Objective 1.4.1 Strategies and Benchmarks
1.4.1 The University will collaborate with other institutions to offer graduate programs in the region.
The Provost and President will work with the BOV, City of Augusta, the Maine Higher Education Partnership, and the State Department of Labor to identify graduate programs needed in the Augusta area (since Orono is in such proximity to the Bangor campus, this exercise is restricted to Augusta). A Master's in Education has already been identified as a regional need, and preliminary talks have begun with USM for the delivery of that program in Augusta. An initial survey of educational needs should be completed by May 2009. At that time an internal discussion of UMA faculty and administrators will occur to identify their priorities. Besides the market demand for a degree, UMA will consider such factors as: How would this degree impact our undergraduate offerings…enhance recruitment or diminish it, for example? Would UMA faculty be involved in the delivery of the program, or would UMA be restricted to only offering space for its delivery?
September 2010, is the target date to have the Master's of Education being delivered in Augusta. It may be necessary for UMA to add an Education position to make this possible, and if this is the case it will impact decisions relative to Objective 1.3, which addresses the need to add more full-time faculty.