Dear UMPI community,
Most of you have probably heard by now that the University of Maine System took a historic step toward a unified accreditation inclusive of all seven of our institutions at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting in Orono. This is a transformative opportunity for our universities and the students and communities we serve, ensuring expanded opportunities for shared academic programs, resources, and innovation. As a co-chair with President Joan Ferrini-Mundy of the University of Maine on the Academic and Student Affairs/Advising Committee toward writing the documentation that will provide the framework for this unified accreditation, I am especially pleased at the opportunities for seamless transferability, expanded course offerings, and additional and amplified student support mechanisms that this will provide– all of which will ultimately lead to greater and more successful career and professional prospects for our graduates. Most importantly, all of this will happen under the aegis of the established “Guiding Principles for Unified Accreditation” (see guiding principles for a link to the document itself), which ensures the continued well-being of each of our institutions, the maintenance of their current accreditations (so important to our professional programs such as Social Work, MLT, PTA, Education, and others), principles of shared governance and academic freedom, and, most importantly, the continued autonomy of the University of Maine at Presque Isle as an institution.
You will find, below, the initial statement released by the UMS regarding this decision, as well as several pertinent documents. These documents include the formal statement of Board authorization, the Chancellor’s formal recommendation to the Board, and the letter in support of this presented by Evan Zarkadas, UMPI’s student representative to the BOT, in regards to the Student Government Association’s unanimous support of unified accreditation. Finally, I attached an article from the Chronicle about our undertaking.
You can find the entire documented history of this initiative, reaching back to 1967, at https://sites.google.com/maine.edu/unified-accreditation/home
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you wish any further information.
Best to all at the start of this spring semester and the beginnings of this truly transformative new future of the University of Maine institutions and all those whom we serve.
https://www.maine.edu/blog/2020/01/27/maines-public-universities-take-historic-step-to-unify-their-accreditations-in-the-university-of-maine-system/