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Campus Connections, Top Stories, December 7

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New media students showcase work — while meeting potential employers

Communications & New Media students are putting their best work on display for students, faculty, staff and potential employers who have been invited to their annual Senior Portfolio show.

This year’s show will feature the illustrations, photography, videos, graphic design, coding and other works of 13 senior students in the Senior Portfolio class. (Shown here is an illustration by student Elisabeth Roscoe). The show is held at the McKernan Center from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Tuesday, December 8.

Through the years, the show has evolved from simply a way to showcase students’ work for other SMCC students and employees into a job fair of sorts, says Professor Kate Sibole, who is organizing the event.

She has mailed about 50 postcard invitations to local business who are involved in photography, the web, videography, coding and other new media. Emails have been sent out to additional businesses as well as baccalaureate colleges, the department’s advisory board and SMCC employees.

“It’s turned into a reverse job fair,” Sibole says. “Inevitably, somebody makes a job connection there.”

The Senior Portfolio class teaches about students how to produce an effective portfolio —a critical asset when pursuing a career or transferring to another college or university — to showcase their specific skills.

The course also focuses on skills such as resume development, interviewing, media law and contracts to helps students as they enter the professional world.

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SMCC students reflect on terrorism attacks

SMCC students and employees paid tribute to victims of terrorism attacks in Paris and elsewhere around the globe.

Nearly 50 students, faculty and staff took part in a moving candlelight vigil November 24 to share their thoughts and hopes for peace. The day before, about 40 students and faculty attended a seminar on “The Challenge of Terrorism” organized by Social Science instructors.

At the candlelight vigil, President Cantor offered remarks followed one-by-one by students and staff who shared thoughts about the horror of terrorism and their hopes for peace. President Cantor then led the group down the stairs to Willard Beach. “Let’s spread peace across the ocean,” he said.

On November 23, instructors Alicia Harding, Angel Christian and Herb Adams hosted an hour-long presentation at the SEA Center about the roots of terrorism and its reach in the modern world. The featured speaker was Reza Jalali, director of the University of Southern Maine’s Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.

 

Chit Chat connects students, faculty

The SMCC chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society has launched a project encouraging students to interact with faculty outside of class by inviting them to have coffee.

For its Chit Chat project, PTK has been distributing cards good for two coffees at the SeaWolves Cafe to students enrolled in SMCC’s Academic Success courses.

The aim is to have students ask a professor or instructor to have coffee together in hopes of developing better connections between faculty and students — connections that ultimately could lead to increased student success.

At the end of the semester, students who received the cards will be surveyed to see how many of them actually used the cards and what they got out of it.

PTK plans to continue the project for the Spring Semester, possibly expanding it to include students in other classes.

 

Art faculty take lead roles in international art exchangeNadal-Art_sm_crop

Two SMCC art faculty members are taking part in an art exchange between Maine and Japanese artists as a way to promote cultural exchange between Japan and the U.S.

Professor Jeff Badger organized the exchange in which prints produced by 10 Maine artists, including SMCC Instructor Pilar Nadal (whose print is shown here), were sent to Japan and exhibited with prints by Japanese artists in the Aomori Municipal Art Pavilion. Maine and the Japanese prefecture of Aomori have an official Sister State relationship.

In March, the Friends of Aomori organization (on which Badger serves as a board member) and the Pickwick Independent Press (owned by Nadal) will host a group of four Japanese printmakers for a week-long residency in Portland, which will coincide with a reciprocal gallery exhibition featuring prints of Maine and Japanese artists.