Libby Named Associate Director of Hutchinson Center

Patricia Libby, a member of the instructional and student services staff at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center since 2011, has been named associate director of the Belfast-based outreach facility.

Libby will join Monique LaRocque, associate provost for the UMaine Division of Lifelong Learning (DLL), in leading the Hutchinson Center, which has become an educational and cultural focal point for Maine’s midcoast area since its opening in 2000. Their goals for the center include offering new graduate degrees and certificate programs, and additional conferences and events.

LaRocque joined UMaine in July after an eight-year career at the University of Southern Maine. In UMaine’s Division of Lifelong Learning, which includes the Hutchinson Center, LaRocque is helping develop online program offerings, particularly at the graduate level, and leading the growth of UMaine’s Summer University.

LaRocque noted that Libby has a great sense of the needs of the midcoast region and the potential for quality programming at the Hutchinson Center. “She brings great team-building and a strong set of managerial skills to her work, and I am very pleased to have her leadership at the Hutchinson Center,” LaRocque says.

At the Hutchinson Center, Libby has served as assistant director for student and academic services, and as the instructional and student services coordinator. She has played a key role in the development of the DLL Advising Center, and implementation of the Adult Degree Completion Initiative and the University of Maine System Concierge Program.

Before joining UMaine in 2011, Libby spent more than 16 years in the business sector. She served as operations manager of Libby Sales Corp., and then as a senior account manager at MBNA. In addition, Libby has been a community leader through her involvement at the Penobscot Bay YMCA, and her 12-year tenure on the school boards of SAD 28 and Five Town CSD.

Libby is a licensed social worker who holds a master’s degree in social work from UMaine.