UMA president stepping down to lead Maine Public Employees Retirement System

File photo / Courtesy, University of Maine at Augusta Rebecca Wyke, president of the University of Maine at Augusta, will leave to become CEO of the Maine Public Employees Retirement System, which is also based in Augusta.

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By Renee Cordes

After four years as president of the University of Maine at Augusta, Rebecca Wyke will leave at the end of the summer to become the next CEO of the Maine Public Employee Retirement System, according to a news release Thursday.

Without giving a timeframe for finding a successor, the University of Maine System said Chancellor Dannel Malloy will soon seek input on the decision from the school's community.

Wyke joined the University of Maine System as vice chancellor for finance and administration in 2008. She served as interim president for the University of Maine in Augusta in 2015-16 and was appointed to the position for a three-year-term in 2017. At that time, she told Mainebiz in an interview that her new job at that time "feels very much like coming home."

Wyke was reappointed to her post in 2019.

In her parting message this week to the university, Wyke said the University of Maine at Augusta "is a vibrant and caring, learning community and I will deeply miss being a part of it" and said it has a bright future.

"You are in good hands with the leadership team, and have the best faculty and staff to carry UMA’s mission forward," she added.

Malloy said, "Dr. Rebecca Wyke is a committed public servant and a caring higher education leader who has always put the interests of her students, faculty, and staff first.

"The University of Maine System and the University of Maine at Augusta have benefited greatly from President Wyke's leadership. I wish Becky continued success as she takes on leadership of the agency charged with planning for and protecting the retirement of Maine's dedicated civil service workforce."

Besides its main campus in the state's capital, the University of Maine at Augusta has eight regional centers, 32 "receive sites" and online programs. It is one of seven public universities that make up the Maine system, which in 2020 became the country's first statewide higher education system to transition to a unified accreditation.

The UMaine System serves more than 30,000 students a year and employs 2,000 full- and part-time faculty members, more than 3,000 regular staff and a complement of part-time temporary adjunct faculty.

In leading the Maine Public Employees Retirement System, Wyke will succeed Sandra J. Matheson, who will remain in an advisory capacity through the end of the year to help in the transition and to complete some legislative projects, that organization said in a separate announcement.

Wyke holds a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, and has master of public administration and bachelor of arts degrees from the University of Maine.