Student Services

Academic Advising Services

UMA’s Office of Academic and Career Advising is designed to encourage, enhance, facilitate, and promote student success. Student Services Coordinators (SSCs) serve as professional academic advisors. Academic advisors are assigned to students to assist students with locating helpful resources and services, obtaining information, planning their academic programs, and establishing career goals. Advising staff also work with prospective, new transfer, and returning students, providing unofficial transcript reviews. In addition, SSCs collaborate with faculty academic advisors to explain degree program course requirements, 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 student academic and career decision making. The Office of Academic and Career Advising also offers the following services:

Career Connections

UMA Career Connections is designed to help students develop, focus on, 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 also provided. A variety of resources are available, including workshops, assessment tools, web resources, and individual appointments with a career counselor. Career counseling services are open to students, alumni, and community members and are available on campus, at most centers, and online.

Internal Transfer

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

International Student Assistance

Academic and Career Advising staff assist UMA international students with questions and paperwork related to practical training, optional training, and travel on an 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: The Danforth Gallery, located on the Augusta campus in Jewett Hall, offers five to seven exhibitions each year to the UMA community and the wider public. Curated exhibitions by noted contemporary artists and UMA faculty and yearly Architecture Student and juried UMA student art exhibitions illuminate this learning space, which also hosts events and programming related to exhibitions. The final show each year opens on Commencement day, and features graduating students’ thesis works.

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 basic skills in mathematics, reading, and/or writing. Faculty who teach these classes offer coursework of a highly individualized nature. Developmental courses carry credit towards a student’s credit load for financial aid purposes, but these courses do not count towards “satisfactory academic progress.” Credit earned from developmental coursework cannot be applied towards graduation because developmental courses 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

• Private Study Spaces: Zoom Rooms and Nook Pods

• Computers/Printers/Scanners

• 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, Tech Hub 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 Bangor Faculty Development Center, Tech Hub, and Computer Services.

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

New Ventures Maine

New Ventures Maine (NVME) 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 free classes and individual coaching in career and education planning, job-seeking skills, labor market information on in-demand high-wage careers, money management, and entrepreneurship. The NVME 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. 

NVME’s career, money management, and business planning workshops and classes are offered online and on site. Graduates of My Next Career Move, My Money Works, or Venturing Forth classes are eligible to apply for the Gilda E. Nardone (GEN) Scholarship https://newventuresmaine.org/about-us/more-services/gen-scholarship/ to be used at any University of Maine System university, any Maine Community College, or the University of New England. Completion of the UMS Financial Literacy Micro-Credential also fulfills eligibility for the scholarship https://www.maine.edu/student-success/micro-credentials/list-of-micro-credentials/financial-literacy/

Information about community resources and civic engagement is also available through NVME. 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.