UMFK set for accreditation team

FORT KENT – It’s been a decade in coming, and a visit by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation team to the University of Maine at Fort Kent next month will nearly culminate months of work on the campus by faculty, staff and students.

The accreditation decision by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Learning won’t be known until May or June 2006, but the team visit Nov. 6 to 9 is a major part of the overall process.

The visit follows a two-year self-study process on campus. The self-study effort has resulted in a 100-page report submitted to NEASC a couple of months ago.

“We are very well-prepared,” UMFK President Richard Cost reported at the quarterly meeting of the UMFK Board of Visitors on Friday morning. “We are in good shape.”

Cost said UMFK should receive an initial report of the team visit by December.

The accreditation effort is done once every 10 years.

Cost also brought the board up to date on the campus’ Strategic Plan approved by the UMS board of trustees last June. A full plan is going to the trustees in December.

The UMFK Strategic Plan was approved by the Board of Visitors last April, and a unanimous vote Friday reinforced their support.

Cost said the plan has goals and a score card for UMFK. The plan also outlines the campus’ effort to bring the student population to 1,150. The campus now has 925 students.

The consortium – UMFK, University of Maine at Presque Isle and University of Maine at Machias – is also working well he reported. The three campuses, which are the smallest campuses in the UMaine system, have been meeting and working on economic and academic areas where they can, and in some instances have been working together.

One of those areas is in the hiring of a development director for the three institutions.

Cost reported that enrollment this fall was up 10 percent, and that makes growth at the campus 38 percent over the last three years.

Finally, Cost said efforts are being increased by the UMFK Foundation to bring in more donated dollars to the campus. He expects that donations will double this year through the efforts.

Cost will be going to France this coming week as part of a Maine-France delegation that includes Gov. John Baldacci.

“That will open up the doors for our students to attend academic programs there,” Cost said. “That will be an encouragement to our students.

“I will also tell them that UMFK and Fort Kent is a good destination for French students,” he said. “Here they can speak French to conduct everyday business anywhere in town.”

Tamara Mitchell, UMFK’s executive director of human resources and affirmative action, brought the board up to date on a UMS one-stop concept for students looking for a place for their higher education.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Mitchell brought visitors through the efforts made in the last couple of years. She explained technological changes, and the redesign of processes to assist students in making their experience a faster one.

She said the effort will create one-stop student service centers on each campus.

The entire effort is expected to be online for the fall of 2006.