Courtesy / University of Maine System
This map shows educational and health care sites that will receive funding through the $1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant announced on Tuesday.
Updated: March 24, 2021
UMaine System gets $2M for grad center, distance learning, telemedicine
Courtesy/University of Maine Sytem
An aerial view of the University of Southern Maine campus shows the cylindrical law school building in the foreground.
The University of Maine Graduate & Professional Center on Tuesday announced a $2 million boost in the form of a $1 million gift to the center, and a $1 million federal grant to the University of Maine System to support distance learning and telemedicine in rural areas.
The $1 million donation, from University of Southern Maine alumni Bobby Monks and Bonnie Porta, supports the grad center's mission to prepare future leaders through interdisciplinary, experiential and market-driven education. The center does that through programs in law, business, policy and public health.
“The complex problems facing the world today — climate change, immigration, poverty, and the super-high pace of technological change — demand complex solutions with deep roots in public policy, the law, and business,” said Monks, a Cape Elizabeth-based entrepreneur who also serves on the Maine Center Ventures board of directors and co-chairs of the Maine Center campaign.
"The Maine Center is where these disciplines will come together and push us further toward solutions, generating an outsized impact on Maine’s economy," he added.
James Erwin, a partner at Portland law firm Pierce Atwood who chairs the University of Maine System board of trustees, said, "Bobby Monks and Bonnie Porta are key leaders in our work to provide the people of Maine with a world-class, 21st-century system of higher public education. We are extremely grateful for their support."
The $1 million gift pushes fundraising into the final phase to match a $7.5 million Harold Alfond Foundation challenge grant announced in 2017.
More recently, the foundation pledged $500 million to Maine schools and charitable organizations, of which $240 million will go to Maine's six public universities.
USDA funding
The $1 million grant, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was also announced Tuesday. It was secured in partnership with all of Maine's public universities, the University of Maine School of Law, the Maine Graduate & Professional Center and Northern Light Health.
It will boost distance learning for graduate and professional education, as well as access to telemedicine in 11 rural counties.
Specifically, the money will go towards technology improvements at 42 locations across the state, consisting of 31 web conferencing and 16 telemedicine service systems, linking hubs in Bangor and Portland to 39 hub and end-user sites in 11 Maine counties.
The University of Maine School of Nursing will work in collaboration with health partners from Northern Light Health, Penobscot Community Health Centers, Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital, and Phoenix Direct Care to enhance telehealth academic training for bachelor's degree, master's degree and nurse practitioner students.
Patient monitoring equipment, including portable smart scales, cardiac and blood pressure monitors, and web conferencing technology, will also be installed at Penobscot Community Health Center at Belfast, Winterport, Brewer, Old Town and Bangor, as well as Phoenix Direct Care in Caribou and the UMaine School of Nursing.
That equipment will allow vulnerable patients to be monitored at home, expand specialty care into rural regions, and connect university nursing, social work and occupational therapy students with current providers.
“If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that we need to be ready and able to provide health care in new and unique ways, and telemedicine is now the price of admission," said Robert Schlager, vice president and senior physician executive at Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital and Northern Light Inland Hospital.
"These investments will not only improve our patients’ access to care, but the quality of their care,” he added.
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