Maine Policy Matters

On this episode of Maine Policy Matters, we talk with Ali Abedi, Salimeh Sekeh, and Peter Schilling about navigating AI in research and education.

More from Ali Abedi: https://cugr.umaine.edu/people/director-ali-abedi/

More from Salimeh Sekeh: https://umaine.edu/scis/people/salimeh-yasaei-sekeh/

More from Peter Schilling: https://umaine.edu/citl/people/peter-schilling-ph-d/

Our website: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/maine-poli...

On this episode of Maine Policy Matters, we’ll be talking with Peggy McKee, director of the Maine Government Summer Internship Program, to hear about the history and impact on students and government agencies. We’ll also be hearing from a few interns and their supervisors throughout the episode to get an inside look at what it’s like to participate in this program. 

Our website: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/maine-policy-mat...

Today’s episode has two parts. Part one is a synopsis of Amanda Rector’s article, “Maine’s Changing Demographics: Implications for Workforce, Economy, and Policy”. Part two features an interview with Everett Beals and Michael Delorge, winners of Margaret Chase Smith Library’s 2020 essay contest. Beals’s article is titled, “Making Maine More Attractive to Y...

On this episode, we cover an article by Angela Daley, Prianka Sarker, Liam Siguad, Marcella Sorg, and Jamie Wren titled, “Drug-related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine: Lost Productivity from 2015-2020.” Daley is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maine, Sarker and Wren are both research associates at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, Sorg a forensic anthropologist, and Siguad a research assistant at the...

In this episode, we cover an article by Richard Barringer, Lee Schepps, Tomas Urquhart, and Martin Wilk titled “Maine’s Public Reserved Lands: A Tale of Loss and Recovery”. The authors tell us a story of Maine’s public reserved lots and its history to show how efforts to maintain these lots have preserved Maine’s natural heritage. This article was published in volume 29, number 2, of Maine Policy ...

Today, we will be following up on a 2018 Maine Policy Review article titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership” by interviewing the authors Parivash Rohani, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Ghomri Rostampour, Bethany Smart, and Laura de Does along with a conversation with Cathy Lee, co-founder of the Empower Network. Their article was published in volume 27, number 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal ...

On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. This episode covers an article by Lloyd C. Irland, author of five books, fellow of the Society of American Foresters, and participant in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and National Assessment on Climate Change. Irland gives us an inside perspective on Maine’s Forests from 1820-2010 in his article titled, “From Wilderness to...

Trying to understand the history of race and public policy in Maine? Today we will be covering James Myall’s arguments on active antiracism to improve the lives of people of color and correct historic wrongs.

You can find Myall's article here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol29/iss2/4/

Trying to understand the history of race and public policy in Maine? Today we will be covering James Myall’s arguments ...

Today, we will be covering a report by Jonathan Rubin, Shaleen Jain, Ali Shirazi, et al. titled, “Road Salt in Maine: An Assessment of Practices, Impacts and Safety”. In their report, they present the results from a research project by a team from the University of Maine, in cooperation with the Maine Department of Transportation that examines the use of road salt in Maine for winter travel safety. This report was published by Marg...

Today, we will be covering James and Ann Acheson’s article entitled “What Does the Future Hold for Maine’s Lobster Industry?”, which covers problems the industry faces that threaten its future, including shell disease, climate change, increased regulations to protect right whales, and economic uncertainty.

You can find their article here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol29/iss2/11/

After briefly summarizing the ar...

On our first episode of season three, we cover an article by Mary Morrissey, who gives us an inside perspective on Maine’s offshore wind development and proposes short- and long-term actions to guide Maine’s development of the offshore wind industry in federal waters in her article “Maine and Offshore Wind Development: Using the Coastal Zone Management Act and Marine Spatial Planning to Influence Projects in Federal Waters.” This a...

Today, we will be covering an article by Frank O’Hara titled, “The Great London Plague of 1665 and the US COVID-19 Pandemic Experience Compared.”  This article was published in volume 30, number 2, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Frank O’Hara’s article in Maine Policy Revie...

On this episode, we will be offering data and strategies from Rob Brown, the director of Business Ownership Solutions at the Cooperative Development Institute based in Northampton, Massachusetts. Business Ownership Solutions works throughout the Northeast states with business owners to think through whether conversion to a cooperative could meet their needs. They also work with employees or community members to execute the co-op co...

On this episode of Maine Policy Matters we are joined by scholars Jonathan Malacarne and Jason Lilley to discuss how the pandemic shocked the Maine Food System and how it recovered. 

You can find their article here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol30/iss2/5/

Eric Miller: The early days of the Covid-19 pandemic quite literally shocked the Maine food system economically affecting many individuals and ...

Today, we have with us Liam Riordan, Adelaide and Alan Bird Professor of History at the University of Maine and serves as Chair on the City of Bangor’s Historic Preservation Commission. Riordan was the past Director of the University of Maine McGillicudy Humanities Center, is a past board member of the Maine Humanities Council, and has been a faculty member since 1997. In his current role, Riordan helps organize Maine National Hist...

In preparation for election day on November 1st, today we are hosting William D. Adams—the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities—for a reading of his essay “The Urgency of Democracy.” 

Link to essay: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/mpr/2021/06/16/the-urgency-of-democracy/

William D. Adams served as the chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2014 to 2017 and where he launched a new initiativ...

In commemoration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on October 10th, we will be hosting Gail Dana-Sacco on today’s episode with her reading of her article entitled “Indigenous Voices Charting a Course Beyond the Bicentennial: Eba gwedji jik-sow-dul-din-e wedji gizi nan-ul-dool-tehigw (Let’s try to listen to each other so that we can get to know each other)”

Link to article: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

In this second episode of Maine Policy Matters Season 2, Eric Miller interviews Amanda Rector, the Maine state economist since 2011. Rector describes what it was like to be the state economist during the pandemic, how things turned out compared to how she originally thought they would turn out, the effects from the federal response to the pandemic, changes in the workplace, and makes predictions for the future.

Maine State Economis...

Link to Essay: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol30/iss2/1/ 

What’s a state economist to do in the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic? When everyone is asking for answers, but they are hard to find?

In this episode of Maine Policy Matters, Amanda Rector, the Maine state economist since 2011, shares her thoughts on the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemi...