{"id":5550,"date":"2018-09-18T09:50:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T13:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5550"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:31:06","slug":"welcome-to-the-way-it-should-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2018\/09\/18\/welcome-to-the-way-it-should-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Way it Should Be!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>On behalf of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, it is my great pleasure to welcome all of you, new and returning students, community members, faculty and staff (old and new!) to the start of the 2018-2019 academic year.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>This is a particularly exciting time to be an Owl (hoot hoot!).\u00a0 <\/span>Last year, we continued our streak of greater and greater recognition from national organizations for our academic excellence and affordability.\u00a0 <\/span>We jumped up several spots in U.S. News & World Report\u2019s top regional public schools ranking (to lucky #13 in all of the North!).\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ve been ranked in Forbes\u2019 \u201cbest value\u201d list, received multiple \u201cBest Value School Awards\u201d and just this summer were noted as the most affordable college in all of Maine and New England (public or private) by Student Loan Hero (https:\/\/studentloanhero.com\/featured\/ranking-most-affordable-colleges-in-northeast\/ ).\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s particularly gratifying to be recognized for your value\u2014which to my mind is always a combination of academic excellence and cost, particularly what students have to pay back in loans when their undergraduate careers are over.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s why such recognition is so important, as it shows that we truly are being successful in putting our students\u2019 futures first.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>In what looks to be our biggest incoming class in half a decade, hundreds of new faces are joining us this year, both in person and online, in our university classrooms as well as our early college courses in high schools across Aroostook County and beyond.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re also welcoming many new staff and faculty to the UMPI Owl family to teach, mentor and support our students, and we have many new programs and initiatives underway to better guide their professional and academic achievement.\u00a0 <\/span>These include our Campus to Career Program, directed by Nicole Fournier (nicole.l.fournier@maine.edu), which through the development of professional portfolios, advising and career preparation in internships and research programs assists students in actively developing the post-college outcomes that they desire.\u00a0 <\/span>We have a new set of Academic Commitments–ones we pledge to you, and ones that you pledge in return–to ensure clear and attainable goals for each course you take in every program, so you know what you need to know and when you need to know it.\u00a0 <\/span>Finally, we\u2019re continuing to accelerate our \u201cFinish in 4\u201d initiative, to help ensure all students know their personal pathway, from their first day on campus to their last, to finishing their degree in four years or less.\u00a0 <\/span>(And, as both a parent and a student who paid off loans for 20 years, I can attest to how important all of that is!)<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>As of this September, I\u2019ve spent more than 20 years at UMPI and filled more roles than I can sometimes keep track of\u2014from professor to advisor to chair to vice president to provost and now president.\u00a0 <\/span>Much has changed over the course of those years.\u00a0 <\/span>Frankly, we\u2019ve learned a lot as an institution, and there are many things that I believe we do better now than we did back in 1997.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>But much at UMPI\u2014especially our values as an institution\u2014have remained consistent.\u00a0 <\/span>Faculty knew then, as they do now, that college students who connect both inside and outside the classroom are more likely to achieve a higher degree of success in both their professional and personal lives.\u00a0 <\/span>UMPI then, as now, strove to provide outstanding opportunities to challenge you intellectually and expand your cultural and cognitive comfort zone in preparation for the world that follows.\u00a0 <\/span>In addition, co-curricular experiences and hands-on learning\u2014from internships and study abroad programs, to research opportunities and experiential learning, to conferences and distinguished lectures\u2014were and are recognized as critical to student success.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>In the past several years, UMPI began the process of transforming itself beyond a state university that provided northern Mainers with an excellent education, beginning its journey as a nationally recognized leader in education which, simply put, was determined to guarantee that all of its students, regardless of their major, would be ready for professional or graduate careers\u2014that all students, regardless of discipline, would be guaranteed to have mastered all of the skills and knowledge necessary for success in today\u2019s world.\u00a0 <\/span>These are our Commitments to you (which you\u2019ll find posted in every classroom and available on our websites):\u00a0 <\/span>in which you, as students, have multiple opportunities and venues to show your mastery of subject matter, receive the support you need to achieve that mastery and are provided a guaranteed pathway to complete your undergraduate degree in four years (or less!).\u00a0 <\/span>This is truly the Way it Should Be, both inside and outside the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>One more thing that hasn\u2019t changed: success in college remains a partnership between the university and you, its students.\u00a0 <\/span>For our faculty and dedicated staff members are only as effective as the relationship that they develop with you and that you, in turn, develop with them.\u00a0 <\/span>As president, I am often asked what advice I have to offer new students.\u00a0 <\/span>Much of it seems like \u201ccommon sense\u201d: (1) go to class; (2) get involved, inside and outside your classes; (3) get to know and make friends with people ahead of you in your program; (4) learn how to balance and prioritize; (5) ask for help early and as often as necessary.\u00a0 <\/span>But some may seem less so.\u00a0 <\/span>Such as (1) don\u2019t be afraid of mistakes but rather learn from them; (2) keep in touch with family and old friends, as they are the ones who often know you best and can keep you grounded as you face new challenges; and (3) get to understand how college \u201cworks,\u201d identifying both strengths and weaknesses for you.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps most important of all: push yourself outside of your comfort zone, as that\u2019s often when the most powerful learning happens.\u00a0 <\/span>At UMPI, we provide you the opportunity to take risks, to not have to get everything right that first time out, but rather to develop your skills and abilities over time\u2014all because, since we started doing this work back in 1903, we\u2019ve learned a few things ourselves.\u00a0 <\/span>Like guaranteeing that you\u2019ll end your journey with us prepared for what comes next\u2026no matter where and how that journey began.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 On behalf of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, it is my great pleasure to welcome all of you, new and returning students, community members, faculty and staff (old and new!) to the start of the 2018-2019 academic year. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 This is a particularly exciting time to be an Owl (hoot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8592,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions\/8592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}