University of Maine System to speed up workforce and compact organization advancement with federal funding secured by Sens. Collins and King

A single-time Congressionally Directed Shelling out awards will be invested statewide in community college infrastructure and programming that specifically handle essential workforce shortages in the point out and advance economic and group expansion

ORONO, Maine — Funding in the federal price range package deal passed this weekend will permit the University of Maine Program (UMS) to more reinforce and expand the state’s workforce in substantial-need fields, which includes schooling, nursing and cybersecurity. 

The next round of six bills to fund the federal governing administration in Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) consists of $15.7 million in a single-time Congressionally Directed Investing (CDS) secured for UMS at the request of Sen. Susan Collins, vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Angus King.

Amid a statewide nursing shortage projected to increase to 2,700 nurses by following yr, practically fifty percent of this one particular-time funding will go towards UMS nursing workforce improvement and enhance neighborhood health treatment accessibility and excellent.

“In the condition with the oldest population and with the career facing a wave of retirements, our community universities’ expanded capacity to generate additional nurses is important to the well being and properly-remaining of the people today of Maine,” stated Chancellor Dannel Malloy. “We are grateful to the total Maine Congressional Delegation — and specifically Senator Collins as Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee — for their ongoing commitment to University of Maine Program nursing schooling and analysis, as reflected by the significant funding in this and recent federal budgets for point out-of-the-art simulation facilities and innovative programming. These and other investments secured for our Program by means of this round of Congressionally Directed Shelling out will aid us greater put together the skilled workforce our state’s wellness treatment companies, schools and tiny businesses require to provide their communities and develop our economy.”

The University of Maine at Augusta (UMA) will get $4.5 million to renovate and relocate their nursing software to the previous Purdue College World wide campus in the Augusta Market, which will allow them to increase enrollment and their output of wellness treatment industry experts to care for Mainers. Around the earlier five yrs, enrollment in UMA nursing has improved from 50 students to 320, and when completely built out, the new Capital Middle will assistance the enrollment of nearly 400 nursing pupils.

Funding ($3.057 million) will also start northern New England’s 1st nursing Ph.D. software at the College of Maine (UMaine). At this time, fewer than 1% of nurses in the condition have a doctoral degree, but national accreditation criteria call for faculty to have a doctoral degree to educate master’s nursing courses and a master’s diploma to instruct bachelor’s amount nursing, restricting enrollment at all postsecondary nursing training courses and Maine’s manufacturing of new nurses. 

UMS has been functioning to deal with this. The College of Southern Maine (USM) presents a physician of nursing apply (DNP) degree plan, which is a observe doctorate, and the College of Maine at Fort Kent (UMFK) will launch a DNP software this yr. A nursing Ph.D. is deemed a research doctorate and is much more popular between nursing college. In its preliminary many years, the UMaine method would concentrate on recruitment of people who currently have bachelor’s and master’s nursing levels or a Ph.D. in another area, present some free tuition for enrolling in nursing courses at UMaine, UMA, UMFK and USM, and grow well being-relevant exploration that matters to Maine. 

One more award ($3.3 million) led by the flagship UMaine, which in 2022 turned the New England Hub of the Rural Schools Collaborative, will provide ongoing skilled enhancement, mentorship and other evidence-dependent help to far more than 200 rural educators. The objective of the statewide job, in which other UMS trainer preparation systems will also take part, is to make improvements to resilience and retention of rural educators and faculty leaders, and PK-12 student results. 

Additional cybersecurity experts will also be on the way to Maine businesses many thanks to $463,000 in FY24 CDS funding to establish out and equip USM’s cybersecurity operations centre classroom on its Gorham campus. When upgraded, the facility will present significant-affect, fingers-on schooling to university students and training specialists to discover how to mitigate the hazards of potential cyber-assaults on Maine citizens, businesses and communities. According to federal facts, employer demand from customers for cybersecurity workers is increasing at more than two times the overall jobs’ amount. 

UMS is the greatest producer of Maine’s experienced workforce, owning awarded 106,362 degrees because 2003, led by these for nursing/health care professions, organization, engineering and education. All CDS projects are aligned with Maine’s 10-calendar year economic system and the System’s new strategic program, right advancing its objectives associated to responsiveness to switching workforce desires, escalating doctoral education and serving as an motor for innovation for Maine companies. 

Constant with that, Sens. Collins and King also secured CDS for UMS through the Little Small business Administration. 

A person $2.4 million award led by UMaine will foster built-in UMS entrepreneurial and workforce improvement, modest enterprise incubation and market collaboration through the establishment of a exploration and innovation corridor headquartered at the Maine Center in downtown Portland. This initiative will advertise better access in southern Maine to world-course UMaine sources and foster organization and market partnerships with all UMS establishments. The Maine Middle is a signature initiative of the Harold Alfond Basis-funded UMS TRANSFORMS to supply interdisciplinary graduate education and learning and professional programming across business, legislation, plan, engineering and computing.

In the meantime, a $2 million award will empower the UMaine Aquaculture Study Institute’s development of a pilot-scale kelp nursery and aquaculture demonstration farm at the Darling Maritime Centre in Walpole. There, university researchers and sector associates will develop strategies of seeding and harvesting to maximize the produce and worth of Maine kelp. They will also do the job jointly to pioneer ground breaking techniques to make resiliency in kelp and shellfish aquaculture amid shifting climates and marketplaces. 

With programs which includes as food, fuel and fertilizer, kelp is regarded as a sector of the aquaculture marketplace with sturdy likely for development, and assist for its continued advancement was a priority of the Maine Aquaculture Roadmap 2022-2032

“The University of Maine, as the state’s flagship and community research college, is fully commited to partnering throughout the College of Maine System to transform Maine’s innovation workforce and construct financial possibilities for Maine,” reported UMS Vice Chancellor for Study and Innovation and UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy. “The successful management of Senator Collins, along with that of Senator King and Reps Pingree and Golden, in securing these investments in essential places for Maine will have long lasting effect on our condition. We are quite grateful and keen to progress all of these initiatives.”

Previously this thirty day period, UMS and Sen. Collins declared that the 1st spherical of FY24 federal spending budget bills incorporated $40.8 million for UMS infrastructure and innovation, mainly by way of UMaine, the state’s only institution to attain R1 Carnegie Classification, placing it amid the leading 146 large-accomplishing investigation universities in the nation.

Get hold of: Samantha Warren, [email protected]