Editor’s note: Kathryn Olmstead of Caribou wrote the following letter in support of the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s grant applications for Upward Bound funding from the United States Department of Education. The applications were recently deemed noncompliant due to a minor formatting error.
Dear Secretary DeVos:
I am writing to call your attention to an urgent request from the Maine Congressional Delegation for your assistance in securing a reading of two Upward Bound grant applications essential to the continuation of services for students and schools in an economically deprived region of northern Maine.
Submitted by the University of Maine at Presque Isle, the grant application numbers are:
P047A170346 for the Aroostook County Central Grant AND P047A170352 for the North-South Consortium Grant.
Since 1980, the programs funded by these grants have given high school students from low-income households access to college-preparatory services they would not otherwise have, greatly enhancing their potential for long-term success in higher education and in the workforce.
The technical error that caused the Department of Education to remove these applications from the pool to be read was minor: the line-spacing on two info-graphics was 1.5 instead of 2.0, as specified in the instructions. The two figures containing the error represent less than one and a half pages of the 65-page application.
Without them the application would be compliant. They were included to facilitate review of the text, but are supplemental to a thorough narrative that will not be reviewed at all without your intervention.
I cannot over emphasize the proven value of these programs for deserving young people who need all the encouragement they can get to seek higher education. It would be tragic that students in the next five years might lose opportunities their predecessors have enjoyed.
Please honor the request of Senators Susan M. Collins and Angus King, Jr. and Representatives Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin by allowing the Department to read and score the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Upward Bound grant applications.
Kathryn Olmstead
Associate Professor Emerita
University of Maine
