Office of the President
The 21st-Century USM
From: President Selma Botman
March 24, 2009
Welcome to the latest 21st -Century USM update. Please check this site regularly for official communications on a range of issues. Please don't hesitate to contact me directly at president@usm.maine.edu.
Moving Online
You may recall that earlier this academic year we received a $100,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation to fund the conversion of existing undergraduate majors to a combination of online and blended formats.
Using Sloan funds and dedicated monies from USM’s Center for Technology-Enhanced Learning (CTEL), faculty responded to an RFP to receive support for faculty development and technology purchases in preparation for offering undergraduate programs in a blended format beginning in the fall of 2009.
Five undergraduate programs were selected to receive support. Leadership and Organizational Studies at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College; the R.N. to Bachelor’s of Science program in the College of Nursing and Health Professions; the Communication major in the College of Arts and Sciences; the Social Work program in the College of Arts and Sciences; and the Environmental Safety and Health program in the School of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology. In addition to these five programs, the common core curriculum at LAC, “How, Then, Shall We Live? Citizenship in a Global Society,” was selected.
Sloan has been instrumental in fostering the quality, scale, and breadth of online programs throughout American higher education and thanks to the work of many of our faculty and staff, we now are poised to take greater advantage of new ways to impart knowledge and cultivate student success.
Bob Hansen, our associate provost for university outreach, has been driving this effort. University Outreach will be committing additional time and resources to online education by reallocating resources from personal enrichment courses offered through the Department of Continuing Education.
USM Successes
Michelle Morgan, who earned her B.A. in arts and humanities at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College and will soon receive her USM master’s in American and New England studies, is facing a dilemma that speaks to the transformative nature of a USM education. Michelle has been accepted in doctoral programs in history and American studies at Boston College, Harvard and Yale, Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Read her story.
I’m also pleased and proud to report that USM School of Music alumna Teresa Herold of Fort Fairfield, Maine, is a soloist with the New York Metropolitan Opera. Teresa will be performing in the upcoming production of Wagner’s “Die Walkure."
