Among the trees and swirling fall leaves at the center of the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s campus on Friday, the university’s president, an artist and others unveiled a large sculpture to honor a late UMPI leader and his wife.
Standing more than eight feet tall, the granite sculpture, titled “Embrace,” sits in the Central Campus Park behind South Hall.
The piece honors the memory of former President Donald Zillman and his wife, Linda Zillman, who became the university’s largest benefactors.
“It’s very, very simple, two forms, one on top of the other,” said Leo-Paul Cyr, UMPI professor emeritus and the artist who created the sculpture. “When I started this process, I thought about the Zillmans, and I knew them very well. And for me they were very simple people and so that’s what I wanted to honor through the work.”
Donald Zillman served as UMPI’s president from 2006-2012 after several decades working across the University of Maine System.
He was dean of the University of Maine School of Law from 1991-1998, interim provost and academic vice president at the University of Maine from 1999-2000 and interim president of the University of Maine at Fort Kent from 2001-2002.
His wife, Linda, was an art historian involved with UMPI’s Reed Art Gallery. She helped the gallery acquire 153 original Andy Warhol photographs, one of its most prestigious works, among other items.
Donald Zillman died in July 2023. Linda Zillman died in September 2025.
“I think the most appropriate way to honor the Zillmans is through art,” UMPI President Raymond Rice said. “They were dedicated to education all their lives, but they just loved all performing arts, fine arts, everything.”
Linda Zillman served on the board of the Portland Ballet, several members of which made the trip north to Presque Isle Friday to put on a short performance in their honor.
At UMPI, the Zillmans established a research professorship in 2013 and gave the first money to start the Zillman Family Greenhouse for the agricultural science program. The couple’s estate gave the university $2.1 million last December, its largest-ever donation, along with other gifts over the last 15 years that total more than $3 million.
The Zillmans’ generosity extended to other sects of the UMaine system, including another $2.1 million to the Honors College at the University of Maine and nearly $3 million in separate gifts to the University of Maine Art Gallery in Bangor, which was renamed the Linda G. and Donald N. Zillman Art Museum in 2020 as a result.
Donald Zillman, UMPI’s 10th president, came to the school at a challenging time, as the UMaine system expressed no confidence against two consecutive chancellors and difficult dynamics persisted between faculty and administrators. But his demeanor brought a calm to the chaos, Rice said.
“It is not an overstatement to say, without Don Zillman, I don’t know what direction this institution would have taken,” Rice said. “He had a way of defusing challenging situations, but also getting to the core of things. He took everyone’s concerns seriously and he helped move the institution forward at a time that we weren’t certain what our direction forward was.”
Art from the Zillmans’ estate is on display at the Reed Art Gallery through Oct. 23.
