A University of Maine professorship honoring its most famous graduate is expected to get the rubber stamp during a meeting of the university system’s board of trustees on Monday.
The trustees will meet on Sunday and Monday at the Olsen Student Center at the University of Maine at Farmington.
On the agenda is the establishment of the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine in Orono. The endowed professorship named in honor of Bangor horror novelist Stephen King is being funded through a $1 million gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation. A search to fill the new position is expected this fall.
King graduated from UMaine in 1970 with an English degree. Three years later, he published his first novel, “Carrie.” Since then, he has written 54 novels, six nonfiction books and nearly 200 short stories. In November 2015, King was awarded a National Medal of Arts, recognizing his contributions to literature.
Trustees also are expected to review finances for the coming year. The seven universities are expected to turn in their final budget proposals before the board’s next meeting in May, when trustees are expected to approve a final budget for fiscal year 2017.
Included in that discussion will be the proposal from Gov. Paul LePage to boost funding for the system in exchange for maintaining flat tuition next year. Facing deficits at several campuses, the system was exploring a 2.3 percent increase in in-state tuition.
LePage, after a meeting with system leadership, offered to submit a supplemental budget proposal in January including nearly $7.5 million in additional funding for the system, including enough to offset and prevent the potential tuition increase. The system, in spite of budgetary struggles, has held its in-state tuition rates flat for five consecutive years.
Maine is home to the only state university system in the country that has reduced the inflation-adjusted cost of a four-year public education over the past five years, according to a recent College Board report.
In other business, the trustees will review details of a report delivered by Sightlines, a facilities advisory firm, updating the system on the state of its buildings.
Sightlines said the system’s infrastructure is getting older, with 40 percent of its buildings older than 50 years and considered “high risk.” That number has grown since 2006, when it was just 28 percent, and Sightlines expects the number to continue to grow. Buildings built in this period, between World War II and the 1980s, tended to have lower-quality construction or use less expensive, lower quality materials, according to Sightlines.
Sightlines also has said that the system has far more square footage of building space than it needs. During recent years, UMS officials have worked to shed properties by selling or demolishing them. Usually these have been underused buildings or buildings that would cost too much to repair or rehabilitate.
Trustees will start their visit Sunday afternoon with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Farmington campus’s new heating plant.
The full agenda and related materials are available on the system’s website.
UMaine announces Stephen King professorship
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote