a male student presents his TigerTrax AR Wayfinding project during the 2022 Scholars' Symposium

2025 Scholars’ Symposium

Theme: Boundaries and Bridges: The US-Canada Border Over Time

April 30, 2025

The UMFK Scholars’ Symposium is an annual celebration of student achievement and engagement where students have an opportunity to share their academic research through poster projects and presentations.

More Information About the Scholars’ Symposium

Join us for a dynamic day of learning and engagement featuring insightful student-led sessions complemented by presentations from distinguished guest speakers. This year’s theme explores evolving changes at the U.S.-Canada border and their impact on communities on both sides. Faculty will also provide updates on their area of focus, and there will be a free lunch for all attendees. Registration is required.

This is a terrific opportunity for community members of all ages to interact with UMFK students and learn more from subject-matter experts. The day’s events will conclude with an awards presentation to honor exemplary student work.

For a complete agenda, visit the campus portal.

Are you a UMFK student, faculty, or staff member?

Register and access more information about the symposium in the UMFK portal.

Keynote Abstracts

headshot of Dr. Lisa Lavoie posing in front of a tree on the UMFK campus quad

Dr. Lisa Lavoie

Lisa Lavoie, Ph.D., LCPC, CRC, is Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Maine at Fort Kent (UMFK) and has completed an M.A. thesis on the effect of 9/11 on the twin towns of Fort Kent, Maine, and Clair, New Brunswick, wherein she discussed specific events that have, at times, transformed the border into a barrier. Her current research highlights the more recent effect of the COVID pandemic on local mental health and, in a broader context, on interpersonal and familial relationships in the area. She is a bilingual native of the region.

selfie of Dr. Paul Buck, wearing a flannel shirt and posing in front of a local lake

Dr. Paul Buck

With the help of historical maps, most of which are housed at USM’s Osher Map Library, Paul’s presentation examines the different perspectives of Maine statehood and of Maine culture as seen through the prism of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which definitively established the boundary between British North America and the United States.

Paul explores the treaty itself and its impact on the singular Acadian and Francophone community of the St. John Valley, which found itself split into two countries. He gives historical context as well, most certainly beginning with the long-standing Maliseet and Mi’kmaq communities of the region, along with Scots-Irish and, by the 1820s, of Maine Yankee residents who began arriving in the region. Finally, he will give a more modern perspective with the discussion of the framing of the region as seen through the Congrès mondial acadien/World Acadian Congress in 2014.