To the Editor:

For decades, the University of Maine at Farmington focused on serving traditional-age students who wanted to live and learn on its historic downtown campus. And as the number of recent New England high school graduates pursuing postsecondary education declined, so too did UMF’s enrollment.

No more.

Under the leadership of President Joe McDonnell, UMF is developing new programming that is accessible and relevant to learners of all ages and stages — including working adults. The result: UMF enrollment and the Maine workforce are growing.

This fall, UMF will take an exciting step to further improve its enrollment and fiscal stability by partnering to deliver a new public policy bachelor’s degree program through the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) YourPace.

UMPI’s YourPace is an affordable, entirely online competency-based program that allows busy adults to work toward their door-opening degree at their own speed. Leveraging this model, UMPI has tripled its enrollment — recently surpassing UMF and the University of Maine at Augusta to become the third-largest public university in our System, based on annual student credit hours.

UMF is the first to partner with UMPI to offer programming through YourPace. It’s a reflection of a growing commitment to collaboration among Maine’s public universities, and to meeting the market.

I commend UMPI for inviting other UMS universities to also benefit from the widely popular YourPace and UMF faculty and staff for their willingness to adapt their academic courses and advising so more Mainers can earn a college degree and economic mobility.

Dannel P. Malloy

Chancellor

University of Maine System

Bangor