UMaine Maryann Hartman Award Winners Announced
Contact: Media contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — Noted scientist and teacher Joyce Longcore identified fungi responsible for a world-wide depletion of amphibians. Dahlov Ipcar began her artist career as a WPA muralist and later wrote and illustrated over thirty children’s books. Mother of six, Lillian O’Brien is a state legislator and a town councilor who has worked for over 40 years to improve the lives of battered women, unemployed millworkers, and Somali immigrants, among others. Each will receive the University of Maine’s Maryann Hartman Award for Maine women of achievement on Thursday, Oct. 23, in a ceremony beginning at 5 p.m.. They will be joined by Mallory Cyr, a civil rights and disabilities rights activist, who will receive the third annual Young Women’s Social Justice Award. Sponsored by the UMaine Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program, this year for the first time the ceremony will take place in Buchanan Alumni House on College Ave. in Orono.
Ann Schonberger, director of the Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program, comments that although the award ceremony is 18 years old and over 50 women have received the award.” The job of choosing just three awardees each year becomes increasingly challenging,” says Ann Schonberger, director of the Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program who noted that more than 50 women have been honored in the program’s 18 years. “It seems the more Maine women are recognized, the more phenomenal Maine women there are to honor.”
Cyr, a first-year student at the University of Maine at Farmington, is from Sabbatus. She was actively engaged in social justice and civil rights work for all her four years at Oak Hill High School. Cyr has drawn from her experience with a chronic health condition, microvillious inclusion disease, to speak out for institutional practices that are respectful and responsive to the needs of all youth. She has worked with teachers, as well as medical personnel and social service professionals to improve access for all individuals with disabilities by enhancing access through architectural design, innovative health care delivery systems and education. In 2002 she was a founding member of the Youth Advisory Committee to the Maine Department of Human Services’ Bureau of Health Children with Special Needs Program, the first in the country. In 2003 Cyr received the Oley Foundation Young Adult of the Year Award.
Dahlov Ipcar, from Georgetown, is a nationally recognized artist who has resided in Maine for most of her life. Best known for her colorful collage-style paintings featuring jungle and farm animals, she began her work painting murals for the WPA in Tennessee and Oklahoma. At the age of 21 she was the subject of a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art. She has also authored and illustrated 30 children’s books, four young adult novels, and one book of adult fiction. Colby College, Bates College and the University of Maine at Farmington have recognized her with honorary degrees. In addition to many other honors she has received a Living Legacy Award from the Central Maine Agency on Aging and the 2002 Katahdin Award, a lifetime achievement award given in recognition of an outstanding body of work of children’s literature in Maine. In October, 2002 Maine PBS featured her work in its Maine Masters series.
Joyce E. Longcore of Orono is a world-renowned chytrid expert. She was a nontraditional student who returned to graduate school and earned a Ph.D.after raising her family. While pursuing a master’s degree, she discovered a new fungus which has since been named for her. This expertise in the isolation and characterization of aquatic fungi was called into service a few years ago when scientists began to notice a decline in the numbers of frogs in several pristine locations throughout the world. It was puzzling because there were no obvious pollution sources at the locations. However, Longcore was able to isolate and identify the fungus responsible for the widespread death and deformation of those amphibian populations.In her 15 years at the University of Maine she has established a culture collection that contains over 200 species of aquatic fungi, many of which are not available elsewhere. In addition to being a brilliant scientist, she is a gifted teacher who has passed along her love of science to others.
A member of both the Maine State House of Representatives and the Lewiston City Council, Lillian LaFontaine O’Brien is a constant advocate for women and children. Growing up during the depression in a family of nine, O’Brien went from high school to work in the local mills. With encouragement from teachers she became the first in her family to graduate from college and earned a master’s degree in Community and Economic Development when in her fifties. A former elementary school teacher, she served as the first woman regional manager of the Welfare to Work Program. She co-founded the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project and started a tenants’ union. As a member of numerous boards and committees, including a women’s health collective and the board of the YMCA, she has worked on behalf of women. Serving on the Governor’s Advisory Committee for recommendations on mental health services for children and the University of Southern Maine Advisory Board for the Lewiston-Auburn Campus. O’Brien continues her many efforts to improve the lives of women. She has also helped to raise funds for displaced Millinocket mill workers and supported a project to empower Somali women through access to education.
The Oct. 23 ceremony is free and open to all but reservations are encouraged. Please call the WIC office at 581-1228, e-mail, or visit the office at 101 Fernald Hall.