The American University in Bulgaria, founded with the help of the University of Maine, struggles to find footing in Bulgaria’s swirling transition to democracy and capitalism. Despite some failures, it is an ambitious and noble experiment in education. Sometimes, it even works.

AUBG was established in 1991 through the efforts of Bulgarians, U.S. government officials and many people at UMaine, who provided guidance on the overall organization of the university, hirings, courses, library services, textbooks and everything else necessary to get AUBG up and running. It wasn’t a perfect beginning, but it was miraculous that it happened at all.

The challenges have not stopped since its founding. AUBG has tried to balance the goal of bringing the best aspects of a liberal-arts education with the need to pay its bills, while keeping democracy-minded students from taking over the administration. A temporary return to power of the former Communist Party, a collapsing economy, food shortages, court cases, high faculty turnover and a near-absence of U.S. interest in this small nation have made AUBG’s future look even more uncertain. As the stories by NEWS reporter Susan Young in today’s newspaper illustrate, AUBG is now at a crossroads. And, once again, UMaine can help.

One of the most important items UMaine contributed to AUBG was its accreditation through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which tells U.S. companies and graduate schools in particular that AUBG students meet the requirements necessary to earn a degree at a good U.S. university. Now AUBG has begun on the path to its own accreditation through NEASC, and just as UMaine has eased away from making hiring and curriculum decisions at AUBG, the accreditation step cuts another link between the two universities.

Ways Maine can help

But even as AUBG becomes more independent, there are at least three areas where UMaine can lend a hand, although these are also areas, not coincidentally, that need strengthening at UMaine.

Professors complain bitterly about the hiring process at AUBG, and, at times, for good reason. The Bulgarian university needs a clearer process for searching, interviewing and hiring, especially for administrators. Helping to put a new, formal process into place could allow AUBG to cast a wider net when looking for applicants and certainly would help the morale of AUBG faculty members, many of whom distrust the current process.

A significant disappointment about AUBG is how little attention it garners within the University of Maine System. Only a few faculty and students from Maine have gone to AUBG, which, whatever its shortcomings, offers a splendid education about life in transition in Eastern Europe. UMaine needs to promote AUBG more vigorously within the Maine system — and beyond.

UMaine, naturally, is better known than AUBG in the United States and could be a more effective advocate with other universities. Regular and enthusiastic recommendations from UMaine could attract more Americans to AUBG and help reduce a third problem.

Money. The bottom line on AUBG is that it needs to raise $1.5 million to $2 million more per year in private funds if it is to stay in business over the long term. That is an entirely different scale than its current fund-raising goals, which are $100,000 in Bulgaria for the year and $400,000 from all other private sources.

Bulgaria is slowly being populated by major American corporations. Price Waterhouse is there, so are Coopers & Lybrand, Arthur Anderson and Deloitte & Touche. And these corporations are hiring AUBG graduates because they recognize their skills. Yet the donations with which these businesses in turn support an obviously fragile AUBG are a pittance — $3,500 from one; $5,000 from another. That is not even enough to fund a single student for a year. UMaine could help by encouraging its friends in the corporate-gifts sections of interested companies to dig a little deeper.

The University of Maine took a tremendous risk when it decided to join in the experiment to bring a liberal-arts education and democratic ideals to Bulgaria. The experiment is not over and, with luck, will not be over for many years to come. It is clear, however, that AUBG must free itself from its frenzied beginnings to grow as an institution. That means more painful changes ahead for AUBG.

Current and potential faculty, students and donors need reassurance that AUBG is going to exist and be well-run in the future. UMaine, which took on an important role in seeing the Bulgarian university born, could step in again to help it grow up.