FARMINGTON – Faculty at the University of Maine at Farmington will get dressed up in their academic regalia to welcome incoming students on Labor Day.

The academic convocation is a rousing gesture that projects just how eager the college professors are to meet and greet the 540 new first-year students and the 143 transfer students after a subdued summer sabbatical.

Classes start on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

“We’re ready,” said Bill Geller, UMF vice president for Student and Community Affairs, Wednesday afternoon.

“People are prepared and anxious in a positive sense for students to return and the semester to finally get started.”

In addition to the 683 total new faces on the downtown-integrated campus, recent counts show there will be 1,577 students returning, Geller said. Although those numbers add up to more than 2,000, UMF’s enrollment cap for more than 10 years, Geller says a percentage of those students are part-timers and added that two students taking six credits apiece would equal one full-time student (minimum 12 credits).

Campus crunch

Ninety-five percent of first-year students and 60 percent of transfer students are looking to live on campus, the highest numbers ever. In addition, 541 returning students, about one-third, plan to live on campus.

Geller says the dorms are meant to house 1,031 students comfortably. If the number of on-campus students goes beyond that, they will be required to triple-up. Projections show that between 1,060 and 1,070 are expected to set up camp in the brick dormitories come opening day, meaning more than 30 students will be the third roommate in two-person-size living spaces.

As students drop out during the first semester, some space will be freed up. In the spring, many students go on exchange, decide to live off-campus or take up student teaching, Geller explained, adding that overcrowding in the dorms would be a problem of the past come next semester.

The dorms are popular, he says, because of conveniences such as Internet access, cable TV and food all under one bill. There is also a strong social component and although not required like some schools, first-year students are encouraged to live in the dorms.

“It’s part of a residential college experience,” Geller says. “It’s part of the education. I think it’s important first-year students get connected and if you feel you are a part of a community, then you’ll want to stay.”

Administrators hope a new dorm, located near the Health and Fitness Center and Deacon Hall and built to hold 75 to 100 students, will be open by the fall of 2005.

Another popular way to get involved is to work or volunteer on campus whether it be alongside 70 other students at the Health and Fitness Center or flying solo in the DJ booth at the school’s radio station, WUMF 100.1 FM.

Between 800 and 1,000 students will be on the college’s payroll this year, Geller said. That’s nearly half of the school’s population. “That’s part of our strategy,” he says. “It’s another way that gets students connected.”

New faces, new code

While there will be a mosaic of new faces on opening day, students will also be introduced by their professors to a new code, one of academic integrity.

Developed by students and staff, the code addresses issues like plagiarism and cheating. The code, which students received via mail this summer, holds students to utmost standards of academic integrity.

According to Geller, integrity, as laid out in the code, “Is a foundation of which trust in an academic community is built.”

Four new professors will join the UMF faculty this year: Eric Brown, assistant professor of English (Shakespeare); Dean Lass, assistant professor of computer science; Andrea Freed, assistant professor of science education; and Steven Quackenbush, assistant professor of psychology.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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