The University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMaine Presque Isle or UMPI) is a

public college A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national universit ...

in Presque Isle, Maine. It is part of the

University of Maine System The University of Maine System (UMaine System or UMS) is a state university system in the U.S. state of Maine. It was created in 1968 by the Maine Legislature and consists of eight institutions, each with a distinct mission and regional charact ...

and one of two University of Maine System schools in

Aroostook County Aroostook County ( ; french: Comté d'Aroostook) is a county in the U.S. state of Maine along the Canada–U.S. border. As of the 2020 census, the population was 67,105. Its county seat is Houlton, with offices in Caribou and Fort Kent. ...

(the other being the

University of Maine at Fort Kent The University of Maine at Fort Kent (UMaine Fort Kent or UMFK) (French: ''Université du Maine à Fort Kent)'' is a public college in Fort Kent, Maine. It is the northernmost campus of the University of Maine System. It is an academic center ...

History

The college began in 1903 as Aroostook State Normal School which offered a two-year teacher preparation program. It has undergone four name changes since then: The Aroostook State Teachers College in 1952; The Aroostook State College in 1965; The Aroostook State College of the University of Maine when it joined the new

in 1968; and finally the University of Maine at Presque Isle in 1971. UMPI's wind turbine began generating clean energy in late spring 2009 after the university reached an agreement with general contractor Lumus Construction Inc. on a $2 million project to install a 600-

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

on the campus. This agreement established UMPI as the first college or university in the state and one of only a handful in New England to install a midsize wind turbine, according to officials. The wind turbine produces about 1 million

kilowatt-hour A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common b ...

s of electricity per year and saves the institution more than $100,000 annually in electricity charges and saves an estimated 572 tons of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is t ...

from being released into the atmosphere each year. In January 2015, officials from the Foundation of the University of Maine at Presque Isle announced their completion of efforts to completely divest from all fossil fuels on campus. This effort began in fall 2013 and ended in November 2014. UMPI installed a 999 voltage solar panel array on the roof of its major classroom buildings Folsom and Pullen Halls as well as a biomass boiler and

heat pump A heat pump is a device that can heat a building (or part of a building) by transferring thermal energy from the outside using a refrigeration cycle. Many heat pumps can also operate in the opposite direction, cooling the building by removing ...

technology inside those buildings. In October 2020, the college announced its first master's degree, a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in Organizational Leadership.

Academics

UMPI currently offers 1 master's degree program, 22 baccalaureate degree programs, 7 associate degrees, 40 minor programs, and 5 certificate programs. The institution began using a proficiency-based model for certain programs in 2018. It also began allowing students who would otherwise fail a course to re-do material to ensure they pass. The college received a $2.25 million grant to add programs in computer science and health administration in 2019.

Online learning

Through the YourPace competency-based education program, UMPI offers self-paced

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" ...

baccalaureate programs. In 2020 UMPI added its first masters program, a Masters in Organizational Leadership, through YourPace. Separately from YourPace, UMPI also offers three semester-based online bachelor's degrees. UMPI's OpenU program allows learners of all ages to take specific online and on-site course for free if they are not currently enrolled in a degree program.

Northern Maine Museum of Science

The Northern Maine Museum of Science began in the early 1970s on the UMPI campus. The long

solar system model Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called '' orreries'', that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, the ...

is one of the largest in the world. Folsom Hall encompasses the Sun of this model and it ends with

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

, just outside

Houlton, Maine Houlton is a town in Aroostook County, Maine, on the Canada–United States border. As of the 2020 census, the town's population was 6,055. It is perhaps best known for being at the northern terminus of Interstate 95 and as the birthplace of S ...

Student life

Athletics

UMPI has 12 varsity sport programs and is a member of

NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their ...

and in the fall of 2018 joined the

North Atlantic Conference The North Atlantic Conference (NAC) is an athletic conference, affiliated with the NCAA ’s Division III, consisting primarily of small liberal arts colleges in the Northern New England states of Maine and Vermont, as well as New York. Th ...

. The college previously competed in the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its stu ...

(NAIA) and in the

United States Collegiate Athletic Association The United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) is a national organization for the intercollegiate athletic programs of 72 mostly small colleges, including community/ junior colleges, across the United States. The USCAA holds 15 natio ...

as part of the

Sunrise Athletic Conference The Sunrise Athletic Conference was a college athletic conference founded in 2002 and affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Its member institutions were in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. Histo ...

Men's and women's sports include: Cross-Country

Running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This i ...

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

Nordic Skiing Nordic skiing encompasses the various types of skiing in which the toe of the ski boot is fixed to the binding in a manner that allows the heel to rise off the ski, unlike alpine skiing, where the boot is attached to the ski from toe to heel. ...

(governed by the

USCSA The United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA) is the sports federation for collegiate skiing and snowboarding in the United States. With over 180 member colleges, the USCSA fields some 5,000 men and women, alpine, Nordic, fr ...

). Male only sports include:

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

and

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

. Women only sports:

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

and

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

. In addition, the university also hosts a variety of intramural sports and one club sport,

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...

. The University Ice Hockey Club Team was the first team to play in the Alfond Arena against the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a public land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. It is classifie ...

Black Bears losing 4–3 on February 4, 1977. The 1979

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

team won the Northern

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

Wrestling Championship, and the 1978 Women's

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

team won the Maine State Championships. The school's sports teams are called the

Owls Owls are birds from the Order (biology), order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly Solitary animal, solitary and Nocturnal animal, nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vi ...

and team colors are

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

."Athletics Home"
UMPI. Accessed 2009-03-04. :

Greek life

UMPI is the location of chapters of

Kappa Delta Phi Kappa Delta Phi (), also known as KDPhi, is a social fraternity that was founded on April 14, 1900, at the Bridgewater State Normal School, now known as Bridgewater State University. The fraternity currently boasts 14 active chapters. A sorori ...

National Fraternity, Kappa Delta Phi National Sorority, and Phi Eta Sigma National Academic Fraternity.

Notable faculty and alumni

Faculty

* Caroline D. Gentile – Associate Professor Emeritus of Physical Education; longest-serving faculty member of the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

Alumni

* Mabel Desmond – Class of 1964, served four terms in the

Maine House of Representatives The Maine House of Representatives is the lower house of the Maine Legislature. The House consists of 151 voting members and three nonvoting members. The voting members represent an equal number of districts across the state and are elected via ...

, from 1994 to 2002 * James "Chico" Hernandez – Class of 1979, USA National Champion, FIAS World Cup Vice-Champion in

Sambo , aka = Sombo (in English-speaking countries) , focus = Hybrid , country = Soviet Union , pioneers = Viktor Spiridonov, Vasili Oshchepkov, Anatoly Kharlampiev , famous_pract = List of Practitioners , olymp ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

, featured on a box of Wheaties *

John Lisnik John Lisnik (December 19, 1946 – April 24, 2020) was an American politician and administrator in the University of Maine System. In 1980, Lisnik was elected to the Maine House of Representatives as a Democrat, replacing retiring Republican ...

– Class of 1972, served in the Maine House of Representatives. * John Tuttle – served in the Maine House of Representatives. *

Tyler Clark Tyler A. Clark is an American politician from Maine. A Republican, Clark served in the Maine House of Representatives from 2008 until 2014. He ran unsuccessfully in 2006. He earned a B.A. from the University of Maine at Presque Isle The Un ...

- Maine House of Representatives for the 6th District.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maine at Presque Isle, University of Educational institutions established in 1903 Presque Isle University of Maine at Presque Isle Universities and colleges in Aroostook County, Maine USCAA member institutions 1903 establishments in Maine Univesrsity of Maine Presque