The Â鶹APP congratulates Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Robert Bernheim, Ph.D., on receiving a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to Poland for the 2026-2027 academic year.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, is among the nation’s most prestigious international academic exchange programs. It supports faculty and researchers as they teach, conduct research, and build global partnerships, bringing new knowledge and perspectives back to their classrooms and campuses. Scholars are selected through a rigorous, multi-stage review process involving peer reviewers, Fulbright leaders, and representatives from the host country. 

Bernheim’s Fulbright research uses the bagel, a food that originated in Poland’s Jewish communities, to tell a larger story about culture, identity, and memory. His project examines the return of the bagel to Poland since 1989 to better understand the country’s evolving relationship with its Jewish heritage and the memory of the Holocaust and the German occupation. Through this work, he explores how the revival of a traditional food can create opportunities for dialogue, deepen understanding of shared history, and foster reconciliation across communities. 

While in Poland, Bernheim will teach a course at the University of RzeszĂłw on the history of food, cooking, and flavors in America. The course complements his research by exploring food as a form of cultural expression, examining the histories, traditions, and human connections that shape societies. His research also draws on the idea of “bagel diplomacy,” using the shared history of the bagel to foster dialogue and mutual understanding between local ethnic Poles and the Jewish diaspora.  

Following his Fulbright, Bernheim hopes to help establish a recurring bagel festival in Poland, expand a digital bagel trail map highlighting the food’s historical and cultural significance, and begin creating a digital archive documenting Poland’s bagel traditions. He also plans to share the project’s findings through scholarly articles and a larger publication. 

“Professor Bernheim’s Fulbright award is a testament to both the strength and global-mindedness of his research,” said Lisa Botshon, Ph.D., UMA’s Fulbright liaison and a two-time Fulbright Scholar. “By fostering international collaboration through his unique project, he not only advances scholarship in his field, but also brings invaluable perspectives back to the classroom. His achievement underscores the excellence of UMA’s faculty and the impact of their scholarship in our classrooms and through collaborations around the world.” 

“I hope this project creates lasting opportunities for dialogue and collaboration long after my Fulbright concludes,” Bernheim said. “Whether through community partnerships, future scholarship, or new ways of sharing history, I hope the relationships built through this work continue to grow.”

Bernheim joins a distinguished group of UMA humanities faculty who have earned Fulbright awards, including Lisa Botshon, who completed fellowships in Slovenia and Portugal, Ellen Taylor in Slovenia, Rob Kellerman in Latvia, and Sarah Hentges in Denmark. Their achievements demonstrate UMA’s commitment to scholarship that expands opportunity, strengthens teaching, and prepares students to engage thoughtfully with communities in Maine and around the world. 

Prison Education Partnership (PEP) Director Dan McGloin has been selected to join the Corrections Education Leadership Academy, where over the next year he will work alongside 11 leaders representing corrections agencies, colleges, and education and reentry programs across the country. Together, they will build stronger connections among corrections, colleges, communnity partners, and employers, creating more opportunities for incarcerated students to turn their education into meaningful careers.

As one of the nation’s leading prison education programs, UMA continues to help shape what high-quality correctional education looks like. Dan’s participation creates new opportunities to bring proven ideas back to Maine, strengthen pathways from education to employment for incarcerated students, and ensure UMA remains an active voice in national conversations that influence the future of prison education.

Congratulations, Dan!

Leigh Reagan Alley, coordinator of Teacher Education at the Â鶹APP and creator of the xSELeratED Schools Framework, has been selected to join the 2026–2027 Educators’ Neighborhood, an international community of practice hosted by the Fred Rogers Institute.

Educators’ Neighborhood is a highly collaborative, year-long virtual professional development program that brings together teachers, school leaders, librarians, higher education faculty and youth-serving professionals from around the world. More than a professional learning experience, the program is designed as a sustained community of practice where participants explore child development through the enduring wisdom of Fred Rogers while learning from one another’s diverse educational contexts.

Throughout the year, cohort members engage with original archival materials from the Fred Rogers Archive—including speeches, writings, television episodes and other primary sources—to examine how timeless principles such as trust, curiosity, play, careful listening, belonging and healthy relationships can inform contemporary educational practice. Participants also contribute to ongoing dialogue about nurturing the conditions children need to learn and thrive.

The program is grounded in the Fred Rogers Institute’s Six Fundamentals of Learning and Growing: a sense of self-worth, a sense of trust, curiosity, the capacity to look and listen carefully, the capacity to play, and times of solitude. These principles, inspired by Fred Rogers’s work and refined through collaboration with educators from Educators’ Neighborhood, provide a framework for supporting children’s healthy development across classrooms, schools, families and communities.

For Alley, whose scholarship and leadership have centered on whole-child education, educator well-being, belonging and relationship-rich schools, the invitation reflects a natural alignment with her life’s work.

“Mister Rogers understood something our profession continually needs to remember: that learning begins with relationships,” Alley said. “I’m honored to join educators from around the world who are committed to helping children flourish by cultivating trust, curiosity, joy and genuine belonging. I look forward to learning from this remarkable community and bringing those insights back to Maine’s schools and to the educators I have the privilege of preparing.”

Alley serves as coordinator of Teacher Education at the Â鶹APP, where she designed and leads the world’s first dedicated Master of Arts in Teaching in Whole Child Education. She is also the founder of the xSELeratED Schools Framework, a nationally recognized approach to social-emotional learning that integrates personal growth, healthy relationships and community responsibility. Her work as an educator, author and speaker focuses on helping schools become places where both children and the adults who nurture them can thrive.

Participation in Educators’ Neighborhood will further inform Alley’s ongoing work in teacher preparation, educational leadership, children’s literature and whole-child education while connecting Maine’s educational community with an international network dedicated to carrying forward Fred Rogers’s enduring legacy of compassion, reflection and relationship-centered learning.

Chief (ret.) Noel March, Â鶹APP senior lecturer of Justice Studies and director of the Maine Community Policing Institute, serves as an invited speaker during the 2026 Professionalizing Law Enforcement Community Engagement Training Conference in Dallas, TX on May 28-29th. 

Chief March, a nationally known expert in community policing, spoke on the value of multi-agency partnerships in building community outreach and relationships of trust when developing strategies for reducing crime, fear of crime and social disorder. “Every person has a rightful expectation to feel respected, protected and safe in their own community,” was the heartfelt core of his presentation.

This year’s PLECET conference also included keynote addresses from  FBI Director Kash Patel, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, DEA Administrator Terry Cole and United States Marshals Service Director Gadyaces Serralta. 

Dr. Leigh Reagan Alley, coordinator of teacher education and assistant professor of education at the Â鶹APP, has earned two top honors in the for School Seasons xSELeratED: A Year of Community and Collective Growth for Educators, a book she co-wrote with Heather Lageman and Walter McKenzie. 

The book received Gold in Social Sciences & Education and a Special Honors Gold for Best in Small Press, placing Alley’s work among Nautilus-recognized authors that include the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Eckhart Tolle. “This recognition is deeply meaningful because the Nautilus Book Awards celebrate books written in service of a better world,” Alley said.

Alley describes the book as an invitation for educators to lead with humanity, moving through the school year with intention, reflection, and collective care. Built around the rhythms of school life, it offers a seasonal framework for strengthening community, supporting professional growth, and teaching social-emotional learning across the year.

At its center are the educators themselves. “Our work is rooted in the belief that educators deserve spaces for reflection, restoration, and collective growth,” Alley said. “School transformation begins with the educator and grows through the everyday interactions that shape school culture.”

For UMA education students, Alley’s recognition is a reminder that they are learning from faculty whose work is helping shape the field they are entering. It affirms Â鶹APP role in preparing educators through scholarship that is current, practical, and deeply attentive to the communities they will help build. 

What does it take to lead in today’s classrooms? Explore Â鶹APP Education programs and learn how UMA prepares future educators with purpose, care, and practical skill. 

School Seasons xSELeratED and its companion, xSELeratED Schools Framework: Social-Emotional Learning at the Speed of Life, are available now from major booksellers.

This faculty spotlight is reproduced in its entirety from “An Interview with Multi-Media Artist Bethany Engstrom,” by Diamond McGrath, originally published in . The full issue is available online.

In this interview, we look at the creative journey, teaching style, and artistic growth of Bethany Engstrom, a longtime UMA art professor. She is known for her video installations, curatorial work, and use of experimental materials. Her story shows how curiosity, mentorship, exploration, and observation can lead to lasting, impactful art. As a teacher, she encourages her students as budding artists to explore, try new things, and trust their creative instincts.

Early Life and Path into Art

Bethany did not grow up surrounded by art. She became interested in high school when a teacher encouraged her to keep creating and believe in her ideas. Even with this support, she did not feel ready to study studio art right away.

Instead, she started college as an art history major, learning about artistic traditions and changing ideas. After graduating, she worked in museums, traveled, and saw the art world from the outside. Seeing many types of art, from traditional to experimental, inspired her to go back to school and experiment with her own work.

UMA and the Value of Community

Bethany completed her undergraduate studies at UMaine and has since built a strong connection to UMA through her teaching. She says UMA is a place where students from many backgrounds – such as veterans, older adults, incarcerated learners, young parents, and first-generation students – make the classroom lively and interesting.

  In her classes, students bring different life experiences and viewpoints, creating a space where ideas mix in surprising ways. Even in online courses, their openness and curiosity make the work meaningful. Being part of Â鶹APP art community, as both an artist and a teacher, is still one of the best parts of her career.

Entering the World of Artmaking

Bethany gradually transitioned from the realm of art history to creating her own art over a period of time. While working at the Farnsworth Museum, she saw a major exhibition by Matthew Barney that combined sculpture, video, performance, and installation. This show changed how she saw art and inspired her to go to graduate school to focus on her own work.

Creative Practice and Daily Life

For Bethany, art is part of her everyday life. Ideas come to her while driving, teaching, curating, or noticing something unexpected. She says that these small moments, whether surprising, confusing, or beautiful, are central to her work. They make her stop and think, “Oh… I wouldn’t have thought of that, but now I get it.”

  Teaching gives her a constant flow of creative energy and inspiration. Watching students complete assignments, use different materials in different ways, and find their own voices inspires her to keep growing in her own art. Curating also shapes how she thinks as she considers how to present work, how viewers interact with it, and how different/specific materials communicate different meanings.

Working with Video and Time-Based Media

Bethany tried video early in her career, but it became her main medium after she began attending artist residencies in 2019. She loves how video can capture time, such as a gesture, a sound, or a quick moment, in ways that still images cannot. Video lets her record actions without a live performance, while still preserving the movement, sound, and feeling within her work.

  She tells students to make a “video database” by filming one-minute clips of daily life. She does this herself to collect material for future art installations.

Materials, Experimentation, and Evolving Ideas

Bethany’s work is very experimental. She has used materials like water, salt, wood, and other everyday things, changing them as her ideas grow. When a material no longer works for her, she tries something new.

  In a recent project, she made sculpted mounds of salt, each weighing about fifty pounds, and placed them on a copy of her studio table. Each mound has a tube pointing down that shows a video hidden under the salt. The piece needed careful planning to hide the video inside. The result is a simple, elegant design that draws viewers in as they lean closer to see what’s hidden underneath the surface.

  She says the first time she looked down the finished tube was “glorious;” the feeling was like finishing a puzzle and seeing the whole picture.

Inspiration and the Creative Spark

Bethany finds inspiration in her day-to-day life, unexpected things she notices, and small moments that make her think. Sometimes inspiration comes from solving problems, like being stuck, trying something new, and finding an answer. She sees these “aha” moments as some of the best parts of being an artist.

Future Directions

Her work changes as she tries new materials and technologies. Lately, she has used drone footage to see how views from above might shape her future art installations. She does not plan far ahead, but ideas about care, the environment, and daily life still guide her work.

Advice for Emerging Artists

Bethany often shares John Cage’s “10 Rules” with her students and highlights the most important one: do the work. She tells them to show up and create, even when they feel stuck or afraid of failing. She believes failure is part of learning, not a real setback.

She urges students to take every chance they get, like going to artist talks, exhibitions, workshops, and any experience that helps them learn more about art.

Memories of UMA

Bethany’s favorite UMA memories are showing her work in campus galleries and meeting faculty and students before she started teaching. Being part of this community, both locally and on campus, helped shape who she is as an artist and teacher. Now, as a professor, she values the chance to inspire students the way her high school teacher inspired her.

Conclusion

Bethany Engstrom’s story shows how important curiosity, trying new things, and having a community are. From discovering art in high school to building a career in teaching, curating, and multimedia installations, she continues to explore and expand what art is to her and what it says about time, culture, and experience. At UMA, she helps students find their creative voices, carrying on the tradition of mentorship that shaped her own journey.

Since 2011, UMA and the Technical University of Liberec in the Czech Republic have shared a partnership that brings a global perspective right to our Maine classrooms. This long-standing connection allows faculty to share research and ideas that benefit our communities while ensuring our students are ready for a world that is more connected than ever. 

Research with a Local Impact

Sharon McMahon Sawyer, associate professor of Justice Studies at UMA, recently traveled to the Czech Republic to work under the European Union’s Comenius UÄŤiTUL project, an education research collaboration she co-leads with Andrei Strukov. Together, they developed practical strategies to help professors in large lecture settings increase student engagement and retention, focusing on methods that fit seamlessly within existing courses rather than require a full rebuild.

While there, Sharon also co-taught live interdisciplinary classes on conflict resolution and developmental psychology with Dr. Magda Nisponska, and visited courses in American Studies and English language led by Dr. Michaela Markova and Dr. Petra Romportlova as part of the UÄŤiTUL project.

A standout project from this latest visit is the Mentalizing Mediation podcast series. Across eight episodes, Sharon and Magda discuss the theory of mentalization and its relationship to conflict resolution. Sharon and Magda applied research on mentalizing to the practical steps that mediators use to resolve conflicts and support difficult conversations. Developed by psychologist Peter Fonagy, Mentalization describes how humans develop empathy over their lifespan. By understanding the mental states and feelings of others, mediators can better help people resolve deep-seated conflicts.

This research is already making a difference across the country. Last year, Sharon and Magda shared their work with a nationwide audience of agricultural mediators through the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, showing how these global ideas provide practical solutions for industries here in Maine and beyond. 

Expanding the Classroom Without Borders

A central part of Â鶹APP mission is making a high-quality education accessible, no matter where a student is starting from. This partnership creates two ways for students to connect with new perspectives:

• International Travel: Through the Erasmus+ program, there is potential for UMA students to study in person at TUL, experiencing the culture and history of the Czech Republic firsthand.
• Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): For students who can’t travel due to work or family, we are building online courses that bring the world to them. These allow students in Maine and the Czech Republic to collaborate on projects and build international friendships from their own homes.

Opening Doors to Global Learning

Â鶹APP partnership with TUL ensures that a global perspective is within reach for every student, regardless of their circumstances. By offering both in person and digital paths, we have turned this 15 year collaboration into a consistent gateway for our community. Today, this relationship continues to find fresh ways to solve problems, from enhancing mediation practices in Maine to launching new courses in the Czech Republic. It is a practical example of how shared expertise leads to meaningful results for everyone.

Listen to the Series

The eight-part podcast series will be available on the TUL.cz website by the end of this month. Contact Sharon McMahon Sawyer at sharon.mcmahon@maine.edu for more information.

Â鶹APP educator recognized on global stage for leadership in whole-child education and social-emotional learning

 Dr. Leigh Reagan Alley recently received a distinguished international honor from the 2026 Women Changing the World Global Awards held in Paris on April 22. Dr. Alley was named the second-place winner in the Woman in Education category. The recognition followed a highly competitive selection process that included more than 1,500 nominees from 97 countries.

Alley serves as Â鶹APP coordinator of teacher education and an assistant professor of education. While the awards ceremony took place on a global stage, her work is deeply rooted in the needs of students and educators here in Maine. Earlier this year, she was named a global finalist in both the Education and Rural Impact categories, ultimately being awarded Silver in Education. This dual recognition highlights her commitment to strengthening local communities through innovative teaching.

Her work focuses on “whole-child” education and social-emotional learning. These are essential foundations for building resilient schools and thriving communities. By teaching future educators to lead with empathy and a holistic mindset, Alley is helping to ensure that Maine’s classrooms are places where every student feels safe and valued.

Alley shared that being recognized among women making such profound impacts worldwide is deeply humbling. As the 2nd Place honoree in the Woman in Education category, Alley was recognized alongside 1st Place winner Naledi Nshingila, 3rd Place winner Jyothi Vemu, and Honorable Mention Sarah Chapman. To Alley, education is about much more than academic achievement. She believes it is about belonging, dignity, and the human relationships that help both learners and teachers thrive. This award affirms her belief that humanity belongs at the very heart of the classroom.

At UMA, Alley is known for her dedication to “compassionate rigor,” which balances high academic standards with genuine care. This global honor highlights the growing importance of that balance in modern education. It is a proud moment for our university and a reminder of the world-class expertise our faculty bring to our students every day.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Leigh Alley on this remarkable achievement.

Adjunct faculty member, John M. O’Brien, Ph.D. is pleased to announce the creation of his new podcast, “Civility Matters.” This monthly show covers the human side of leadership and business by addressing topics related to the harmful impacts of rudeness and incivility in our society.

Episode transcripts are available on the podcast home page. Episodes are also available for download on all the major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

For more information, contact John O’Brien at john.m.obrien@maine.edu.

UMA is proud to celebrate Dr. Anita Jerosch performing with the distinguished Maine Brass Collective, an ensemble of professional brass and percussion musicians from across Maine who serve on the faculty of UMA, USM, UMO, Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin Colleges, and perform with the Portland Symphony, Bangor Symphony, Maine State Ballet Orchestra, Portland Ballet Orchestra, Opera Maine, and more. The concert was sponsored by the Bowdoin College Music Program.

Faculty like Dr. Jerosch help strengthen connections between UMA and Maine’s professional arts community, a meaningful part of our commitment to cultural involvement and excellence.