AUGUSTA – The Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine is launching a design competition for an educational center to be built at the University of Maine at Augusta, the center’s executive director said Tuesday.

Sharon Nichols announced the competition a day after University of Maine System trustees approved the plan to allow the $1.5 million center as an addition to the Bennett D. Katz Library. It will be funded privately.

Nichols said she is contacting architecture schools, architecture online magazines and members of the Maine chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The guidelines will be posted online Sunday.

Already, $975,000 has been raised for the 5,000- to 6,000-foot Education Resource Center, she said.

The capital campaign got a boost from a $500,000 donation from Phyllis Jalbert, a New Yorker who grew up in Fort Kent, who gave the money in remembrance of her late husband, Michael Klahr.

The Education Resource Center will be named for Klahr, a child survivor of the Holocaust. During World War II, he was hidden in France after his father was shot and his mother was deported, never to be seen again.