The American Red Cross and the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Residence Life Office are teaming up to pull off the University’s fifth “Super Blood Drive” this summer, the time of year when the need for blood increases.

The Super Blood Drive will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 25 in the Gentile Hall Gymnasium. The event is being sponsored by the University, UMPI’s Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society and Pizza Hut, and cosponsored by Pat’s Pizza, Big Cheese Pizza, Country Farm’s Market, and Wal-Mart.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle will host a Thunderstorm Safety/Spotter Workshop with WAGM Meteorologist Ted Shapiro on Friday, June 22 from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. in the Campus Center. Campus and community members of all ages are invited to attend this free event.

“The workshop will serve as an excellent primer for campus and community members as we continue through the thunderstorm season,” Shapiro said. “I’ll be sharing some important weather-watching skills everyone should know to help them identify impending thunderstorms so they can properly prepare for them. I’ll also teach folks about clues they can look for in the morning, hours before thunderstorms may even occur!”

Riverside Park in Downtown Presque Isle will once again be filled with music on Sunday afternoons this summer as the City of Presque Isle and the University of Maine at Presque Isle host the Fifth Annual “Music in the Park” Summer Concert Series.

This year’s music series will feature one show per month throughout the summer, kicking off on Sunday, June 10, and continuing with concerts on July 8, and Aug. 12, 2012.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle S.E.A.M. [Student Education Association of Maine] members provided the afterschool program in Washburn with a special treat this spring – they hosted a Read Across America event that had children “traveling” all over the United States.

With the help of UMPI’s S.E.A.M. members and their imaginations, children were able to tour a bat cave in New Mexico, explore seashells in Florida, dig up fossils in Montana, and lay on a beach in Hawaii and learn a little about the Hawaiian language. Children were broken into groups and each was given a suitcase and a destination.

Two hundred and thirty-eight students graduated from the University of Maine at Presque Isle on Saturday, May 12, during the 2012 Commencement Exercises – the University’s 103rd Commencement ceremony. President Donald Zillman conferred degrees for the 2011-2012 academic year upon 161 students who participated in the ceremony held in Wieden Gymnasium.

President Don Zillman has announced that Laurie Lachance, President and CEO of the Maine Development Foundation, will deliver the commencement address during the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s 103rd Commencement Ceremony, to be held on Saturday, May 12. During the event, an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree will be presented to Lachance.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle will host alumnus Christopher Morton for a reading and book signing to mark his debut publication – a compilation of 20 essays that provide humorous insight into life for one particular family guy in northern Maine. The event will take place on Monday, April 30 in the UMPI Library and include a reception and welcome at 6:30 p.m., a reading at 7 p.m., and a book signing to be held immediately following.

Morton’s book, You Kids Quit Pooping on the Lawn!, explores a wide range of unexpected topics. According to the back of the book, this includes: “Braised hippo tonsils. Whirling visionary Pentecostal dancers. Aliens. Accordions. Strange piles on the lawn. With gentle humor and a keen eye for deeper meaning, a simple man takes on the world swirling around him in a series of short essays. From family life and the terrors of fatherhood to the perils of hunting camp exorcisms, the essays are funny, poignant, sincere, occasionally bizarre, and always entertaining.”

The University of Maine at Presque Isle Fine Art Program faculty is pleased to announce that three solo shows developed through the 2012 Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition course will be hosted in April and May at the Pullen Art Gallery.

UMPI’s Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition, a six-credit, academic-year-long course, provides students with the kind of in-depth educational opportunity that most Art students never experience until they are in graduate school. In fact, UMPI’s Fine Art program is the only one in the entire State of Maine in which every senior must prepare for and host a one-person art exhibition of his or her work, and defend it orally and in writing, in order to graduate.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will present its second exhibition of photographs by Andy Warhol at the opening reception of Eye to Eye with Andy Warhol: The Multiples on Friday, May 4 from 5-7 p.m. The public is invited to attend the exhibition’s reception, which is being held in conjunction with the Presque Isle First Friday Art Walk.

The exhibition, which will be on display May 4 through June 16, is being sponsored by the Maine Community Foundation (The Meander Fund); the Maine Arts Commission; the Bank of Maine Presque Isle; and Morningstar Art and Framing, which framed the exhibit. The photos are among the 153 silver gelatin prints and Polaroid photographs that UMPI received in the spring of 2008 – valued at more than $100,000 – from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.

Students from the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Native Voices group will host a day-long event meant to develop strong connections between higher education and the Native American/First Nations indigenous populations by setting aside a day on campus that focuses on their culture and traditions.

The group will host the Fifth Annual Native Appreciation Day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, in Wieden Hall. All interested students, faculty, staff, and members of the general public are welcome to attend and participate in this free event, which is being supported by Project Compass.