FARMINGTON — University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloy toured the University of Maine at Farmington on Tuesday and greeted staff and stakeholders at a reception in North Dining Hall.

Malloy said he had a good tour of the campus and had seen its strengths and weaknesses and things that need to be addressed.

“There’s bond money to spend on some things,” he said. “One of the great challenges for us in Maine will be to rebuild some of the infrastructure at all of our institutions.

“I’m very proud to be part of your team,” he said. “You’re doing a great service. Education is a profession and a calling. Its reward is you are allowed to make inter-generational change in families. This is a place that really was built on that concept and idea.”

Malloy said first and foremost, the job is to educate people in liberal arts and education to change their personal trajectories and that of their families.

“You have a special mission representing half of your students in the school of education, making sure you’re sending out well-prepared individuals to carry out that work,” he said.

Malloy took over as chancellor of the UMaine System on July 1. Last week he visited campuses in Fort Kent and Presque Isle. He plans to visit each of the system’s seven campuses by the end of July.

Malloy was introduced at the reception by UMF President Edward Serna who also began his job July 1.

Malloy’s UMF tour included an update on plans for about $8.5 million in investments as part of a $49 million University Workforce Bond approved by voters statewide last November. Among bond-funded projects at UMF are plans for an updated new home for the Sweatt-Winter Early Care and Education Center that will improve facilities needed to prepare the next generation of Maine early childhood teachers.

Malloy visited UMF’s biomass central heating plant. The facility was projected to save UMF and taxpayers nearly $800,000 in fuel costs for the fiscal year ending June 30 while sustaining jobs in the region’s forest products industry. Since the plant’s opening in 2016, carbon emissions at UMF have been reduced an average of about 3,000 metric tons per year.

Malloy brings 22 years of public service and executive leadership to the University of Maine System. A former Connecticut governor, he is the current Rappaport Distinguished Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School and has taught undergraduate political science for 12 semesters as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, sociology from Boston College and is a graduate of Boston College Law School.

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