HOULTON, Maine — The Houlton Rotary Club gathered for its luncheon meeting on Dec. 11 and celebrated the season with a holiday song led by Rotarian Torrey Sylvester. Rotarian Leigh Cummings inducted Janice Lovely as a new member of the club.
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- The Houlton Rotary Club welcomed Janice Lovely as a new member. With Lovely is her sponsor president Matthew Nightingale. (Contributed photo/Nate Bodenstab)
Rotarian Steve Fitzpatrick introduced his guest speaker, Raymond Rice, who is a member of the Presque Isle Rotary Club. Rice is a 1989 graduate of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania where he earned his degree in English and in Latin and in 1993 he earned his master’s degree in English at Dickinson.
He went on to the University of Connecticut where he earned his doctorate in English in 1998. Rice has been a faculty member at the University of Maine of Presque Isle for 19 years and the Chair of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Since 2014 he served as vice president for Academic and Student Affairs and the provost until he became the interim president of the University in July of 2016. This past May he was elected the president and also continues as provost.
Rice has seen and been part of changes at the University with the most recent change being the addition of the Agricultural Studies Program 100 years after the school was founded. UMPI was founded as a Normal School in 1903.
Beginning in 2013 an effort was made by then President Linda Schott to form a new vision for the university. A strategic planning committee created the vision, mission and institutional value statements. As the academic leader Rice has directed the campus pedagogical, curricular and assessment transition. In 2016 the New England Board of Higher Education awarded UMPI the Maine State Merit Award.
UMPI has received top ranking as a public school in the North with the University of Maine at Fort Kent, sharing the 13th or 14 place and has placed third in the north for the least debt for its students. The future shows traditional college offerings, distributed classroom sites in the County, online options available and competency based pathways to degrees.
The student population has increased as have credit hours per student. Rice has contributed to the One University Initiative that has transfer agreements between the Maine public universities and community colleges. OpenU Courses are also offered to high school students at fifteen dollars per credit hour with dual credits and dual degrees offered. The governor has just given $2 million to help with free tuition and Rice expects this to add 1,800 students.
Finish in Four is a new initiative to encourage students to complete their education in four years. There are academic maps so that the coursework is laid out for the four years with a custom advisory experience, an early warning system, and a tutoring center with professors checking in to ensure success. Every student has the option of campus to career coursework, research opportunities and internships built into the program.
UMPI has its “signature” programs: agricultural science, post-baccalaureate teacher education, business administration, criminal justice, pre-med, physical therapy and medical laboratory technician (2 year degree).
Along with Fort Kent there is a four-year nursing degree available. The average age of students is 43 with an average cost of $22,000 dollars per year. The website elaborates on the scholarships available to help defray these costs and that is www.umpi.edu. Maine has the lowest upward mobility in the country and in the next 20 years Maine faces job openings and the challenge that 60 percent of these jobs will require an advanced degree.
