Self-guided walking tours of campus featured on WABI
WABI (Channel 5) reported on the four new self-guided walking tours of the University of Maine campus. The tours, which focus on gardens, outdoor sculptures, the historic district and other distinctive sights of the UMaine landscape, are illustrated on a website that is designed to be compatible with mobile devices that can take advantage of interactive map and direction links. The self-guided tours, an initiative of the UMaine Division of Marketing and Communications, were created to be of interest to community members and campus visitors. Two of the principal researchers for the project are Marisue Pickering, a professor emerita, and John Pickering, an alumnus. Their decades-long experience as educators, and their shared interest in exploring Maine’s historical and cultural heritage, led to their interest in collaborating on the UMaine self-guided walking tours. “We’re constantly discovering things on this campus that even after being here for so long we weren’t aware were here,” John Pickering told WABI. “Sculpture is beautiful for example,” Marisue Pickering said about the focus of one of the tours. “It enhances our lives. It enhances our spirit. So it’s good to share it and there are world-class sculptures on this campus.”