UMPI leads University of Maine System with 80 percent increase in summer enrollments

With its summer enrollment numbers nearly doubling since last year, the University of Maine at Presque Isle has the highest percentage increase within the University of Maine System of students taking summer courses. Officials are attributing the increase in large part to summer online course offerings and efforts to respond to students’ needs.

This year’s summer enrollment is at 886 students, compared to 488 students in 2009, an increase of more than 80 percent from last summer. UMPI officials say the significant increase is due to two major factors – a wider variety of online courses being offered at the campus than ever before and a large number of students throughout the state of Maine and beyond who are taking advantage of these courses because they fit conveniently into their busy summer schedules.

Officials with the University of Maine at Presque Isle and Northern Maine Community College officially announced on Wednesday, July 14, a partnership between the two institutions that will benefit NMCC students preparing for jobs as Head Start teachers and early childhood educators and help them to meet new state requirements for teaching in their field.

Recent state requirements have increased the qualifications for preschool teachers. Educators who teach children from birth to age 5 – and who earn their Maine teaching endorsement after July 1, 2009 – must have or be working toward a Bachelor’s degree in order to teach. Right now, NMCC offers an Associate’s degree program in Early Childhood Education, but there are no colleges or universities in northern Maine that offer a four-year Early Childhood Education degree.

The partnership between UMPI and NMCC will create a pathway for NMCC students in the Early Childhood Education program so that, upon graduation, they can transition seamlessly into UMPI’s Elementary Education Bachelor’s degree program. Officials have worked for the past year to develop a new Early Childhood Education concentration within UMPI’s Elementary Education degree program that will allow these students to meet the state requirements.

Dr. Stuart R. Gelder, Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, and Ms. Bronwyn W. Williams, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Canada, recently returned from a research trip in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park [GSMNP] after being awarded a $4,940 grant from the Discover Life in America [DLIA] fund.

The grant supported the very first survey of crayfish worms in the national park and may also lead to a much larger research project that would involve multiple scientists and potentially could be funded through a National Science Foundation grant.

Three hundred and forty seven students at the University of Maine at Presque Isle have been named to the Dean’s List for the spring semester, according to Dr. Michael Sonntag, Vice President for Academic Affairs.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle today announced the reassignment of administrative duties in its Athletics Department as part of campus efforts to balance the budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery is sending out a call to Aroostook County artists for drawing submissions that will be considered for inclusion in a juried exhibition connected with a statewide drawing initiative.

The “Just Line” exhibition – meant to feature local talent and to be displayed in the Reed Gallery during its 2010-2011 regular season – is one of many exhibitions that will take place throughout Maine in 2011 as part of the Maine Drawing Project. More than 20 institutions are participating in the statewide project, each presenting an exhibition associated in some way with drawing. Organized by the Maine Curators Group, this is the first time a statewide initiative concerned solely with drawing in its many forms and mediums has been undertaken.

Two hundred and seventeen students graduated from the University of Maine at Presque Isle during the 2009-2010 academic year. On Saturday, May 15, at 10:30 a.m. during the 2010 Commencement Exercises, the University’s 101st Commencement, President Donald Zillman conferred degrees upon 133 students who participated in the ceremony held in Wieden Gymnasium.