More Funding Urged for Higher Education ; University and Community College System Leaders Address the Legislature.

By A.J. HIGGINS Blethen Maine News Service

Access to Maine’s higher education institutions has improved dramatically in recent years for high school graduates, but the state’s two top higher education leaders insisted Thursday that more must be done to meet future economic challenges.

Addressing a joint session of the Legislature, University of Maine System Chancellor Terrence MacTaggart and Maine Community College System President John Fitzsimmons urged lawmakers to increase the state’s investment in higher education.

They also endorsed the continued “partnership” between the Legislature and the institutions as a key strategy to greater economic growth and job creation.

“We are proud of the quality and value found among our universities,” MacTaggart said, “but we have to do better. In the globally competitive economy, it is not just the educated who prevail; it is the best educated.”

Fitzsimmons, who is pushing hard this year for $20.3 million in additional community college funding and a $30 million infrastructure bond, was more direct in making his case.

“Maine employers need 6,000 workers each year with the skills earned at the community college level, but we only have the capacity to graduate about 2,000 of those students,” he said.

In what has become known informally as their “state of higher education address,” the leaders of the university and community college systems have sometimes laid out their agendas for the upcoming two-year budget cycle.

On Thursday, however, MacTaggart and Fitzsimmons made personal points about their profession – at times, passionately.

MacTaggart was chancellor from 1996 to 2004 and has been interim chancellor for the past year, since Joseph Westphal stepped down. He said the best hopes for the state’s economy can be realized by investments in the university system and university-based research- and-development programs.

MacTaggart said many outstanding Mainers have been state university students at one time or another, including 75 current members of the Legislature.

“No matter what the reason or motivation, these students work hard, they persevere and they succeed,” he said. “They reflect our state’s promise and potential. In fact, they become Maine. They deserve the highest quality of education we can provide.”

MacTaggart also emphasized the need for the state’s policymakers to “create a more seamless network” among high schools, the seven community college campuses and seven university campuses by encouraging partnerships through programs linking all three.

He was particularly enthusiastic about “Early College, Advanced Placement and Academ-e programs,” which provide a reinforcing head start for motivated high school students who are eager to begin their postsecondary education before their graduation.

Fitzsimmons, beginning his 18th year at the helm of what has evolved into the community college system, devoted a significant portion of his address to advances made by the system since 2003, a period in which:

Enrollment has increased 47 percent.

The number of students enrolling directly from high school has increased 57 percent.

Transfers of students from the community college system to the state university system has increased 40 percent.

Fitzsimmons said the evolution from vocational-technical institutes to vocational-technical colleges to the community college system speaks for itself.

“We built it, and they came,” he said.

Citing last year’s findings by the Governor’s Community College Advisory Council, Fitzsimmons said the demand of the business sector is outstripping the community college system’s ability to deliver skilled workers. He said a recent Maine State Chamber of Commerce report indicated that 55 percent of employers were having difficulty finding properly trained and educated employees.

Meanwhile, some colleges have lacked class space for those seeking specific fields of study. Fitzsimmons said that this year, Southern Maine Community College turned away 1,100 applicants for its health sciences programs and another 450 for its technical programs.

“The need for our graduates to support our economy will continue to grow,” Fitzsimmons said, “but without additional investment, our colleges will not be able to grow.”

Democratic leaders in the Legislature were uniformly supportive of greater investment in higher education facilities. In a prepared statement, House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said Maine “lags well behind” the rest of the Northeast in the number of workers holding college degrees.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate offered no immediate response.

(c) 2007 Portland Press Herald. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.