Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Native American students now have 750,000 reasons to consider attending the University of Maine at Presque Isle over the next four years, following a joint announcement by officials at UMPI and the New England Resource Center for Higher Education that the university has been awarded a major grant from the Nellie Mae Foundation.
Staff photo/Kathy McCarty
WITH PAPERWORK SIGNED, A HEARTY HANDSHAKE between UMPI President Don Zillman, at left, and Glenn Gabbard, associate director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and the director of Project Compass, put the finishing touches on the announcement recently that the University has been awarded a major grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. The funds, totaling $750,000 over four years, will allow UMPI to develop and improve culturally responsive retention strategies for Native American students.
The award allows the University to receive up to $750,000 over the next four years to better serve its Native American student population as well as the region’s Native American community, providing funds to develop and improve culturally responsive retention strategies through a program called Project Compass. UMPI was one of just four colleges or universities selected to receive the money. The other three Project Compass grant awardees are Lyndon State College in Vermont, Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts and Eastern Connecticut State University.
“We wanted to develop a project that would really challenge — create a deep structural and cultural basis,” said Glenn Gabbard, associate director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and the director of Project Compass, who was on hand at UMPI recently to take part in a signing ceremony, finalizing paperwork for the award.
Gabbard said the funds will be used to improve retention rates for underrepresented populations graduating with four-year degrees, including students from low-income families, those of color or students who are the first in their family to attend college. Of the four institutes of higher education to receive the funding, UMPI has the highest number of Native American students enrolled.
“With 65 Native American students, UMPI has the highest percentage of such students of all the University of Maine System campuses,” said UMPI President Don Zillman.
Gabbard said he was excited about UMPI’s work and “its commitment to bring people together at various levels to benefit those in the area, particularly Maliseet and Micmac students.”
“This is important to a regional and national audience,” said Gabbard. “Congratulations.”
UMPI will receive $158,000 the first year and is in line to receive three more years of funding up to a total of $750,000, with second-phase grants contingent on the University’s yearly progress on objectives developed with the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians on this project.
UMPI will use its grant funding to develop strategies that assist Native American students in transitioning from the native community to the university community, as well as develop their life tools to help them achieve their goals within the dominant culture and their own. The proposal’s key strategies are:
• Creation of a Native American Center staffed with a retention team;
• Data management ad evidence development;
• Review of academic affairs and curriculum to offer more effective support to marginalized students; and
• Reconfiguration of the roles of student support and advising.
The project will be conducted under the University’s Center for University Programs and be informed by a permanent Native American Advisory Board. The funding the University is receiving from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation is designed specifically for purposes that meet the objectives of this grant project.
In October 2007, UMPI received an initial Project Compass grant of $100,000 to support a year of planning and capacity building. Upon completion of that planning year, UMPI submitted a grant proposal to move into Phase II of the Project Compass initiative.
“Project Compass is designed to respond to a critical national need, focusing on innovative practices in four state colleges and universities in New England. It is our hope that the leadership already exhibited at our four funded campuses will contribute to narrowing the achievement gaps” for this specific group of students, said Gabbard. “UMPI’s work is an excellent example of an institution that is willing to take a serious look at changing what it does for underserved students so that all students that it serves will benefit.”
Zillman looks forward to seeing the project advance.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to be moving forward on this important project, which will greatly impact our teaching and mentoring work and really help to shape our students’ future educational experiences,” Zillman said. “The particular focus of our Project Compass work is Native American students, but the benefits from Project Compass will help us in all underserved communities. We are honored to be a New England leader in this effort.”
