AUGUSTA — The University of Maine System board of trustees will spend much of its March meeting listening to updates on a project to create more graduates for industries that need workers and the push to fix the long-standing credit transfer problem.
The all-day meeting is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m., with committee meetings starting at 10 a.m. Monday, March 18, at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Randall Student Technology Center.
As with most March meetings, faculty tenure will be a major focus. There are 25 faculty members from six of the seven universities in the system being recommended for tenure.
System staff will update trustees on several initiatives sparked in the past year by the board and Chancellor James Page, including finding a solution to the 40-year-old problem of how to effectively transfer credits among the system’s universities, and eventually between the state’s university system and the community college system.
Other updates will be presented on Project>Login, an effort by the system to produce more information technologies graduates for a Maine industry that needs them badly, according to system officials. Page has said this project is just the first step in efforts to build stronger bonds between the university system and businesses.
The University of Maine at Orono is expected to ask the board to allocate an additional $1 million toward the $14 million Memorial Gym and Fieldhouse renovation project. The increase would allow the university to do other work at the facility that was being planned separately, such as exterior and interior painting, roof replacement and masonry work, according to documents submitted to the board. Construction is scheduled to begin in May.
To see the full agenda for the board of trustees meeting, visit www.maine.edu/board/meeting_agenda.php. All board meetings are open to the public.
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