Hundreds of students, employees, community partners brainstorm future
Hundreds of students, faculty and staff members, and community partners came together for the SMCC Community Caf茅 to share ideas about the future of the college.
For the event, held Feb. 13 in the HUB gymnasium, participants gathered in small groups around tables to discuss what SMCC could be doing in the years ahead to ensure that students and the college succeed. The college鈥檚 Strategic Planning Committee will sift and sort through the ideas to create goals that become part of the strategic plan.
President Cantor told the gathering that SMCC needs to reinvent itself for the future 鈥� just as it has done over and over since its founding in 1946. It is imperative, he said, that ideas come from the entire SMCC community and partners outside of the school.
鈥淭he future is up to us,鈥� he said. 鈥淣ow let us begin.鈥�
SMCC students study sharks, zebrafish at MDI Biological Lab
A group of SMCC students spent part of their winter break at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory studying cell cultures from sharks, zebrafish, frogs and other animals.
Marine Science, Biotechnology and Liberal Studies-Science students and two professors stayed a week at the laboratory, where they spent their days in a lab looking at DNA from the cell cultures in researching the evolution of a class of proteins.
The students are continuing to analyze their data and will present their findings at the 42nd annual Maine Biological and Biomedical Sciences Symposium at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory and at the Thinking Matters symposium at University of Southern Maine.
The course is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. This is the sixth year NIH has supported the course.