Robert White Receives Continuing Education Service Award
Robert C. White, recently retired associate provost and dean for the University of Maine Division of Lifelong Learning, has received the Outstanding Service to Continuing Education Award for the New England Region from the national University Professional and Continuing Education Association.
He received the award Oct. 26 at the New England Conference in Providence, R.I.
White has been part of the UMaine community for 33 years and oversaw the founding of the Division of Lifelong Learning in 1996. He has chaired and served on numerous national, state and campus task forces dealing with continuing education, distance education, university outreach, and allied health issues.
C. Sue McCullough, associate dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning and director of the University of Maine Frederick Hutchinson Center in Belfast, nominated White for the award.
“Bob’s entrepreneurial leadership established both degree and certificate programs, live and online for high school students as well as for traditional college-age and adult non-traditional learners,” McCullough says in her nomination. “He fostered a Summer University that enrolls around 6,000 students annually. He enabled faculty to plan and implement travel study courses. He established an off-campus center in mid-coast Maine in 2000, the Hutchinson Center, which enrolls over 1,200 students annually. The Division of Lifelong Learning currently produces 27 percent of all credit hours at the University of Maine.”
The division includes an array of units that link the academic and research mission of the university with the outreach mission of a land grant and sea grant university.
During his tenure as dean of the division, White oversaw the Women’s Resource Center, Hutchinson Center, Franco-American Centre, Maine Studies, Bureau of Labor Education, Bachelor of University Studies, Wabanaki Center, Peace and Reconciliation Studies, UMaine Online, Summer University, Conference Services, Continuing and Distance Education, College Success Programs and the University of Maine’s Diversity Leadership Institute.
Lu Zeph, director of the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies at UMaine, has been named interim associate provost and dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning.
Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756