Ruscirene Dinanga had been enrolled at Southern Maine Community College for over a year, taking classes part time – while working one full-time job at cPort Federal Credit Union and another on-call as a Portuguese interpreter for Catholic Charities Maine – when she heard about Maine’s new Free Community College Scholarship program. Holding down multiple jobs in addition to college classes was too much. She could barely manage grocery shopping, let alone sit down to eat. So, she decided to apply.
To be eligible, students must live in Maine while enrolled, have a high school diploma or equivalent earned between 2020 to 2023, and enroll full time in an associate’s degree program or a one-year certificate program at one of Maine’s seven community colleges. They also must accept all federal and state grants and tuition waivers offered to them. The Free College initiative is available thanks to a $20 million allocation for free college in Maine’s supplemental budget signed this April by Gov. Janet Mills. The goal is to give students a debt-free community college education as they begin to work toward a career.
Margarida Celestino, another SMCC student who is studying full time with help from the scholarship, had a similarly easy application experience. She said filling out the application took less than five minutes – “maybe even just one minute” – and required only the most basic information. Celestino is an asylum seeker, and therefore is ineligible for federal aid (FASFA), as well as most scholarship programs.
Previously, Celestino had looked into the TRIO Program, which helps low-income Americans pay for college. However, she found that the program does not benefit those without green cards. She tried to manage classes on her own, but found it was impossible, and had just notified her adviser that she would need to drop out of her classes when she received news of the Free College Scholarship program.
The program came at the exact moment Celestino needed it, she said. She had been in college in New York state, but fell ill and had to give up a full scholarship. She was afraid she would never have access to college again.
When Dinango was granted the free enrollment funds, she felt a heavy weight lifted from her shoulders. “You either have the time, or you have the money. I could afford [college] with the work I had been doing, but I did not have the time for anything else. Now, I am able to have some time for both my coursework and myself,” she said. In addition to full-time college, she is still working as an interpreter and a direct support specialist – but these both have flexible hours, which she finds manageable. Making ends meet remains challenging, but nothing like before, she said.“My grandmother always says, ‘Before life gets easy, it gets a little bit harder.’”
Similarly, Celestino, who also works on the side to pay her bills, said that with access to free college, she does not have to work as many hours outside of school as she did before. This gives her more time to dedicate to school while having more of her own time for daily living and socializing with peers. “This scholarship program ensures I can do school well without overburdening myself trying to pay for it,” she said.
She had expected to take one or two classes at a time, while working to pay for each credit. But now she can be enrolled as a full-time student taking four or five classes at once, without paying for each class individually. This removes a huge financial weight.
Dinango said Free College Scholarship students don’t have to take all classes at the standard, full-time rate each semester. The full-time requirement is yearly, but students can overload credits in one semester, in order to take a lighter schedule during the next semester.
Currently, she is enrolled in an architectural program, and plans to graduate with an associate’s degree. Having access to free college now allows her to work toward becoming financially stable. “This is an opportunity for me to do this degree for free! It makes me more eligible to go to a university to [eventually] get my master’s degree and be financially ready for what is coming next.”
Celestino plans to use her associate’s degree in health science as transfer credits into a four-year bachelor’s degree program toward becoming a physician’s assistant. “Without this Free College Scholarship, it would be a lot harder to go right into a four-year program, since I don’t qualify for FAFSA. This means I can start my education for free, save money for the next step, and go to the four-year school later.”
Dinango hopes others will take advantage of this program, which is slated to end with 2023 graduates. Many of her peers, who are coming of age during the pandemic years, have been considering gap years between high school and college, but she hopes they don’t wait to go to college. Celestino agreed. “There will be more job opportunities with a paper [diploma] in hand,” she said. “Students should take advantage of this free access, work hard for two or three years, and get that paper to start a successful future.”
The state’s seven community colleges see an 11 percent increase in summer applications compared to this time last year.
Student of the year, a dorm resident adviser and a speaker of five languages, Graca Muzela proved himself to be an all-star student during his first year at Washington County Community College. He is passionate about his education and dreams of finishing his associate degree, becoming an electrical engineer and saving up to buy his parents a house.
But up until a few months ago, he wasn’t sure he would even be able to attend college for a second year.
“I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it,” he said. “I was just so worried.”
But the 20-year-old’s concerns disappeared this spring when the state approved a plan to pay the tuition and fees for full-time community college students who graduated from high school or passed an equivalency exam during the years 2020 through 2023.
Graca Muzela, who was named Washington County Community College Student of the Year this year, is one of the students taking advantage of the community college system’s offer of free tuition this fall. The offer has lead to a spike in enrollments. Submitted photo
While college is often crucial to future success, it’s expensive. For the 2021-2022 school year, tuition to attend one of Maine’s seven community colleges was $2,880 per year for in-state students and $5,760 for out-of-state students. But that doesn’t include the cost of fees, books, or room and board, which this past year ranged from $7,600 to $12,000 for both in-state and out-of-state students. Although federal and state grants and scholarships are available for low-income students, they often don’t completely cover the cost of education and living expenses and are rarely available to immigrants, like Muzela.
The Maine Legislature allocated $20 million for the initiative in the $1.2 billion supplemental budget it passed in April. The state said it expects the program to supplement or fully pay community college tuition and other mandatory fees for 8,000 students.
Muzela said he felt a weight lift from his shoulders when he found out his tuition would be covered for the upcoming school year. His eyes lit up and a smile spread across his face as he talked about free college. “I was so happy when I heard,” he said, shaking his head almost in disbelief.
STUDENTS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FREE COLLEGE
Interest in attending the state’s community colleges has spiked since free college was announced in April. As of Thursday, the system had received 11 percent more applications from new students compared to the same time last year. So far this summer, 13,919 students have applied to attend a Maine community college in the fall compared to 12,551 students at the same time last year. Community colleges are even seeing slightly increased attention from prospective students compared to this time in 2019, before the pandemic.
This comes against the backdrop of a decade of declining enrollment at institutions of higher education in Maine and around the country.
At a registration event at Southern Maine Community College in July, faculty advisers walked incoming students through course sign-ups and fielded questions about classes and free college. Arianna Miller, an 18 year old from Auburn, said before the free college announcement, she wasn’t sure if she would go to college or get a full-time job. She was thinking of trying to pick up more hours at the sports bar where she works as a hostess. But when she found out college tuition would be covered, she decided to sign up. She wants to be a firefighter.
Another incoming student, Kaleb McPhail, 19, said he was planning to go to Thomas College in Waterville, where he’s from, but when he found out tuition would be free at the state’s community colleges he decided to enroll there instead. McPhail hopes to become a K-9 police officer. He has three dogs at home and said it’s been his dream job since he was a kid.
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, WITH CONDITIONS
The concept of providing free college is not new or unique to Maine but over the past decade the idea has become more popular. It was a significant plank in President Biden’s platform when he was running for office, although it doesn’t look like free college will be supported on the federal level anytime soon. First lady Jill Biden, who is a community college teacher, has been pushing for free community college for decades.
Many states have some sort of free or subsidized college program at the institution, city or state level.
In March, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, signed into law the most inclusive tuition-free college program in the country. The New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship Act waives tuition for both full- and part-time students attending in-state, public two- and four-year institutions, and is available to returning adult learners and immigrants regardless of their immigration status.
Maine’s free college scholarship is only available to students who graduated between 2020 and 2023 and requires that students enroll by spring 2024 and complete their degree within two years.
Students also must first accept any other state or federal grants or scholarships awarded to them. The Maine free college scholarship will cover the cost of tuition and mandatory fees after other state or federal grants and scholarships have been applied. This method of funding, called last-dollar funding, means that tuition and fees will be covered but other significant costs such as books and room and board will not.
FREE COLLEGE GAINS POPULARITY NATIONALLY
Free college programs have been popular, resulting in spikes in applications and enrollments like those being seen in Maine. They also underscore the idea that the cost of college is a substantial barrier to people seeking post-secondary education and when that barrier is taken away more students will show up.
“We believe providing free college is the most effective policy that a state government can enact to help build its economic future while providing immediate opportunities for young people in the state,” said Morley Winograd, president of the nonprofit Campaign for Free College Tuition.
Winograd said that removing the obstacle of cost will increase levels of higher education across the board, providing more people with opportunity for economic mobility and increasing the nation’s GDP by increasing individual incomes.
Studies consistently show that higher degrees lead to higher incomes. People with bachelor’s degrees make on average $2.8 million over the course of their careers; people with associate degrees make $2 million; and people with a high school diploma make $1.6 million, according to a 2021 Georgetown University study.
Most people are in favor of free college. Among U.S. adults, 63 percent are in favor of making all public college free and 36 percent are opposed, according to a 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center. Democrats, minorities and people under 50 view free college more favorably compared to white adults, Republicans and people over 50. Only 18 percent of Republicans over 50 who have a four-year degree are in favor of free public college, according to the same poll. Opponents say that providing free college is financially unsustainable and unfair to those who took on debt to go to college in the past.
But Gov. Janet Mills said that by educating Maine’s students and training them to go into fields with high demand for workers, free college will support the Maine economy as it works to rebound from the pandemic and struggles with the workforce shortage plaguing the country.
“We need to beef up the number of people going into the trades,” she said. “These are well-paying jobs that you can get in Maine and remain in the state to live and raise a family.”
As it stands now, the free college scholarship is only available to students who graduated during the pandemic. But Mills said she may push for the program to be continued after next fall. “We will be looking at all aspects of the program and hoping to continue it based on the funds available,” she said.
Maine’s free college scholarship will likely be especially impactful for new Mainers, who are often left out of state and federal financial aid programs. At the federal level, green-card holders, refugees, asylum grantees and other specific groups are eligible for federal financial aid, but it can often take years if not decades to get a green card or be granted refugee or asylum-seeker status.
Graca Muzela, who fled Angola three years ago with his parents and three siblings, said his immigration status is one of the primary reasons that the free college scholarship is so important to him. Last year he was not eligible for any state or federal financial aid. He was able to pay for college with a patchwork of private grants and scholarships and help from community members who saw potential in him. But that kind of support is unusual.
A few of Muzela’s friends from Angola who live in Maine opted not to enroll in college last year because of financial barriers. But this year, Muzela said, he told them that college was free and now they’re in the application process at Southern Maine Community College.
Other students have had similar reactions to free college. Lewiston High School Aspirations Coordinator Kate Chase said many of the students she works with who were hesitant to go to college because they didn’t want to take on loans decided to give college a try when they heard it would be free. “As soon as this was announced, kids were like this is a no-brainer,” she said.
“It’s great to tell these kids about this and let them know that they can live out their dreams without taking out substantial loans,” said Chase. “It takes a huge burden off them.”
There’s a significant shortage of heavy equipment operators in a number of industries, including logging. But, Northern Maine Community College’s Mechanized Logging Operations Program is continuing to prepare students for this career path.
Now in it’s sixth year, it’s the only program in New England offering this type of training. The program is made possible in collaboration with the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine.
Each summer, as many as 15 students are selected to be part of the program. The 12-week course starts in the classroom before students head into the woods for the hands-on work.
Donald Burr is the program coordinator and lead instructor for the program.
“We have six pieces of equipment and every student gets to run each piece of equipment for just over a week… we have a feller buncher, we have a stroke delimer, and a grapple skidder, and then we have a cut-to-length processor, a forwarder, and a crane with slasher,” Burr said. “So when they leave us, they get excited possibly for one piece or two pieces that they know they want to go run.”
The program has been free to students each year through funding from the Harold Alfond Center for the Advancement of Maine’s Workforce. This year, the program is covered through the Maine Jobs and Recovery and Plan. Each student also received a $2,000 stipend to cover any housing and transportation costs while taking the course, thanks to a donation from Skowhegan Savings Bank.
Burr said he and the other instructors have contractors constantly reaching out to them looking for more workers.
“There is some concern that with the workforce that we have, we can’t cut enough fiber to supply the mills,” Burr said.
Hudson Osgood is one of the students currently participating in the program.
“This is probably one of the best times to get in to this industry,” Osgood said.
Burr said starting salaries in the mechanized logging industry range anywhere from $40,000-$70,000.
The program wraps up on Sept. 15 with a graduation ceremony held in Passadumkeag.
The Guarantee allows community college graduates with an eligible GPA to transfer directly to participating four-year colleges and universities in the same state.
The northern expansion of the Guarantee is an extension of the initiative in the southern New England states ofMassachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, where implementation was carried out in 2021 with the generous support of Teagle and the Davis Educational Foundation, which was established by established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.
As in southern New England, the Guarantee, when scaled in the three northern states, will emphasize transfer into liberal arts majors. NEBHE’s partners in scaling the Guarantee include the Maine Community College System, the University of Maine System, the Maine Independent College Association, the Community College System of New Hampshire, the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) and the New Hampshire College and University Council, the Community College of Vermont and the Association of Vermont Independent Colleges.
Under a seven-month planning grant awarded in July 2021 by Teagle and AVDF, NEBHE affirmed that the time is ripe for scaling the Guarantee. Now, 49 higher education institutions (including 100% of community colleges, 72% of independent institutions and 100% of four-year public institutions) have signed Letters of Intent (LOIs) to participate in implementation. A complete list of these institutions can be foundhere.
NEBHE will collaborate with state partners to expand transfer opportunities for community college graduates in each state by streamlining and unifying transfer to both in-state public and independent colleges and universities.
Community college graduates who meet the Guarantee’s eligibility criteria in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont will be able to transfer as juniors to complete their bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution in the same state.By fortifying transfer pathways for community college students, the Guarantee appeals to the priorities of postsecondary leaders across the three northern New England states.
“The University System of New Hampshire is excited to play an active role in the Transfer Guarantee implementation process in the Granite State,” according to Cathy Provencher, chief administrative officer and vice chancellor for financial affairs and treasurer at USNH. “Our mission has always been to provide high-quality, affordable higher education to our students, so strengthening the pathway by which our community college graduates can earn their bachelor’s degree within the USNH system is important to expanding the impact of public higher education in our state.”
Community college leadership has emphasized the same.
“By creating streamlined, reliable pathways for CCV graduates to earn their bachelor’s degree, the Transfer Guarantee will increase equitable and affordable access to quality higher education in Vermont,” said Joyce Judy, president of the Community College of Vermont.
Janet Sortor, vice president and chief academic officer of the Maine Community College System, commented on the way the Guarantee is arriving on the heels of another win for postsecondary education in the state. “Implementing the Transfer Guarantee in Maine at a time when the state has just rolled out a free community college program,” Sortor explained, “will be a real boon to students looking for a good deal on a valuable bachelor’s degree in Maine.”
Involving the public four-years—a new addition, specific to the northern New England Guarantee—also has partners excited. Saint Joseph’s College of Maine President Jim Dlugos noted: “getting the Guarantee up and running will strengthen existing cross-sector communication between the Maine independent colleges and the University of Maine System and open up channels for robust collaboration at the faculty-level—a real game-changer for postsecondary student success throughout Maine.”
“NEBHE aims to leverage important lessons learned from the Guarantee’s success in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island as we collaboratively implement this transfer initiative in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont,” said Michael K. Thomas, president and CEO of NEBHE. “We appreciate the support of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, Teagle Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation for our efforts to increase associate and bachelor’s degree completion rates and expand our region’s talent pipeline.”
Emily Decatur is NEBHE’s senior program manager of transfer initiatives.
Every day Melissa Joudrey drives two hours each way from her home in Rumford and back to attend phlebotomy class at Southern Maine Community College.
The drive is worth it, she says, because a certificate in phlebotomy will qualify the 50-year-old to work as a medical assistant drawing blood samples from patients.
It’s worth it to get back into the workforce and off government benefits, she said. “This means freedom for me.”
In a bid to meet Maine’s workforce needs and provide an alternative to a two- or four-year degree at a time when college costs are rising and enrollment is plummeting, the Maine Community College System is expanding its offerings of short-term workforce training programs, providing certificates and degrees that come at low cost, no cost or even pay students. The community college system, with state, federal and private funds, foots the large share of the bill for most of these courses. The programs run from just weeks to almost a year long, and prepare students for jobs in fields including welding, 3D printing and healthcare.
The Maine Community College System says these programs are meeting the moment – supplying workers to boost the Maine economy and pulling Mainers away from minimum wage jobs and out of cycles of poverty.
And Maine is not the only state pouring resources into providing easily accessible career-focused certificates.
Short-term workforce training programs have exploded in popularity over the past few decades. From 2000 to 2020, the latest year for which data is available, the number of work-focused certificates awarded by public institutions in the United States more than doubled from 300,000 to almost 700,000, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Although programs that provide low-barrier job training are largely seen as a positive trend, some worry that not all certificate programs lead to careers in well-paying fields and that their accessibility might discourage students from striving for two- or four-year degrees that could lead to greater economic mobility. That, they say, could expand the divide between those with financial stability and those without.
The state of Maine has been supporting short-term workforce training for decades. But over the past few years, with significant federal COVID-19 relief funds, money from private donors in hand and a severe workforce shortage hampering the state’s economic recovery, the community college system has rapidly expanded its certificate and training program.
The timing was perfect for Joudrey.
While she always wanted to work in healthcare, other parts of her life – children, raising a family – got in the way, she said. She was on track to becoming a registered nurse about a decade ago. She made it part way through nursing school before she and her husband, who was the family’s sole earner, got a divorce.
After her divorce, she struggled with mental health, self-esteem and money. She relied on support from government benefit programs for close to 10 years before enrolling in the phlebotomy program.
“This is really going to open doors for me,” she said.
The seeds of today’s programs were planted over three decades ago.
In the mid-1990s, Maine leaders realized they had a problem: 75 percent of jobs in the state required more than a high school education but only 45 percent of Maine students were continuing their education past high school. If this pattern was allowed to continue, Maine employers would be left with open positions but Mainers wouldn’t be qualified to fill those jobs, leaving employers without enough qualified workers and untrained Mainers without jobs, said then Gov. John McKernan, who called the situation a “prescription for disaster.”
McKernan said businesses and schools had to work together. Businesses should tell schools what skills they needed in their workforce and schools should train students with those skills, he said. The Legislature created a program in 1994 that did just that: the Maine Quality Centers program.
With the goal of expanding Maine’s economy and creating above-minimum wage jobs, the state’s community college system has worked since then with employers to train new or existing employees at no or low cost to employers or employees.
In 2018, with a $3.5 million grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation nonprofit, the state’s community college system started to grow the program – offering more programs for more students in fields with high worker demand. Three years later, with $15.5 million more from the Alfond Foundation, $35 million of federal COVID-19 relief funds and $10 million of existing workforce training funds and private sector money, the community college system began to further scale-up the program.
Over the past decade, the program has grown around 30-fold. In the 2012 fiscal year, 219 students graduated from the workforce training program. In the 2021 fiscal year, the latest year for which data is available, 6,277 students graduated.
A lot has changed about the economy, higher education and the culture of work since Maine first opened the doors to its workforce training program.
Enrollment in two- and four-year institutions had already been dropping for around a decade when COVID hit in 2020 and compounded the trend. Nationally, there was a decline of 4.7 percent, or 662,000 students, in undergraduate enrollment in spring 2022 compared to a year before. In the fall of 2021, around 15,000 students were enrolled in the Maine Community College System, a drop of almost 3,000 students from a decade earlier.
At the same time, the pandemic changed how people viewed work and led to mass resignations and a major workforce shortage, fueling the demand for skilled workers.
Policymakers, community college administrators and businesses in states across the country have come together to expand vocational training to quickly get people back to work in industries with severe labor shortages.
Maine Community College System Chief Workforce Development Officer Dan Belyea said the system tries to work with employers that pay above minimum wage and provide good benefits. All the businesses currently working with the community college system to train new workers pay their employees between $18 and $25 an hour, said Belyea, significantly more than state’s hourly minimum wage of $12.75.
A phlebotomist in Maine, for example, can earn an annual salary of up to $43,447, around $23 an hour, according to Salary.com, a data analyzing company that advocates for fair pay by making salary information available.
In the brightly lit phlebotomy classroom, a group of students gathered in a tight circle around a desk, peering over one another’s shoulders trying to get a good look at the action.
Shavonne Smith, 23, was wearing a long-sleeved lab coat and blue rubber medical gloves as she practiced her second ever “live-stick” – using a needle to draw blood from another person. On her first attempt, she missed the vein. Before that, she had only worked on a banana.
Smith pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and fidgeted with the butterfly needle in the air, trying to figure out the right angle. The trainer, Olga Pope, who graduated from the program herself two years before, served as the “patient.” Smith took a deep breath and lightly stuck the needle into the back of Pope’s hand. This time she succeeded.
“Good job. That was a perfect angle,” said Pope. The rest of the students congratulated Smith, who looked a bit shocked, but was mostly elated.
Smith, a Cornish native, is training to be a medical assistant while also pursuing an associate degree in electrical engineering at Southern Maine Community College. Eventually she hopes to have a career in bio-instrumentation – using electronics to manage medical problems.
Before she started the phlebotomy course she was working in the food industry making minimum wage to support herself while in college. She’s excited that with a certificate in phlebotomy, she’ll be able to earn more, she said. She hopes to use her higher salary to save up for the rest of her classes and buy a new car to replace the one she has now, which is over 20 years old and doesn’t work very well.
The phlebotomy program offered by the Maine Community College System is run in coordination with NorDx, a Maine- and New Hampshire-based clinical lab. NorDx provides the instructors and pays students to learn during the six-week training course, which includes two weeks of classroom time and four weeks learning on the job. Once the students graduate, they are required to work for NorDx for 18 months
NorDx would not provide the salary scale for phlebotomists they employ, citing industry competition.
Some Maine Community Colleges System programs work similarly, where students are paid to learn and then required to work for a certain company after their training. In others, students get the certificate and then go off and find a job on their own.
The Maine Community College System tracks workforce training graduates by surveying them when they first finish their programs and then between three and six months after completion. The system was unable to provide statistics or data showing how student incomes change after completing workforce training programs in time for publication, but said students who respond to surveys after graduating have moved up income brackets into the middle class.
One expert in post-secondary education said that career-focused training programs have the potential to do a lot of good for individuals and the economy, but only if the programs lead to jobs that justify the time and cost of taking the program.
“Community colleges need to hold themselves accountable by making sure they’re offering only high-quality programs that lead to family-sustaining wage jobs,” said Josh Wyner founder and executive director of the college excellence program at the nonprofit Aspen Institute.
Across the country, every college that offers short-term work-focused programs has at least some programs that lead to jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits, said Wyner. Those include jobs in fields such as information technology and healthcare. But many also offer jobs in less lucrative fields, such as elderly care, childcare or cosmetology that often pay at or close to minimum wage and do not help individuals escape poverty.
Almost all programs offered by Maine’s community colleges are in fields that on average pay significantly more than minimum wage – closer to or above $20 per hour.
Colby College education professor Adam Howard said it’s great to see partnerships between businesses and schools. “They’re expanding opportunities for people and it’s a benefit in many ways,” he said.
But he also said short-term workforce programs could deepen the inequities in higher education and the economy. He said these programs are offering upward economic mobility, but only to a certain extent – giving people opportunities to climb a few rungs up the economic ladder, but not to the top.
Studies consistently show that higher degrees lead to higher incomes. According to a 2021 Georgetown University study, people with bachelor’s degrees make on average $2.8 million over the course of their careers, people with associate degrees make $2 million and people with a high school diploma make $1.6 million.
A 2017 federal Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment study shows that certificates offer positive but small economic returns and that the returns decrease over the years.
However, higher education is often prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, whereas the community college system’s workforce training programs are mostly free to students.
“I believe in investing in people. These programs seem to be doing that. Investing in people, providing them skills, enrichment, additional opportunities,” Howard said.
“Are they providing the type of opportunities I wish everyone had? Opportunities to choose your own path, find meaningful work, control your work environment? Not always,” he said. “But they’re providing opportunities that make life more manageable.”
Chris Ouellette discovered his passion during his senior year of high school, and now he wants to become a licensed electrician.
The recent graduate from John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor initially planned to work for a while before embarking on the classroom component of his journey to become a master electrician. But a new state program that allows Ouellette and other recent Maine high school graduates to attend the state’s community colleges for free for two years has accelerated his plans.
“I was kind of heading towards that direction already before,” he said. “But, of course, once the word came out that there was going to be this free college, it was even more of a push for me to do it now.” Read more»
AUGUSTA, ME — The Maine Community College System (MCCS) welcomed five new members to the MCCS Board of Trustees at the June 22 board meeting.
They are:
Margaret Angell, of Cape Elizabeth. Angell is the head of partnerships and strategic initiatives at The Roux Institute at Northeastern University, based in Portland. She previously was deputy director for the Institute for Digital Engineering and Advanced Life Sciences, and has 20 years of experience in education. Angell serves on the board of directors for The Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Maine & Co.
Jane Gilbert, of Augusta. Gilbert retired in 2009 as Maine’s deputy commissioner of labor, and returned recently as special assistant to Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman. Gilbert is a mediator for the Maine Labor Relations Board, and is an active member of the retiree chapters of the AFL-CIO and MSEA. She previously served on the board of directors of the Family Violence Project, the Children’s Center, Maine Children’s Alliance and Equality Maine, and served on the Maine State Civil Service Review Board.
Elizabeth Neptune, of Indian Township. Neptune is an independent consultant and previously worked as interim health director for the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, and at the Maine Center for Disease Control. She serves on the Maine Health Access Foundation (MeHAF) Community Advisory Committee, the American Public Health Services Association Leadership Council, is a delegate for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (U.S. HHS) Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee and sits on the tribal advisory committee for the U.S. HHS Administration for Children and Families. She is a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township Tribal Council. She has received multiple awards and honors for her leadership in advocating for, improving, and providing Indian health care.
Kate Rush, of Newport. Rush is vice president of corporate development at Tilson, and previously held multiple senior leadership positions at Bangor Savings Bank. She is on the board of Good Shepherd Food Bank and serves on the steering committee of Working Communities Challenge; she has served as a mentor with Olympia’s Leadership Institute; and is currently chair of the Newport Select Board.
Cherie Wendelken, of Portland. Wendelken is director of the Brooks Family Foundation. She previously worked as an associate professor of art and architectural history at Harvard University. She has served on the board of trustees for Waynflete and Mayo Street Arts in Portland; and Ithaca City of Asylum, Ithaca Waldorf School and Sciencenter of Ithaca, all in New York.
The new trustees were nominated by Governor Janet Mills and confirmed by the Maine Senate. Their first board meeting was Wednesday, June 22.
“I’m looking forward to working with this group of distinguished and talented trustees,” MCCS President David Daigler said. “Their guidance and unique perspectives will help us as we look ahead to a very busy fall – welcoming the first wave of Free College students, expanding nursing and short-term workforce training, celebrating our 20th anniversary as a community college system, and continuing to manage the impact of the pandemic on our communities.”
The Maine Community College System’s Board of Trustees is the policy-making authority for the system and consists of 13 appointed voting members, one ex-officio voting member, and one ex-officio non-voting member.
Maine’s new budget includes $20 million in funding for tuition-free community college, as well as more funds to expand nursing programs in Maine. We’ll learn the goals of the free community college initiative and who is eligible. We’ll also find out what programs are being expanded within Maine’s community college system. Listen to the program»
Panelists: David Daigler, president, Maine Community College System Betsy Libby, president, Central Maine Community College
VIP Callers: Robert Placido, vice chancellor, academic affairs, University of Maine System Tim Cronin, program director, Make It Happen!, Multi-lingual Department, Portland Public Schools
Colleges and universities must constantly adapt to changing times—and to major disruptions like the pandemic. We’ll hear about how Maine institutions have developed innovative approaches to education, from all-remote learning to micro-credentials to working directly with businesses. Listen to the program»
Panelists: Joan Ferrini-Mundy, president, University of Maine; vice chancellor for research & innovation, University of Maine System Melik Peter Khoury, president, Unity College Janet Sortor, vice president & chief academic officer, Maine Community College System
VIP Callers: Roux Institute April Hill, professor of biology; Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM, Bates College Michael Cato, senior vice president and chief information officer, Bowdoin College James Herbert, president, University of New England
AUGUSTA, ME – Maine Community College System (MCCS) President David Daigler announced today that Karen Normandin has been appointed president of Kennebec Valley Community College, effective June 1.
Normandin has been serving as acting president of Kennebec Valley Community College (KVCC) since May 2021.
“I am honored to have been selected as the next president of Kennebec Valley Community College,” Normandin said. “This college has a long history of providing excellence in academic programming and workforce training opportunities. We are on an extraordinary journey of growth and transition.”
“As we move forward, I am excited to be in a leadership role, working with the faculty and staff to continue the great work that KVCC is known for in this community,” she said. “I look forward to continuing that tradition and strengthening the ties to our community.”
Normandin has worked at KVCC for more than 30 years, serving in multiple leadership positions, including vice president of student affairs, enrollment, marketing and recruitment; dean of student affairs; director of educational support services; and director of TRIO student support services.
“Karen is a champion of the KVCC community and will be an excellent leader,” Daigler said. “She has a deep understanding of the college and an unwavering dedication to its people and the broader community. I look forward to working with her to advance the college during this critical time.”
The MCCS Board of Trustees unanimously supported the appointment.
“Karen has extensive experience and deep ties to the students, faculty and staff at KVCC,” said Board Chair Bill Cassidy. “Her proven leadership skills will serve the students, faculty and staff well.”
Normandin is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education Leadership at Capella University. She has a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Ball State University in Indiana, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.
In 2020, Normandin was a John T. Gorman Fellow, which identifies and develops leaders in the public sector, and she twice received the KVCC President’s Award in recognition of her leadership within the KVCC community.
She serves as vice chair of the Kennebec Behavioral Health Programs Advisory Board; executive board member of the Mid Maine Chamber of Commerce; and previously served on the Nursing Advisory Board for KVCC, in addition to being a member of multiple professional organizations.
Normandin was selected from an initial field of more than 40 candidates following a national search.
Normandin succeeds Dr. Richard Hopper, who is currently interim president of Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Kennebec Valley Community College, with campuses in Fairfield and Hinckley, enrolls about 2,300 students engaged in more than 35 programs of study.
