University of Southern Maine

The University of Southern Maine (USM) is a multi-campus public comprehensive university and part of the University of Maine System. USM's three primary campuses are located in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston in the U.S. state of Maine. Many courses and degree programs are also offered online. Originally founded as two separate universities (Gorham Normal School, University of Maine at Portland), the two state universities were combined in 1970 to help streamline the public university system in Maine and eventually expanded by adding the Lewiston campus in 1988. The Portland Campus is home to the Edmund Muskie School of Public Service along with the Bio Sciences Research Institute, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Osher Map Library, and the USM School of Business. The Gorham campus, much more residential, is home to the School of Education and Human Development and the School of Music.

USM is among the "Best Northeastern Colleges," according to The Princeton Review's 2007 listings, and was also included in its 2007 edition of "America's Best Value Colleges." As of 2012, USM had 7,500 undergraduate students and 2,320 graduate and law school students, with an average class size of 25 and a student-faculty ratio of 15:1. Recent controversial decisions by the university administration to cut programs and fire up to 50 faculty have led to student-led protests on the campus.

Evolving from Gorham Academy into an institution of higher education, USM originated in 1878 as Gorham Normal School, later called Gorham State Teachers College and then simply Gorham State College. In 1970 that institution merged with the University of Maine at Portland (previously Portland Junior College) and became the University of Maine at Portland-Gorham (UMPG). The name was changed to University of Southern Maine in 1978. The Lewiston-Auburn campus was founded in 1988. USM is a major educational engine in the overall growth and development of economic, civic, and cultural life in southern Maine. USM offers baccalaureate and master's degree programs as well as doctoral programs in Public Policy, and School Psychology.

At the beginning of 2014, administrators at USM announced that the university suddenly found itself in dire financial straits and would be announcing program closures and faculty layoffs, including of long-term just cause faculty and tenured faculty.

University of New England

The University of New England (UNE) is an independent, non-profit, coeducational university founded in 1831, with campuses in Biddeford, Maine, Portland, Maine, and online. The Biddeford campus sits on 540 acres, the Portland campus is 40 acres, and the Tangier Campus is 3.7 acres. During the 2012-2013 academic year, a total of 8,085 students were enrolled at UNE, of which 4,753 were undergraduate and 2,346 were graduate students. In 1977, UNE opened a medical school, the UNE College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is currently the only medical school in the state of Maine. In 2013, UNE opened the College of Dental Medicine, currently the only dental school in northern New England.

The university is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The medical school, the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, is also accredited by the American Osteopathic Association's Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation.

In 1939, a boys-only high school and junior college called the College Séraphique was founded in Biddeford by Father Decary and the Franciscan friar of St. Andre's parish.

In 1952, the school changed its name to St. Francis College and began granting bachelor's degrees with state approval in 1953. The high school program was phased out by 1961, and the college was first accredited in 1966.

The school became co-educational for the first time in 1967 and the Franciscans withdrew from the administration of the college in 1974.

To survive dropping enrollment, St. Francis College entered into an agreement with the New England Foundation for Osteopathic Medicine to establish the New England College of Osteopathic Medicine on the same campus, and in 1978 the two merged under the new name of the "University of New England". In 1996, Westbrook College merged with the University of New England. The merger took place under the terms of the original 1831 Westbrook charter, and the combined institutions became Westbrook College before changing the name back to the University of New England. The campus of the former Westbrook College is now known as the UNE Portland Campus.

In December 2010, the university received the largest gift in its history -- $10 million from the Harold Alfond Foundation to build the Harold Alfond Forum on the Biddeford Campus, and to support interprofessional healthcare workforce education.

Bates College

Bates College is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. The college was founded in 1855 by prominent abolitionists and established with funds from the estate of Benjamin E. Bates. It was originally chartered by Oren Burbank Cheney, to teach moral philosophy, theology, and the classics, it expanded to encompass a liberal arts curriculum shortly after. Historically, the college was known for its social inclusivity and academic rigor which lead it to become the second oldest coeducational college in United States and the oldest in the Eastern United States.

The provides undergraduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. It offers 36 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors and 25 secondary concentrations. Bates currently enrolls 1,773 students, 200 of whom study abroad each semester, making it the smallest in the NESCAC. It operates on a 4–4–1 academic calendar. This includes two semesters, plus a Short Term consisting of five weeks in the Spring. The college has a 10:1 student-faculty ratio and the average class size is about fifteen students. The college is often referred to as one of the Little Ivies. Bates, under the direction of its first president, rejected fraternities and sororities on grounds of unwarranted exclusivity. It offers a Liberal Arts-Engineering Dual Degree Program with Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The main Bates campus is located near the Androscoggin River, in Lewiston.The overall architectural design of the college can be traced through the Colonial Revival architecture movement, and has distinctive Neoclassical, Georgian, and Gothic features.  In addition to its central campus, the college also owns an 80-acre coastal studies center in Shortridge and the 600-acre Bates Morse Mountain in Phippsburg, Maine. The campus provides 33 Colonial and Victorian Houses, 9 residential halls,  and a residential village for all class years. There is also a private museum, multi-faith chapel, and a concert hall.

Outside of academic studies, students compete intercollegiately as the Bobcats in the NCAA Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference. Bates has historically had a close relationship and rivalry with Bowdoin College, and later began an athletic rivalry with Colby College forming the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium. The students and alumni of Bates are well known for preserving a variety of strong campus traditions and activities.

Colby College

Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine, USA. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States. Colby was the first all-male college in New England to accept female students in 1871.

Approximately 1,800 students from more than 60 countries are enrolled annually. The college offers 54 major fields of study and 30 minors. The 2016 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes it as 'most selective' and rates it tied for the 19th best liberal arts college in the nation.  More than two thirds of Colby students participate in study abroad programs. Colby College competes in the NESCAC conference.

On February 27, 1813, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted a petition to establish the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, the 33rd chartered college in the United States. The petition was led by Baptists who had come to the region for missionary work, and who wanted to train their own ministers, to end the reliance on England for providing men of learning. From 1816-1818, the new institution found a home in Waterville on 179 acres of land donated by citizens. In 1818, trustees assigned the institution to Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, a Baptist theologian. Chaplin arrived in Waterville in the summer of 1818 with his family and seven students, including George Dana Boardman, the institution's first graduate. They were put up in a vacant Waterville home, and in that home the first classes were held.

After Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820, the first Maine legislature affirmed the Massachusetts charter for the institution, but made significant changes. Students could no longer be denied admission based on religion, the institution was prohibited from applying a religious test when selecting board members, and the trustees now had the authority to grant degrees. A turning point, the Maine Literary and Theological Institution was renamed Waterville College on February 5, 1821. In 1822, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who would become a celebrated martyr to emancipation and to freedom of the press, graduated as valedictorian. In 1825, the theological department was discontinued. In 1828 the trustees decided to turn the somewhat informal preparatory department of the college into a separate school, to which was given the name Waterville Academy (most recently called the Coburn Classical Institute.

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College is a private liberal arts college located in Brunswick, Maine. Founded in 1794, the college currently enrolls 1,839 students, and has been coeducational since 1971. Bowdoin offers 33 majors and four additional minors, and has a student–faculty ratio of 9:1.

Bowdoin was ranked as the fourth-best liberal arts college in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankings, and 21st on Forbes ranking in 2016.

The main Bowdoin campus is located near Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River, 12 miles north of Freeport, Maine, and 18 miles north of Portland, Maine. In addition to its Brunswick campus, Bowdoin also owns a 118-acre coastal studies center on Orr's Island and a 200-acre scientific field station on Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy.

Bowdoin College was chartered in 1794 by the Massachusetts State Legislature and was later redirected under the jurisdiction of the Maine Legislature. It was named for former Massachusetts governor James Bowdoin, whose son James Bowdoin III was an early benefactor. At the time of its founding, it was the easternmost college in the United States, as it was located in Maine.

Bowdoin began to develop in the 1820s, a decade in which Maine became an independent state as a result of the Missouri Compromise and the college graduated numerous literary philosophers such as writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both of whom graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1825.

From its founding, Bowdoin was known to educate the sons of the politically elite and "catered very largely to the wealthy from the state of Maine." With the establishment of Bates College in nearby Lewiston, Bowdoin has historically competed with the school academically, and athletically, due to the natural rivalry that grew out of the stark difference between the two colleges, specifically regarding wealth, admissions, and academic platforms.  Many alumni of Bowdoin subsequently went on to develop Bates during the 1860's and alumni of Bates lectured at Bowdoin. During the first half of the 19th century, Bowdoin required of its students a certificate of "good moral character" as well as knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek, geography, algebra and the major works of Cicero, Xenophon, Virgil and Homer.

University of Maine

The University of Maine (also referred to as UMaine) is a public research university located in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. Having an enrollment of approximately 11,000 students, UMaine is the largest university in the state and is the only institution in Maine classified as a research university (RU/H) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The University of Maine's athletic teams are nicknamed the Black Bears and they are Maine's only Division I athletics program.

University of Maine was founded in 1862 as a function of the Morrill Act, signed by President Lincoln. Established in 1865 and originally named the Maine College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, the Maine College opened on September 21, 1868, changing its name to the University of Maine in 1897.

By 1871, curricula had been organized in Agriculture, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and electives. The Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station was founded as a division of the university in 1887. Gradually the university developed the Colleges of Life Sciences and Agriculture (later to include the School of Forest Resources and the School of Human Development), Engineering and Science, and Arts and Sciences. In 1912 the Maine Cooperative Extension, which offers field educational programs for both adults and youths, was initiated. The School of Education was established in 1930 and received college status in 1958. The School of Business Administration was formed in 1958 and was granted college status in 1965. Women have been admitted into all curricula since 1872. The first master's degree was conferred in 1881; the first doctor's degree in 1960. Since 1923 there has been a separate graduate school.

Near the end of the 19th century, the curriculum was expanded to place greater emphasis on liberal arts. As a function of this shift in focus new faculty hired during the early 20th century included Caroline Colvin, chair of the history department, and the first woman in the nation to head a major university department.

In 1906, The Senior Skull Honor Society was founded to "publicly recognize, formally reward, and continually promote outstanding leadership and scholarship, and exemplary citizenship within the University of Maine community."

On April 16, 1925, 80 women met in Balentine Hall — faculty, alumnae, and undergraduate representatives — to plan a pledging of members to a new honorary organization. This organization was called "The All Maine Women" because only those women closely connected with the University of Maine were elected as members. On April 22, 1925, the new members were inducted into the honor society.

When the University of Maine System was incorporated, the school was renamed by the legislature over the objections of the faculty to the University of Maine at Orono (or UMO). This was changed back to the University of Maine in 1986.