Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 24 : Spring 2015 | Page 69

In 1900, in his book Major Dickey: Sketch of his Life,
the Reverend F.X. Burque wrote, “If all the schoolhouses
that he caused to be built were clustered together around
the Madawaska Training School, they would form quite
a considerable village.” As Reverend Burke was extolling
the life work of Major William Dickey, the founder of the
Madawaska Training School which is now the University
of Maine at Fort Kent, he was also explaining the
pivotal role the campus played in the development and
improvement of public schools in the greater Fort Kent
region. The Reverend’s words today can be seen as both
prophetic and descriptive of the long, interdependent,
and collaborative relationship that has been
enjoyed by the University of Maine at Fort
Kent and public schools in the region.
The concept of “village” 215 years after
Reverend Burke published his book has
taken on a new meaning. Certainly UMFK
is still located where it was founded and
is still rooted in its mission of serving rural
populations in rural communities, but 21st
century technology has allowed the type of
public school collaboration, that has been one of the
hallmarks of the University, to expand to the farthest
reaches of Maine. This outreach is best exemplified in the
University’s Rural U Early College and Dual Enrollment
Program.
Although it has been possible for local high school students
to take college courses while still in high school for many
years, the trajectory of expanding early college and dual
enrollment at UMFK began in 2005 when, spurred on
by a grant from the National Governor’s Association, the
campus and Fort Kent Community High School began
the process of increasing the number of students taking
advantage of this opportunity. Later that year five high
school students from Fort Kent took live classes on the
UMFK campus for dual credit. Over the next few years
more students from four St. John Valley high schools
took live or online classes at UMFK. Annually UMFK
could expect twenty or so students to be enrolled in early
college. In 2011 UMFK and Fort Kent Community
High School, UMFK’s next-door neighbor on Pleasant
Street, joined forces and developed Maine’s first early
college high school concept. From that collaboration
the Pleasant Street Academy, which is still in operation
today, came into being, and the first cohort of sixteen
high school students enrolled in this dual enrollment
experiment graduated from high school in June of 2013
with a full year of college completed.
The way UMFK was delivering early college and the
high quality of the program caught on quickly. More
schools throughout Aroostook County and in other areas
of Maine were impressed with UMFK’s student-centered
approach to early college and wanted their students to
have access to these opportunities. Simultaneously,
in 2011 Governor Paul Lepage’s Task Force on Early
Post-Secondary Opportunities, which Scott Voisine,
UMFK’s Dean of Community Education, was a part

of successfully recommended changes to legislation
regarding early college, including paving the way for
more online access, expanded credit hour limits, and dual
enrollment partnerships. More high schools in Maine
joined UMFK as partners. In 2013 UMFK announced
a new name for its fast growing early college and dual
enrollment programs. Rural U was born. What started
as a small, localized program has grown exponentially. By
the spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic year Rural
U will include 65 partner high schools (half of all public
high schools in Maine) with a projected enrollment of
350 students for fall 2015.
Rural U is comprised of three distinct
programs including the Pleasant St. Academy
which is described above; online early
college in which students take online classes
and are provided academic support both at
their high schools and via UMFK’s distance
education services; and dual enrollment in
which students take UMFK classes taught
in their high schools by teachers who have
been approved as adjunct faculty. Students
in the program do not pay tuition. The campus provides
scholarships for half the tuition and the other half is
funded by the Maine Aspirations fund of the Maine
Department of Education. Students are responsible for
fees and books.
While other early college and dual enrollment programs
exist in Maine, Rural U’s program is designed to best
serve rural students and high schools. UMFK’s mission
is focused on rural communities and preparing students
to be professionals in those communities throughout
Maine, New England, and the United States. The small,
familial, and service-centered approach to life, work, and
education in rural communities is reflected in the hightouch, individualized student service approach taken by
the UMFK campus in general and by Rural U specifically.
In the spring of 2015 Rural U, thanks to a grant from the
Davis Educational Foundation, will launch a mobile app
to provide even greater student service in a manner that is
in line with the way youth interact with the world around
them – via mobile technology.
Rural U is part of the changing landscape of rural education
in Maine. Research shows that early college and dual
enrollment programs, like Rural U, provide affordable
pathways to college, increase college attainment, reduce
the need for remedial courses once students enroll in
college, and significantly improve college retention
and graduation rates – all of these outcomes have been
identified as needs in Maine. In addition, Rural U is
helping some very small, rural schools by supplementing
their course offerings at a time when school budgets
make expanded course offerings difficult. In a state
like Maine, which is facing trying demographic and
economic realities, Rural U is a model of efficient school
and university collaboration; a collaboration that allows
educators to continue to provide relevant and rigorous
education to rural students.
SPRING 2015

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