BANGOR – Nearly four months into her new job as dean of the University College of Bangor, Gillian Jordan is trying to get a feel for the place.

“I’m still looking through filing cabinets to find where everything is,” she told the Bangor Daily News editorial board this week.

But Jordan is perfectly clear about what she wants for the approximately 1,000-student school that’s affiliated with the University of Maine at Augusta.

“One goal is to make the campus more visible within the community and to help people in the Bangor area and beyond understand that we are here and that we are a very vibrant educational institution,” said Jordan, who plans to speak to community groups and others as part of an enhanced outreach initiative.

“I think we haven’t always been as good as we could have been at bringing attention to the campus and showing the public what we do and what we do well,” said the new dean, a former English professor who joined UCB in 1984.

Created nearly 30 years ago, UCB enrolls mostly nontraditional students who have no family history of college. The school is seen as a “stepping stone to a bachelor’s degree,” said Jordan. Students like the idea that they can earn an associate degree and then “go into the work force and come back” to earn a four-year degree.

The campus has been in the spotlight since the University of Maine System’s reorganization plan was issued last year, causing an uproar in part because it recommended the consolidation of the University of Maine at Augusta and the University of Southern Maine but didn’t specifically mention UCB.

But that omission may have been a good thing “because it brought attention to the campus,” said Jordan. “In sort of a roundabout way it’s helped us clarify our goals and educate the community about what we do.”

The proposed consolidation is on hold pending a Dec. 1 report by a task force created by Gov. John Baldacci and charged with recommending to the Legislature the best way to provide higher education in central Maine.

Jordan, who is a member of the task force, would like to see the school remain affiliated with the Augusta campus. “We’ve been with UMA for 10 years and we have a similar mission and student body,” she said.

A draft report is expected to be released at a public forum at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at UCB’s Student Center.

UCB could receive even more visibility if voters approve a Nov. 8 bond proposal that would provide $1 million to renovate UCB’s Camden Hall for a graduate school for biomedical research that would be affiliated with The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and the MDI Biological Laboratory on Mount Desert Island.

Jordan called it “too premature” to speculate about how specifically UCB would be involved, but said, “hopefully we’d be a center for their activities.”

Down the road she’d also like to see the creation of on-campus housing and the expansion of programs so more students could be served.

With UCB’s future yet to be defined, Jordan said she’s happy to be able to help chart a course for the school.

“It’s exciting to be part of such a vibrant campus that I believe in so strongly,” she said.