March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Maine’s potential

The University of Maine has long been a state leader in research and development. It should continue in this role, but cannot given the starvation rations the state has pinched out to it. While Gov. King’s budget proposal calls for a modest increase in spending at the university over the next two years, when inflation is allowed for the increases amounting to a de facto cut, it can only result in more jobs lost and a decrease in the quality of the degree programs offered.

Compounding the funding problems, there is the image of the University of Maine. The negative publicity the athletic department has generated from the debacles of the last few years has only thrown poison in the wells in the minds of Maine’s citizens, not to mention the student body.

But the news is not all bad.

The faculty, which has become active through the tremendous leadership of Dr. George Jacobson, has presented figures which outline not only the desperation of the financial situation, but also illustrate the promise afforded by proper funding.

Maine has the potential to rise among the nation’s best state institutions of higher learning, if we are willing, as a state, to make the investment.

Already, programs such as the reinforced timber project and the sterling example of premium recruitment, academia, and placement provided by the Pulp and Paper Foundation, draw not only national but global attention. UMaine’s graduate program in forestry was recently ranked fourth in the nation, well ahead of academic luminaries like Berkeley and Yale, and right in league with other strong forestry schools including Oregon State and Washington.

The pulse is strong in the heart of Maine’s university, but it cannot be sustained much longer on the backs of students in the form of tuition hikes and obscure nickel-and-dime fees (including the out-of-pocket cost of a diploma), nor in flat funding for faculty research and salaries, nor in lost staff positions.

The state Legislature, of which I am a new member, has a duty to maintain and enhance the infrastructure of this state. Infrastructure includes a fair amount of hardware, including roads, piers, bridges and streetlights, but it also includes good schools, cooperation with municipalities in providing effective fire and police departments, and a host of services designed to protect our most vulnerable citizens from destitution when the bottom falls out.

Of all these functions, education is perhaps the most important, because it provides individuals with the tools they need in order to fulfill the promise of the Constitution — the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With ignorant minds our citizenry can only forfeit that promise. Rep. Matthew Dunlap D-District 121 Old Town


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