Learning by Degrees

photo courtesy of University of Maine, Orono
 

The Bangor metro region offers an incredible diversity of higher-education opportunities. From high-tech research programs to hands-on workplace training, from all-night book cramming to all-natural outdoor learning, the area’s colleges and universities combine traditional learning with innovative new approaches to serve nearly 19,000 students. Together, these institutions form a powerful talent and resource base that will help shape Maine’s direction for the 21st century and beyond.

 Recently, the region’s college and university presidents shared their views on what defines their schools, the challenges their students face, and the opportunities their institutions are advancing as they move into the future. Join us as we take a tour of the top 10 college and university campuses of the Bangor Metro region . . . and make sure you take notes!

 Bangor Theological Seminary

 In the early 1800s, a wave of religious stirrings throughout New England led to the founding of the Bangor Theological Seminary (BTS), one of the nation’s oldest seminaries. And today, after 186 years as a Bangor landmark, the school is preparing to embark on a new chapter in its history.

 This fall, the Seminary will begin leasing space for its classes and offices on the campus of another Bangor institution, Husson College. Seminary president Bill Imes says the move will open new opportunities for the school.

 “Both institutions will be exploring a variety of ways that we can cooperate. The only thing really changing for us is the location of classes and offices.” While the Seminary will remain an independent degree-granting institution, Imes says, “One advantage of co-locating is that we can share resources with Husson, including academic programs, library, dining hall, and athletic facilities.” Within the next three years, plans call for a new building on the Husson campus for the Seminary.

 Founded as a Christian seminary to educate Congregational ministers for northern New England’s expanding population, the Seminary today has an enrollment of about 160 interested in faith and leadership issues. Roughly 75% to 80% of the school’s students come from Maine, but their denominational affiliations are extremely wide-ranging. The school’s current enrollment includes Baptist, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and even Buddhist students.

  “Our mission is to train leaders for small churches in New England and beyond—both clergy and lay,” Imes explains. He says BTS welcomes people of all faiths who are interested in studying religion and spirituality in a Christian context.

 One of the seminary’s unusual offerings is “The Bangor Plan,” which enables students without a college degree to earn both the Master of Divinity and bachelor degrees in as few as five years. Imes points out that about 20% to 30% of incoming students choose BTS because of this plan, which is not offered at other U.S. seminaries.

 BTS students don’t fit the typical college profile, Imes notes. The average student is in his or her mid-40s, and is usually “preparing for a second or third career,” Imes says, and is “trying to juggle work, family obligations, and commuting, along with their schoolwork.” To help accommodate their needs, BTS offers block scheduling, where classes meet once a week for three hours, and evening classes, allowing students to work or be at home during the day.

 Beal College

 Throughout its 114-year history, Beal College has focused on providing students with professional and technical training. Now in a new home on Farm Road in Bangor, Beal is continuing this long tradition in a fresh, modern setting.

  “We work to provide the professional and technical skills and training necessary for a career in a dynamic, technologically oriented work environment,” says President Deborah Crockett. Beal’s small size and individualized focus are to its identity, she adds, noting that “students often come here for the personal attention they receive from both our staff and faculty.”

 Brockett notes that “some of the fastest-growing occupations in Maine, where job opportunities are highest, are fields like law enforcement, medical assisting, medical transcription, medical coding, childcare professionals, and computer professionals. These are our most popular programs.”

 Like most schools that focus on career training, Beal also attracts many “nontraditional” students. “Forty-five percent of our student body is over the age of 25,” Crockett points out. “Many of our students juggle work and family life with their full-time studies. This can be particularly challenging, but most students find that our modular system of scheduling helps.” Since most college students of all ages work part-time, students who attend Beal right out of high school also benefit from this flexible approach.

 Another component of Beal’s program is the school’s emphasis on what it calls externships. “Externships are built into the curriculum to provide students with valuable work experiences in their chosen fields,” Crockett says. Extern-ships consist of 160 hours of supervised field experience, and are scheduled as the final class a student takes, serving as “a capstone experience that brings together all of the skills and knowledge gained in the classroom and that enables a student to actually use them in the workplace.”

 Beal College’s move to its new home in the former Saucony building was a major step in what Crockett says is a long-term growth plan for the college.

“Five years ago, our biggest institutional challenge was our physical facility. The move was part of a strategic plan to renew, reinvest, and reinvent the college.” Crockett says the move has created a more comfortable environment for students, with additional space for new program offerings and a larger student body.

 “We are currently finishing up work on a strategic plan that will guide us into 2006–2007,” Crockett says, a plan that balances the goal of attracting more traditional high-school graduates with the school’s desire to remain a small, student-centered career college serving older students already in the workplace.

 College of the Atlantic

 Located right on Frenchman Bay on Mount Desert Island, College of the Atlantic is a school that embraces individualized, hands-on learning.

 Founded in 1969, COA offers its 260 students one degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology. President Steven Katona says the school emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach that provides students with a self-directed learning experience.

 “We are distinctive in our educational structure and philosophy,” Katona says. “There are no departments, and students and faculty from all disciplines are expected to collaborate.”

The school’s approach attracts a self-motivated, focused brand of student, he says. “Students choose COA because they want to change the world. Our mission is to help them understand the relationships between people and all aspects of our environment—natural, social, and constructed.”

 COA students develop personal concentrations of study—either focusing on a single area or combining studies in areas such as design, environmental science, public policy, marine studies, and selected humanities studies.

 While the school has gained success on the strength of its innovative programs, Katona says he sees a difficult confluence of socioeconomic trends in the state that will affect Maine colleges and universities in the coming years. “Incomes of Maine families have remained relatively low,” he points out, “so financial aid budgets are strained at most institutions.” Maine is also poised to see a decline in the number of college-bound students.

 These challenges make COA’s synergistic approach even more valuable. Katona cites the development of partnership programs with the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Jackson Laboratory, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, the University of Maine, UMaine Farmington, and UMaine Machias, as programs that, he says “have given COA students opportunities for training in biomedicine, functional genomics, and bioinformatics that we could never have achieved alone.”

 Another innovative partnership, he notes, is the Ecoleague, a partnership with five other small colleges focused on sustainability that allows students at all five schools to spend up to a year at any one of the other campuses—in Vermont, Ohio,  Alaska, Wisconsin, Arizona, or Maine—at no extra charge.

 Katona says that COA’s emphasis on self-reliance is specifically geared to prepare students to become effective decision-makers. “This is not a place where you are told what to do. Sometimes it takes a while for a student to define how she will design her own education.” By struggling with these choices early-on, he says, COA students become stronger in the long run.

 “They know how to think. They are resourceful. They understand how to make choices.”

Eastern Maine Community College

 Squarely amid Bangor’s bustling Hogan Road retail district sits a 72-acre college campus that plays a vital role in fueling the region’s economic growth: Eastern Maine Community College, formerly known as Eastern Maine Technical College.

 As one of six vocational/technical institutions created by the Maine Legislature in 1966, EMCC’s mission is directly tied to the workforce needs of Maine employers. The school provides technical, career, and transfer education to some 575 full-time and 750 part-time students, focusing on business occupations, allied health professions, and careers in mechanical, engineering, and construction industries.

 “If businesses are to grow and be successful in this region,” says President Joyce Hedlund, “they need a community college with a strong technical/technology focus that will provide opportunities for citizens who want to stay and work in Maine.”

 EMCC is intentionally situated to fulfill that role, Hedlund says. “It is pretty clear when students enter our doors for the first time that they are looking for a very clear outcome from their investment. A number of our students, particularly adults with strong ties to Maine, want to establish their own businesses. They come to this college expecting us to challenge them and to provide them with the greatest opportunity for success.”

 EMCC awards associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates, and documents of completion for customized short-term programs and courses. And as the school’s striking new campus center illustrates, EMCC is seeing new growth and expansion.

Hedlund says EMCC students work in labs, shops, or clinical settings for a significant number of hours per week “in order to ensure that they have mastered the competencies of a particular technology.” The curriculum is geared to combine both classroom and hands-on learning, she notes.

 “Without a doubt, this college has changed over the last 10 years,” Hedlund says, adding,  “EMCC has the strength to be the premier community college in the state and New England.” The school has recently added an associate degree program in liberal studies, its first program intended purely for transfer to four-year institutions, and, Hedlund says, “We now have more students pursuing their studies on a part-time basis, and the number of recent high-school graduates has increased dramatically.”

 One of EMCC’s top priorities is to continue this growth by strengthening relationships with area high schools and adult education programs. “We want to take the mystery out of college attendance by offering high-school students the opportunity to try college,” Hedlund says, citing its success through the Maine Community College System’s Early College Program. In addition, its new cooperative program with the University of Maine, called Advantage U, allows students to complete their first two years of a four-year UMaine degree at EMCC, at a considerable cost savings.

 As EMCC continues to grow, Hedlund says, outreach programs like these will help enhance its services to the community and its ability to provide valuable career skills to Maine’s workforce.

 Husson College

 This Bangor-based school of 2,500 students traces its history back to 1898, and in recent years has emerged as one of the Bangor area’s most dynamic institutions of higher education.

 As the state’s largest private educator of Maine students, Husson grants master, bachelor, and associate degrees through its schools of business, health, science and humanities, and education, and through its on-campus subsidiary, the New England School of Communication. The undergraduate enrollment at Husson has grown by 30% over the past five years. President Bill Beardsley believes this is because students are attracted by Husson’s focus on putting knowledge into practice.

 “Half of our curriculum is in the liberal arts,” he says, “but Husson’s uniqueness is in our focus on real-world clinical experiences.” Intern opportunities for Husson students include Husson’s Center for Family Business, an on-campus branch of Putnam Investments; a Husson-operated public health clinic in Bangor’s Capehart public housing neighborhood; an assistive technology center in Bangor’s Evergreen Woods; live, on-campus WHSN radio and TV; and programs in area schools, hospitals, accounting firms, therapy clinics, and recreation programs.

 While Husson has traditionally drawn students from northern, central, and eastern Maine, Beardsley says changing demographics are prompting the school to look farther afield.

“The biggest challenges we face as an institution are the weak Maine economy, our state’s aging population—and, by inference, our shrinking labor force—and a declining number of traditional college-aged students in the near future.” Beardsley says Husson is currently working to expand its primary market into southern Maine and northern New England in order to attract new students and continue its growth.

 As it does so, preparing students for a changing workplace will continue to be the school’s main objective, Beardsley says. “Today’s  students face a rapidly changing job market,” he notes, add-ing that the increasing role of technology in the global economy will dramatically affect students’ fu-ture career options. Nowadays, he says, students must realize that “their lives simply will not be lived in isolation. Though their opportunities are greater, they must adapt to a workforce that often flows from job
to job.”
 
As needs evolve, Husson is expanding its program offerings and enhancing its facilities in several ways. “We are expanding into offering doctoral degrees, and we’re strategizing how to accommodate our continuing enrollment growth.” Part of this plan includes the school’s new 40,000-square-foot academic building, The Commons, home to the schools of health and education, which opens this fall. Husson will also introduce a Master of Science in Criminal Justice Administration this year, with a doctorate in physical therapy currently awaiting final accreditation. Construction of a new student lounge will begin next summer.

Maine Maritime Academy (MMA)

 In 1941, the Maine Legislature  created the Maine Maritime Academy (MMA) as an institution devoted to nautical training—and that heritage continues today. The Castine waterfront school of about 800 students was recently ranked as one of the top 50 undergraduate engineering colleges in the U.S. It offers world-class programs in marine transportation, ocean science, and logistics.

 President Leonard Tyler says Maine Maritime designs its programs to emphasize hands-on learning. “We develop leaders at Maine Maritime Academy, and we practice our belief that one learns by doing.” MMA’s participatory programs, he notes, include sophisticated navigation and power plant simulators, co-ops and internships, and training cruises aboard its own training vessel, The State of Maine.

 Just over half of the school’s students belong to the Regiment of Midshipmen, which Tyler describes as “a leadership laboratory for students who want to develop strong management skills.”

 While MMA is known for its midshipmen, Tyler explains that “Maine Maritime is not a military academy, but rather a civilian college with Regiment and ROTC options.”

Midshipmen at the Academy share residence halls, attend classes, and participate in the same campus activities as the school’s traditional, nonregimented students. Midshipmen start at an entry-level position and gradually gain increased accountability and responsibility as they move up the leadership ladder.

"Whether they become midshipmen or not, Maine Mari-time attracts a particular type of student. As Tyler notes, “we look for students with strong math, science, and communication skills. The school also places a strong emphasis on community involvement and participation as part of its focus on building the leaders of tomorrow.”

Maine Maritime students can pursue associate, bachelor, and master degrees. The school offers 10 academic programs of study, and five majors that lead to professional licenses for careers at sea in the U.S. Coast Guard and commercial shipping. Tyler says the school is also embarking on a number of new plans and programs.

 “We are completing a $22-million campaign for advanced technology, additional scholarships, and new facilities,” Tyler says. One of the major new additions at MMA is the new Alfond Student Center, which will be dedicated on September 17. Among its new programs, MMA is planning to offer distance-education programs in Bangor and other areas, and is adding an associate degree program in small craft design in cooperation with the Landing School in Kennebunkport.

 Like other Maine colleges, Maine Maritime sees both economic challenges and new opportunities in serving its students, Tyler says. “State appropriations have dropped from 52% of our budget in 1994 to under 40% today.” With more than 70% of MMA students currently receiving financial aid, he says the school is committed to keeping its programs affordable.

 Unity College

 Now heading into its 40th year, this small college in rural Maine has built a national reputation for its environmental programs, offering more environmental majors than any other college in the U.S. With an emphasis on outdoor, experiential learning, Unity College is a thriving small school serving students from Maine and around the world.

“We offer a liberal arts education that emphasizes the environment and natural resources,” says President David Glenn-Lewin. The school’s focus on active learning experiences for environmental careers, he says, prepares Unity graduates to be “environmental stewards, effective leaders, and responsible citizens. All of our programs are environmentally focused, either on environmental principles or natural resource professions; experiential education (learning by doing); and outdoors.”

 With degrees in areas such as aquaculture, conservation law enforcement, wildlife conservation, park management, and forestry, Unity College obviously attracts students who are interested in outdoor-oriented careers. Glenn-Lewin says a key goal for the college’s students is “understanding the complexities of environmental and natural resource education and the professions that they aspire to.”

 Unity’s programs bring together not just environmental science aspects, but also political, economic, social, and cultural education, Glenn-Lewin says, because the school’s graduates need diverse tools to succeed in the complex world they face when they pursue environmental careers. “A purely professional education will no longer do—there are too many points of connectedness, and too many factors operating today, for a simple linear education to suffice.”

 With just under 500 students, Glenn-Lewin says Unity’s small size allows for “lots of personal attention and direct student contact with faculty and staff. Our students don’t want to be ‘a number.’ They’re looking for a small school where they can have opportunities to grow.” Unity’s small-town, rural location, he says, provides an ideal setting for the outdoor-based education Unity College students are seeking.

But being a small private school has also presented significant challenges over the years, he adds. “Ten or 12 years ago, our challenges were financial and long-term survival.”

 Today, as the school has grown, Glenn-Lewin says those challenges have shifted to areas such as “keeping pace with rapid changes in environmental understanding and in natural-resource professions; prioritizing growth of our programs, integrating technology into environmental education, and moving the campus toward an environmentally sustainable means of operation.”

 Glenn-Lewin says Unity has several changes for the new academic year, including additional housing for students, a new climbing wall, remodeled science labs, and the second year of the school’s collaborative program with Outward Bound. The school also plans to approve a new program in marine biology, expand its offerings for student activities, and add bandwidth capabilities to its technology infrastructure for students and faculty.

 Editor’s note: At press time, David Glenn-Lewin has stepped down as Unity College president to return to full-time teaching; Mark Lapping is now serving as interim president.

 University College of Bangor

 Every day, as thousands of travelers pass through Bangor International Airport, hundreds of students are just as busy right beneath their flight path, on the campus of the University College of Bangor—one of the key players in the job and education infrastructure of the Bangor region.

 With a 43-acre campus and 1,100 students, UCB combines a strong focus on two-year career training programs with a growing array of baccalaureate programs. UCB’s core mission, says newly appointed president Richard Randall, is “to provide access to practical, in-demand academic programs for the citizens of the Greater Bangor area.”

The school, which was created in 1968 as a community college campus of University of Maine at Orono, has seen tremendous growth since it became a part of the University of Maine at Augusta in 1995.

 That’s attributable in large part, Randall says, to the demand for the job-oriented programs the school offers, which help students acquire marketable new career skills they can use in the workplace. About 60% of UCB’s students are “nontraditional” students who are returning to school to gain career skills, he points out, and “70% of the school’s students are enrolled in one of our two-year associate degree programs.”

 These programs, Randall says, give students the opportunity to engage in “onthe-job training” through programs like UCB’s on-campus community dental clinic, externships at area veterinary practices, or work at local human services agencies.

 “At UCB, we are educating Maine residents for employment within the state,” Randall says, adding “the vast majority of our graduates stay and live in Maine.” Randall believes  that “UCB is the most cost-efficient campus in the system, and it’s a wonderful educational investment for the taxpayers of the state.”

 UCB currently offers 34 bachelor and associate degree programs, including a

new four-year Bachelor of Liberal Studies major—a sharp increase from a decade ago, Randall says, when the school’s offerings were limited to just seven programs. With 35 full-time faculty who average 21 years tenure at UCB, the school places a special emphasis on working with first-year students to help them succeed early, offering what Randall calls a “front-loading” program of intensive study skills workshops, mentoring, and student support services.

 Fully 90% of UCB’s students live and work in the Greater Bangor area, giving the school a truly local sense of mission. “There are so many opportunities here at UCB for the people of this area,” he notes, “and we’re committed to serving the community with pragmatic programs that prepare students for challenging employment in the fields they choose.”

  University of Maine at Machias

 As the easternmost college campus in the U.S., the University of Maine at Machias has been greeting the sunrise early since 1909—and today, new president Cynthia Huggins is leading UMM into an exciting new day of expansion.

 The school has always been closely linked to Maine’s Downeast coast, and Huggins says the natural features of the area provide unmatched opportunities. “Downeast Maine is a unique learning and living laboratory, with its forests, glacial lakes, and abundant aquatic and terrestrial wildlife.” The human and natural resources of the area feature heavily in all of the school’s 10 baccalaureate programs, Huggins notes, “from recreation management and community studies, to marine biology and interdisciplinary fine arts.

Our students are engaged in multiple aspects of what it means to be ‘Downeast.’”

 While the school’s 43-acre campus is home to about 1,000 students from all over the world, Huggins notes that the school plays a particular role in serving the communities of the Downeast coast. Huggins says UMM students are often looking for a small college “where they can be members of a small, close-knit community,” and they thrive in UMM’s setting. “We look for students who want a learning experience that is more than just lectures and libraries, term papers and tests.”

UMM’s diverse offerings include a number of widely respected programs that combine undergraduate research, creative activity, service learning, and field experience opportunities such as internships. Two newly restructured programs, Huggins notes, are “our behavioral science and community studies program, which emphasizes service learning within the community, and our business and entrepreneurial studies program.” In the business program, students not only develop business skills, but also hone their entrepreneurial senses in order to identify and create their own economic opportunities in a changing global marketplace.

 UMM is building on its history of what Huggins calls “place-based education” and its reputation for strong environmental and liberal arts programs, with a vision of expanding enrollment to 2,500 students. Guiding this growth, Huggins says, is the core belief that UMM’s programs must be accessible and affordable to students from Maine’s Downeast communities.

 With the “ever-changing economic realities both nationally and in Downeast Maine,” Huggins points out, the school’s focus on serving its students is especially valuable “for those students who want to continue to live and work in Washington County.”

 “We have the opportunity to enable both our high-school graduates and our nontraditional adult learners to succeed at higher education and better their lives in significant ways,” she says. “I think this is vitally important. We need to ensure that our students do not find themselves financially

The University of Maine, Orono

 As the flagship of the state university system, the University of Maine, Orono, is the lynchpin of Maine’s higher education and research infrastructure. With 11,200 students in 184 different programs of study on a 600-acre campus with more than 200 buildings, the campus offers a host of undergraduate and graduate education programs, innovative public service programs, the state’s largest library, and an expanding research enterprise that’s been rated in the top 4% nationally.

 “UMaine has established itself over a long period of time as a unique statewide resource,” says President Robert Kennedy. “As our national and international stature grows, our ability to capitalize on our infrastructure and our creativity increases. We have talented, dedicated people at UMaine. They are the reason that we are able to constantly explore new opportunities.”

 UMaine’s student enrollment has seen a steady increase in recent years, and the school has also seen a sharp increase in out-of-state students as its reputation for strong academic and research programs has grown. Outside funding for research, most of which comes from the federal government, is also at an all-time high, and several of UMaine’s programs have received national attention for their cutting-edge work in areas including composite building materials, marine biology, structural engineering, and others.

One recent program illustrates the vital role University of Maine programs can play: This summer, the U.S. Army announced a $6.2-million research program at the school’s Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center, where researchers will work on developing high-strength composite structures for military purposes. The school is also increasing its concentration in the biomedical sciences, with a planned Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, partnerships with private research institutions such as Jackson Laboratory and Maine Medical Center Research Institute, and other initiatives—not to mention the array of programs the school offers in the liberal and fine arts, athletics, and much more.

 With so much going on, Kennedy says the fast-paced world of the University of Maine can be a lot to get used to for students from small Maine towns.

“Many of our students are adapting to a new level of independence, along with a more rigorous academic circumstance,” he points out. That is why, he says, UMaine has “a comprehensive set of programs to help students” adjust to the academic and social changes of a university setting. “I think the services that we offer are a key reason our students are so successful. Working constantly to improve our students’ chances of success while at UMaine is a personal and institutional priority.”

 With a newly renovated Memorial Student Union building, newly modernized dining facilities, and a new recreation center, Kennedy says UMaine has made some major changes to “transform the student experience.” Yet, amidst all these changes, he also points out that finding ways to address financial realities is an ongoing issue for UMaine.

“I recognize that our students and their families make significant financial sacrifices,” he says. Helping to keep the school’s programs affordable is a major theme of UMaine’s current planning for its largest-ever private fundraising campaign, and Kennedy says, “That is exactly why our campaign will focus, to a large degree, on scholarships. We must do all that we can to keep in-state, high-quality postsecondary education financially accessible.”

 “When I arrived at UMaine five years ago, we did not have the range of opportunities that we have now,” he says. “That is due to the efforts of a great many people, including our students, faculty and staff members, our loyal friends and supporters, and public policy-makers, all of whom have dedicated themselves to advancing UMaine to the point where it can adapt to changing needs and find ways to apply its resources and expertise in ways that really make a difference.”