UMaine plans for new complex with $45M from Sen. Collins

ORONO, Maine (WABI) - Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says she has secured Maine’s largest federal award in history.

Collins, who is Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, calls the funding a “game changer” for the University of Maine and the future of Maine healthcare as the money will be used to create a new complex dedicated to health and life sciences.

“We are thrilled for so many reasons, very grateful to Senator Collins, and also aware that this lets the University of Maine, together with our partners across the University of Maine system, move forward to do even more to address the challenges of health care and rural health issues in the state of Maine,” University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy tells WABI. “The most important piece is that this would be part of a complex of facilities and buildings and labs and opportunities for learning that we’ll put together across our campus.”

This announcement coming just weeks after a study concluded that establishing a medical school on the Orono campus would not be financially feasible.

Ferrini-Mundy says the new complex could be the first step in creating a pathway.

“The idea of pathways toward being ready to help with rural health care and statewide health care are very important for the University of Maine. And the report does note that the University of Maine would be the institution at which to base a public medical school,” explains Ferrini-Mundy. “So yes, we will be able to think about how those pathways can be built out in the context of this complex of buildings. And we’ll be able to imagine being ready if and when the moment comes when we could propose a medical school.”

For Ferrini-Mundy, this funding allows UMaine to stay on the cutting edge, addressing current problems as they prepare the next generation of the workforce.

“We have a lot to offer here, particularly relative to the role of technology in health care, to the ways in which biomedical engineering can be a part of the future of health, and then, of course, the health care professionals that we prepare, like nurses, for the whole state,” Ferrini-Mundy describes. “As those strengths became more apparent, it was clear that we could help address a need that the state faces and as the land grant, that’s always our interest.”

Ferrini-Mundy says the University has preliminary plans as to where the new complex will be located on campus, but that will be decided in the coming weeks.