Mike Muir, whose career in education spans four decades and includes helping schools serving rural, disenfranchised and marginalized populations create motivational learning experiences, is the recipient of the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development’s 2026 Robert A. Cobb Award for Extraordinary Service.
Muir currently serves as principal of Maranacook Community Middle School in Readfield, Maine. Prior to that he was principal of East Grand School in Danforth. He has also been a high school and middle school mathematics teacher, a technology integrator, and an associate professor and supervisor of student teachers at University of Maine at Farmington.
Muir will accept the award at the college’s annual Pinning and Recognition Ceremony on Jan. 30.
“I am grateful and humbled by the College of Education and Human Development for this recognition,” said Muir. “Creating positive learning experiences for students starts with having great teachers and a shared vision, both of which I have found are embodied in the work of the college and its students, faculty, staff and leadership.”
Muir was also part of the Maine Department of Education’s original design team for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), which provides laptops, tablets and other educational technology to all seventh through 12th graders statewide. He served two years as the state’s MLTI director. He also led proficiency-based learning and shared leadership efforts for Maine’s GEAR UP program, working to increase the percentage of low-income students who go on to some sort of post-secondary education.
He has been an active member of the Association for Middle Level Education and the Maine Association for Middle Level Education. In addition, Muir has worked as a consultant with schools throughout Maine and beyond, sharing his expertise in areas such as middle-grades education, student motivation, leading school change and technology integration. In 2025, he helped organize and lead the middle-level education strand at UMaine’s Summer Educators Institute.
Muir holds a bachelor’s degree from Colby College, a master’s from Lesley University (formerly Lesley College) and a Doctor of Education from UMaine, where his dissertation research examined what underachieving middle school students believe about what motivates them to learn.
The Robert A. Cobb Award is named for the former dean of the College of Education and Human Development, whose leadership demonstrated daily the belief that the college strengthened Maine’s schools and communities through the teaching, research, partnership and outreach. Cobb served as dean from 1977 to 2007, and at the time of his retirement was the longest tenured dean of a college of education in the United States.
