Our faculty bring extensive experience and multidisciplinary approaches to create, investigate, question, and explore — in the continual pursuit of knowledge and discovery.
From public readings and musical performances to professional publications and expert panel presentations, our faculty’s scholarship and creative activity inspire continued learning across the community.
Student-Centered: Our Approach to Education
At the core of our faculty’s scholarship and creative activity is a dedication to strengthening classroom education and transforming the lives of our students through real-world learning opportunities.
What does that look like? Here are just a few examples of how students engage with faculty scholarship and creative activity:
- Founding a Campus Kitchen to combat food insecurity, as part of our Sociology and Food Studies programs.
- Developing large-scale community art installations to exemplify Professor of Art Jan Piribeck’s research on the rising sea level.
- Creating an interactive map of Portland that showcases women’s history, in collaboration with our History and Women and Gender Studies programs.
- Exploring what a composer intended for the expressions in a march with Conductor Dr. Jackie Townsend in the School of Music Concert Band.
Future-Focused: Enhancing Culture through Arts and Humanities
Our faculty apply their scholarly and creative endeavors in the arts and humanities to improve the quality of life of our communities and enhance our culture.
A snapshot of how our faculty extend their expertise and artistic ventures into the greater community:
- Gloria S. Duclos Convocation: Each year the University brings together our students, faculty, staff, and the community for a series of public events and discussions focusing on a specific theme. Faculty also incorporate the theme into coursework.
Beginning in 2017, we have focused on the theme of Race and Participatory Democracy, asking each member of our community to examine the systems of oppression that limit equal access to freedoms and opportunities in our American democracy. - Stonecoast Writing for Social Change Project: The call for social justice is a theme that resonates throughout our University, particularly in the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA program. Stonecoast faculty, students, and alumni are using their passion and skills in writing and reading to create social change locally and globally in areas of race, gender, class, and environment.
- School of Music Performances: Along with performing in the University’s Faculty Concert Series, instructing lessons, and conducting our student performance groups, our School of Music faculty are incredibly active in the regional music scene.
Continual Advancement: The Center for Collaboration and Development
Collaboration is one of the foundations of learning and scholarship at USM. We developed the Center for Collaboration and Development to offer our faculty and staff space to uncover new possibilities and strengthen their teaching, research, scholarship, and creative activities.
When faculty aren’t in the classroom, advising students, or pursuing research, scholarship, and creative activity, you’ll find them at one of the Center’s events, networking with one another, honoring the diversity of our University community, and advancing their methods for teaching in the classroom and online.