President’s Message
Dear UMA Community,
It is my honor and privilege to serve the University of Maine at Augusta, a university doing everything right. For almost six decades, UMA community members have acted as champions of diversity by advancing our important mission of access to high-quality distance and on-site education for students of every age and background. We know that a bold engagement with future-focused technology and a wide array of learning modes facilitates access, as do our physical locations; together, our robust online offerings and our two campuses and seven Centers are designed to provide an education that meets students where they are. UMA’s programs — designed to meet Maine’s workforce needs for today’s economy — build credentials toward a career while encouraging the intellectual curiosity and flexibility of mind needed to succeed in the twenty-first century. In this way, we act as a catalyst for positive change, since the ultimate purpose of educational access, according to our mission, is transforming lives. I am delighted to be working with all of you as we redefine what it means to be UMA in the 2020s while sticking to our valuable core identity. Thank you for your forward-looking engagement as we work together for the future.
Best, Jen
About Dr. Cushman
President of UMA since July 2023, Jen Cushman is devoted to small campus communities that transform the lives of lesser-resourced students. After earning her PhD in German from Ohio State in 1996, she taught English in Russia and Poland, first with the Peace Corps and then privately. Her first professional position was as assistant then associate professor of German and Russian at the University of Minnesota Morris. She was then director of off-campus study at the College of Wooster in Ohio for two years, and seven as dean of international education at Juniata College in central Pennsylvania. An American Council on Education Fellows year shifted her vocation, and she moved to campus dean at Ohio University Zanesville before becoming chancellor of Penn State Beaver in 2016. She and her husband, Matt Dingo, have two children: Halina is in graduate school at University of Colorado Boulder, and Jakub is in his second year at Penn State.
View Jenifer’s complete CV here »
The President’s Office is located in the Alumni Center on the Augusta campus.