BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Girls from across the state are getting the chance to explore technology at Husson University free of charge through Educate Maine’s Project Login’s partnership with Girls Who Code.

“The piece that I really think that the girls like about Girls Who Code is they offer this sort of safe space to learn, to try, to fail, to troubleshoot,” says Project Login Program Director Angela Oechslie about the organization’s years-long partnership with the camp.

This year, the five-day camp was hosted at Husson University.

For Husson School of Technology and Innovation Outreach Specialist Ashleigh Page, the collaboration between the university and the summer camp made for a perfect match.

“We wanted to support it because we really believe in getting technology in the hands of as many people as possible,” Page explains. “And I think for girls especially, getting an opportunity to go to camp, get hands on, and kind of explore for the first time, maybe not the first time, but say, ‘Okay, this is something I can see myself doing, and this is something I’m capable of doing’, I think is really important.”

Lily Osborne, 13, is going into eighth grade in the fall. After getting introduced to robotics, she attended Girls Who Code for a deep dive exploration into tech: “My school doesn’t have a lot of quality classes like this, not a lot of good opportunities, so I wanted to take this opportunity to, since it was a grant, to come and do this.”

Due to the multiple business sponsorships, all girls who attended the camp did so at no-cost.

Another camper, Ellora Fairbrother, 14, also got her start in computer science with robotics.

Now getting ready to enter high school, Fairbrother opted for Girls Who Code to strengthen her skills in coding.

“We only have like five or six girls, and that was pretty surprising to me because I thought we had like two or three. So I’m glad that there’s like a lot of girls out there who wants to computer science and code,” Fairbrother comments on the camp’s turnout.

“We’ve made motion sensor lights, we’ve made motion sensor sounds, and right now we’re making this thing that, it’s like a parking garage,” explains Osborne on the skills learned.

On Thursday, the group was tasked with creating a small-scale parking garage gate. This includes multicolored lights, motion sensors, motors, and complex codes to let the gate know when the garage is at capacity.

The girls are able to take their computer coding and through wiring bring their ideas from screen to life.

On Wednesday, the group got to meet the women of Bangor Savings Bank’s IT department.

While Girls Who Code creates a comfortable space to girls to learn and connect, the program also shows the tech opportunities right here in Maine.

“It’s really important to not only see and hear from women in tech, but also see the job environment,” says Oechslie. “So that’s why we added a field trip day component to the Girls Who Code camps so that they can physically go and see people who do the job that they’re interested in.”

Both Osborne and Fairbrother say they are definitely considering entering tech when it’s time to choose a career path.

Project Login is offering many other STEM camps for kids this summer.

For more information, visit their website.

Copyright 2024 WABI. All rights reserved.

Spectrum News Maine premieres In Focus Maine, a weekly public-affairs program, Sunday, June 30. The half-hour program airs at 10:30 a.m. and will feature discussions with newsmakers, including government officials and expert analysts, on issues affecting Mainers.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is in the premiere episode, with Josh Robin, Spectrum News’s chief national correspondent, conducting the interview. She describes the mass shooting in Lewiston, which happened in October 2023, as “the darkest day in Maine history in my life.” 

Collins also spoke on the rift between parties in D.C., and those who seek to work with those across the aisle. “I would like the people of this country to know that despite the extreme hyper-partisanship that we’re seeing in Washington, that there are people who work hard every day for a better America, and to come together on legislation to try to improve life for everyday Americans,” she said. “And we tend to work together, Democrats and Republicans.”

Spectrum News Maine, owned by cable operator Charter Communications and available to its Spectrum subscribers, debuted earlier this year. 

Local In Focus programs are on the air elsewhere in the Spectrum News group, including in New York City, upstate New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida (Orlando and Tampa), Texas, North Carolina and California. 

The Charles Osgood oil-on-canvass portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1840. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum

The Bowdoin College Class of 1825 is revered as the greatest in the school’s history for its many legendary graduates. Yet, despite his later distinction, one of those American legends was nearly expelled.

Future novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, perhaps best known for “The Scarlett Letter” spent most of his youth traipsing around the family summer home in Raymond, and he spent a great deal of time preparing for the rigid Bowdoin College entrance examinations.

Hawthorne’s uncle, Robert Manning, then sent his nephew to Portland to study under the tutelage of a “stingy old curmudgeon,” Rev. Caleb Bradley of Stroudwater. By August of 1821, Hawthorne had made the cut.

Then, Bowdoin’s campus had only five faculty and just three buildings — Maine Hall, Massachusetts Hall and the Chapel. Winthrop Hall was under construction.

Most students worked long and hard to pass the exams but, once admitted, many later seemed hell-bent to toss it away. Hawthorne appears to have been one of those students.

“I was an idle student, negligent of College rules” and preferred “… to nurse my own fancies.” Undoubtedly, it was not helpful that Moorhead’s Tavern was located at the northwestern corner of the campus, or that a number of “secret societies” existed.

“Mischief … is the constant companion of idleness,” Hawthorne scribed. “I am afraid that my stay here will have an ill effect upon my moral character.”

“Drinking, smoking, and card playing” were three sins Hawthorne rarely avoided, though punishment — if caught — could be harsh.

“I narrowly escaped detection,” Hawthorne wrote. “I have, in a great measure, discontinued the practice of playing cards,” Nathaniel assured his sister, “and [I] mean … to be more careful.”

In his second year, while Brunswick saw a green-up of spring, catastrophe struck. On Monday, March 4 of 1822, at 3 p.m., the loud cry of “Fire!” was heard. Flames and smoke were found coming from “the garret” at Maine Hall, and the conflagration was already “beyond control.”

“Twelve of the students” lost all of their belongings, clothing, furniture, and bedding to the flames. Hundreds of volumes in the “theological library,” and “the whole of the woodwork” of the building’s interior, were lost “by seven that evening.”

“Except having my coat torn,” Hawthorne wrote, “I sustained no damage by it.”

Hawthorne was a “dandy,” a handsome young man who took great care in his appearance. When, Hawthorne received his first watch in his sophomore year, he proudly remarked that he would “cut a great dash” on campus.

Hawthorne was provided a stipend from his uncle, yet he often wrote home asking for more funds. “If I remain in Brunswick, I shall spend all my money,” Hawthorne complained to his sister, and “I have no clothes in which to make a decent appearance.”

Yet, leaving campus seemed more of a priority for Hawthorne, and he was not above conspiring to finagle permission to leave. “You must write me a letter” Hawthorne cautioned his eldest sister, “If you do not, I shall certainly forge a letter” or, “I will leave Brunswick without liberty.”

Monotony appears to have been Hawthorne’s constant nemesis. He and fellow classmate Horatio Bridge spent much time walking the woods of Brunswick, and each enjoyed “lingering for hours” by the river watching “giant pine logs … come to the falls … and plunge into the foamy pool below.”

Bridge wrote of “an old woman” that lived in a run-down shack at “the lower end of town.” She “pretended to be a fortune teller,” and “for nine-pence” Bridge and Hawthorne were often “entertained” by her prognostications.

Yet, it was card playing and drinking at “Ward’s Tavern,” or more likely at Moorhead’s Tavern, which was most preferred.

In May of 1822, a large card game was exposed by college faculty and the result of that discovery left “one student dismissed, two suspended,” and others fined. And this time, Hawthorne did not “escape detection.”

On May 29, College President William Allen fined Nathaniel “50 cents for gaming at cards.” “If I am again detected,” Hawthorne warned his mother, “I shall have the honor of being suspended.”

The only known class (portrait) silhouette of Young Nathaniel Hawthorne at Bowdoin. Courtesy of Bowdoin College archives

Hawthorne was often cited for numerous infractions such as “neglect of themes,” “Excessive walking on the Sabbath Day,” and “absence from recitation.” He may even have been absent from sitting for his own class silhouette (portrait). “Hawthorne disapproved,” explained Horatio Bridge, “he steadily refused to go.”

Yet, despite his trials and tribulations, on Sept. 7 of 1825, Nathaniel Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin and, though he little considered himself to be a memorable student, his time at Brunswick is not forgotten.

Today, the bookstore Twice-Told Tales, even bears one of Hawthorne’s book-titles and serves to remind us that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s matriculation at Bowdoin, nearly 200 years ago, is one of the best-surviving of our Stories From Maine.

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