Caron, who grew up in Brewer, Maine, about 10 miles from the UMaine campus in Orono. 

Fast forward 50 years, and Caron has had a long and storied career — the majority of it at her alma mater, where she’s been a faculty member since 1988. After 36 years, during which she has touched tens of thousands of lives in Maine and beyond through her teaching, research and service, Caron, professor emerita of family relations and human sexuality, has officially retired. 

“I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to give back to the university and the state,” says Caron, who earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UMaine. 

Lloyd Brightman, who was Caron’s advisor during her time as a student, encouraged her to pursue a doctorate. She went away to Syracuse University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Human Development in 1986. She taught at Cornell University for a couple of years, but kept in touch with Brightman and would come back to visit family often.

“One day Dr. Brightman said: ‘You know, I’m going to retire and I think you should apply for my job,'” Caron recalls. “So I did and I started here in the fall of 1988 when I was 29 years old.”

The First Student

Denis Cranson has the distinction of being Caron’s first student at UMaine.

“The first day I was a faculty member,” she recalls, “I was walking down the mall early in the morning and I met this guy and we were the only people on campus. It turns out he was my student.”

Cranson was a nontraditional student, a year older than Caron. He’d grown up in Bar Harbor and moved out west after high school before moving back to Maine. He already had an associate’s degree, but had decided to go back to school at UMaine with the goal of becoming an elementary school teacher. 

“It was kind of overwhelming, because I’d never been on a campus that large,” Cranson says. “I met Sandy and we walked to class together.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Cranson would return to UMaine as a graduate student in the Human Development master’s program and become Caron’s graduate assistant.

“So we did that walk from her office across campus to the lecture hall countless times,” he says.

It was during his graduate program that Cranson says Caron encouraged him to volunteer with the Eastern Maine AIDS Network. The grassroots organization was established in 1987 to support people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as provide community outreach, education, case management, testing and counseling service in central and northern Maine. Cranson says he was hesitant at first, but Caron was persistent. He did volunteer with the network, which led to a full-time job. Cranson eventually became the organization’s executive director for 12 years. In 2005, the University of Maine Alumni Association recognized him with the Spirit of Maine Achievement Award for his humanitarian work.

“Sandy was really responsible for that, because I probably never would have connected with the Eastern Maine AIDS Network without her giving me a little push,” he says.

Today, Cranson is human resources manager for Amicus, a Bangor-based nonprofit that provides programs and services that promote quality-of-life and independence for people with disabilities. In that role and throughout his career, he’s hired or worked with several other former students of Caron’s. 

“It’s incredible how often her name comes up when you’re talking to people in job interviews or at conferences,” Cranson says.

Sandy from Brewer

Caron estimates that nearly 30,000 UMaine students have taken her courses, which included two of the largest classes at the university — Family Interaction and Human Sexuality — as well as a variety of smaller, seminar-style courses. In addition, she founded and advised three innovative and nationally recognized peer education programs: Athletes for Sexual Responsibility, Male Athletes Against Violence and the Greek Peer Educator Program.

When she first arrived on campus, Caron did a faculty-in-residence program in Hancock Hall, before becoming the live-in advisor at the Pi Beta Phi sorority, where she was a member during her undergraduate years. She hosted hundreds of “Sex at 7” question-and-answer sessions in residence halls during the evening hours. She also wrote a weekly column for The Maine Campus newspaper called “Sex Matters” that was syndicated in other college papers nationwide, and hosted a show by the same name on WMEB radio. Today Caron hosts her own website, collegesextalk.com, where she answers questions from and shares resources with students across the country and internationally. 

“I’ve been lucky to have my finger on the pulse of what was happening with young people, which has really informed my teaching and research,” she says.

A leading expert on the social-sexual development of young people, Caron has authored or coauthored more than 50 scholarly articles and several books, including “The Sex Lives of College Students: Three Decades of Attitudes and Behaviors,” based on 30 years of her research. 

Her numerous accolades include being inducted in the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 2023. She has received two of UMaine’s four presidential awards — the Presidential Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998 and the Presidential Public Service Award in 2002. The UMaine Alumni Association named her Distinguished Maine Professor in 2019. Maine Family Planning presented her with the Margaret Vaughn Award for her outstanding contributions to sexuality education in 1999, and the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center recognized her lifelong contribution to sexual and reproductive health in 2013.

“It’s going to be hard for her to slow down,” says Brenda Power, who joined the University of Maine faculty in literacy education in 1990 and within a couple of years became close friends with Caron.

“But the good thing is there are so many nonprofits involved with the causes that she believes in that I just think she’ll be endlessly serving on boards and volunteering,” says Power, who Caron jokingly refers to as her “Retirement Coach.”

Caron is also a licensed therapist in private practice focusing on sexuality-related issues, so she’ll have more time to dedicate to that aspect of her work. 

No matter what she decides to do in retirement, Power says the same passions and ability to connect with people that led to a remarkably successful, nearly four-decade career as a professor and researcher, should continue to serve Caron well. 

“I can’t tell you how often I’ll be out with Sandy and someone will come up to us and say, ‘You don’t remember me, but I was in your class 20 years ago and it was the most important class in my life,'” Power says.

As for Caron’s lasting impact, Power says it boils down to her ability to encourage her students and others to recognize our shared humanity.

“She has a unique gift for helping people understand our commonality,” says Power. “And that there are many different ways to define a family and different ways that people define their sexuality, and that’s OK. It doesn’t threaten your sexuality or your family, because love is love.”

In particular, Power says Caron being from Maine has allowed her to be a bridge between the university and communities across the state.

“There are many things that are special about Sandy,” she says. “But the fact that she was born and raised in Brewer and has all those local ties — the mechanic in Presque Isle, the person whose whole family worked at the mill in Millinocket, the clerk behind the counter at the sandwich shop in Machias — she knows that perspective. And that’s something really special that she brought to the state’s flagship, land-grant university.”

Prior to her retirement, Caron established a scholarship fund through the University of Maine Foundation that will help students from Brewer attend UMaine.

Power and Cranson will be among several speakers at Caron’s retirement party, which will be held Friday, September 6 from 3-5 p.m. at Buchanan Alumni House on the UMaine campus. There will be live music, food and a six-foot cake that will be decorated with a timeline of Caron’s career. 

Befitting someone whose work has been dedicated to encouraging greater openness, acceptance and tolerance, Caron says all are welcome at the event. 

Contact: Casey Kelly, casey.kelly@maine.edu