UMPI and NMCC to host open house

    HOULTON — A unique higher education partnership in southern Aroostook that began seven years ago with the opening of the Houlton Higher Education Center will be celebrated at the facility with the local community later this month.
    Northern Maine Community College and the University of Maine at Presque Isle are planning an open house at the Military Street facility for Monday, April 28, between 4 and 6 p.m. Officials will mark seven years of academic excellence and showcase the new partnerships and projects underway at the Center.
    In the summer of 2001, education officials opened the UMPI Houlton Higher Education Center, and NMCC and UMPI became the first institutions in  their respective state systems to collaborate in off-campus learning center. The Higher Education Center also houses University College, which offers distance learning courses through the University of Maine System; the adult education programs for both SAD 29 and SAD 70; the Carleton Project, a licensed, private alternative high school; the SAGE [Seniors Achieving Greater Education] program; TRiO Upward Bound, a program that prepares underserved high school students for college; and the southern Aroostook office for the Maine Centers for Women, Work and Community.
    “The Houlton Center brings a wide variety of educational services under one roof,” said UMPI President Donald Zillman. “We are so pleased at how the community has embraced this centet.”
    The vision for the Houlton Higher Education Center first came about in 1999 as a grassroots community effort to re-establish home for higher education.
    The public is invited to join in the open house celebration on Monday, April 28, between 4 and 6 p.m. Refreshments will be provided and guided tours of the facility offered. For more information, call 768-2809 or 768-9452.