Academic Support Services

Academic Advising Services

The Academic Advising department at UMA is designed to encourage, enhance, facilitate, and promote student success. Advising staff help students locate helpful resources and services, obtain information, plan their academic programs, and establish career goals. Advising staff also work with prospective, new transfer, and returning students providing unofficial transcript reviews. Additionally, all UMA degree candidates are assigned an academic advisor. Faculty academic advisors and professional academic advisors collaborate to explain course requirements in degree programs, discuss placement test results and course prerequisites, assist students with appropriate course sequencing, help students arrange class schedules consistent with their goals and priorities, discuss transfer opportunities, explain University policies and procedures, and clarify issues which may affect a student’s academic and career decisions. In addition to these advising services, this office also offers the following services:

Career Connections

Career Connections at UMA is designed to help students focus and implement their career goals. Students may seek assistance in choosing a major or exploring career fields for employment after graduation. Assistance with the job search process is provided. A variety of resources are available, including workshops, assessment tools, computerized resources, and individual appointments with a career counselor. Career counseling services are open to students, alumni and community members and are available at both campuses, most centers, and online.

Internal Transfer

The advising staff process and professionally advise students who request to change programs/majors, add minors, and declare concentrations. Students often consult with staff to explore options prior to making changes. Once changes are processed, students receive updated information reflecting their new academic requirements

International Student Assistance

The staff in the Academic Advising office assist international students studying at UMA with questions and paperwork related to practical training, optional training, and travel on a F1 visa.

Bookstore

Cultural Opportunities

New experiences with the arts and humanities are a vital part of any college career. At UMA there are many opportunities to observe and participate in music, theater, writing, poetry, dance, and the visual arts and crafts.

The Charles Danforth Gallery: On the Augusta campus, the Danforth Gallery in Jewett Hall schedules four to six major exhibitions each year. A juried UMA student art show and an architecture show are presented annually in addition to curated exhibitions by noted contemporary artists and UMA faculty. The final show each year features the work of the graduating art majors.

Concert Week: As part of its Contemporary and Popular Music Program, UMA’s music ensembles perform both live and online concerts at the end of each semester. The ensemble offerings vary from semester to semester. Standard ensembles are from the genres of rock, country, folk, jazz, classical, pop, Latin, Afro-Cuban, and Caribbean.  Concert Week includes Junior and Senior Recitals, both live and online.

Colloquium Series: UMA has initiated and institutionalized a colloquium series for all members of the UMA community. Adopting a yearly theme, the Colloquium Committee selects a book appropriate for use in a variety of disciplines and features discussions and events to promote larger conversations about the theme. These events have provided a platform for multiple voices to be heard on such significant topics as health and social justice, immigration, and bioethics.

The Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival: This annual event honors the memory of poet and UMA Professor of English, Terry Plunkett, who taught at UMA for over twenty years, and his son, Duff Plunkett, who helped to plan the festival. The event typically features a national keynote poet, a panel of Maine poets to address UMA’s colloquium theme and its relationship to poetry, as well as poetry contests for Maine high school students and UMS students. The event is inclusive, free of charge, and open to the public.

Developmental Studies

Developmental Studies courses are designed for students whose placement test scores indicate a need to build their basic skills in mathematics, reading, and/or writing. Faculty who teach these classes offer course work of a highly individualized nature. These courses carry credit towards a student’s load for financial aid purposes, but do not count towards “satisfactory academic progress.” Credit earned for developmental studies course work cannot be applied towards graduation, since these are pre-college level courses. A minimum grade of “C” is required to pass all developmental courses.

Libraries

UMA Libraries serve as student and faculty information centers within the Teaching and Learning Commons. In addition to the traditional responsibilities of selecting and providing access to curriculum-related materials, the libraries aim to help users become information literate. UMA Libraries offer:

• Research assistance in-person and virtually

• Print books and multimedia items

• Online databases full of articles, ebooks, and streaming films available 24/7

• Quiet, comfortable, and collaborative study spaces

• Zoom Rooms

• Computers/Printers

• Interlibrary Loan services giving users access to materials from around the country

Bennett D. Katz Library - (207) 621-3349 - Augusta: Katz Library houses 45,000+ print books and a wide range of multimedia items. The Library is also home to the Augusta Writing Center, the Collaboratory Makerspace and the Augusta Faculty Development Center.

Nottage Library - (207) 262-7900 - Bangor: Nottage Library houses 25,000+ print books and a collection of video recordings. The Library is also home to a Technology Classroom available to reserve.

Visit UMA Libraries at www.uma.edu/library.

New Ventures Maine

New Ventures Maine is a statewide community outreach program of UMA. Adults returning to school or the workforce after an absence or those considering a career change can receive support at both UMA campuses, all UMA Centers, and in communities throughout the state. Services include training programs and one-on-one advising in career and education planning, job-seeking skills, and labor market information on in-demand high-wage careers. Their entrepreneurship program provides training for those starting or growing a business. Graduates of the Venturing Forth business planning class can earn three academic credits from UMA.

The MoneyWise program https://www.uma.edu/financial/moneywise/ offers workshops and coaching in personal money management, budgeting while in school, wise use of credit, and matched savings accounts to help with unexpected expenses or to save for a major purchase.

New Venture’s career, money management, and business planning workshops and classes are offered online and on site. Students completing a New Ventures class are eligible to apply for the UMA GEN Scholarship. Information about community resources is available, as is civic engagement and leadership development. Check out their website at http://newventuresmaine.org/  for more information and current class schedules.

Registrar

The Registrar’s Office maintains a student’s official academic record and provides other types of support.

Academic Records: The Registrar’s Office issues official transcripts upon request. The Registrar works with students and faculty to resolve grading concerns, issues “good student” grade verifications that may qualify students for automobile insurance discounts, processes “in-school” deferments and, with appropriate documentation, updates students’ names.

Immunization: The Registrar’s Office handles immunization compliance.

Transfer: The Registrar’s Office evaluates and posts transfer credit, including military credit.

Registration: The office processes registrations, add-drops, and withdrawals. It also processes loan deferments and other enrollment verifications.

VA Certification for Educational Benefits: Staff in the Registrar’s office certify eligible students for veteran’s educational benefits. A student receiving VA benefits must submit a “request for certification” every semester. The request form is available online at http://bit.ly/VeteransCertification.