Build the Bear Plan

Here in Residence Life, we recognize that what students learn outside of the classroom in their living environment is of equal importance to what they learn in the classroom. Over the years, we have focused our efforts around an organized attempt to help our students achieve success and grow into versions of themselves while living on campus. Everything we do: events, everyday interactions, bulletin boards, and social gatherings tie into achieving our educational priority and learning goals. This is how we build Black Bears!

Students who live in the residence halls at UMaine know what it means to be a Black Bear. As a result of living in our halls, students will learn to live on their own, how to engage with others, and feel like they belong to the Black Bear community.

As a part of our Building Black Bear Plan, we focus our efforts on supporting our students’ growth towards our main four learning goals:

  1. Learning how to live on their own.
  2. Learning how to engage with others.
  3. Develop a sense of belonging on campus.
  4. Learning what it means to be a Black Bear.

Success may look slightly different for our diverse population of students, but our Build the Bear Plan is focused on trying to help students make forward progress on our goals. Our plan uses a Likert-scale rubric to more clearly define what outcomes contribute to our goals, and to what each degree of achieving those outcomes looks like.

Build the Bear Plan 2023-2024

Our Resident Assistants and Community Assistants are the backbone of our efforts. Take a look at a snapshot of all the events our student staffers are implementing this semester. Each semester we adjust our schedule based on surveys we collect of what our residential students would find most helpful:

Build the Bear SP24

Meet the Build the Bear Team

Shane Smith (he/him)
Chair
Assistant Director of Residence Life
shane.p.smith@maine.edu
311 Memorial Union
207.581.1404

Emily Hebert (she/her)
Co-Chair
Community Coordinator for Balentine, Colvin, Penobscot, Stodder and DTAV/Patch Halls
emily.hebert2@maine.edu
122A Penobscot Hall
207.581.6391

Kayla McLagan (she/her)
Assistant Community Coordinator for Hart Hall
kayla.mclagan@maine.edu
107 Hancock Hall
207.581.8673