Dear UMPI Community,
I’m incredibly saddened to share the news of Linda Zillman’s passing this afternoon. Linda has been an important part of our UMPI family since 2006, when Donald N. Zillman became UMPI’s 10th President and she became our First Lady. Both of the Zillmans were beloved, not just by our campus, but at the many other University of Maine System institutions where they left a lasting impact.
Linda was passionate about art and was involved in our Reed Art Gallery activities, working closely with our past gallery directors Sandra Huck and Heather Sincavage on many exciting projects. In fact, she was an integral part of one of our campus’ most prestigious acquisitions–153 original Andy Warhol photographs gifted to us in 2008 by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.
Together, Linda and Don left an incredible legacy of giving to our campus. They established the Zillman Family Professorship in 2013, giving faculty the time and funding to conduct in-depth research over a two-year period. And theirs was the very first gift toward what would become the Zillman Family Greenhouse, which has served as an important agricultural research space for us since 2019. Linda and Don put their hearts and their energy into so many efforts close to home and throughout the state–from the Wintergreen Arts Center here in Presque Isle to the Zillman Art Museum of the University of Maine in Bangor to the Portland Ballet.
But let me end with this–during our 2022 Commencement Exercises, we presented the Zillmans with honorary doctorates. That commencement turned out to be an incredibly special one, not just because Don and Linda served as our commencement speakers, but because it became their very last visit here. Don left us in 2023, and with Linda’s passing today, we mark the end of a truly important time for our campus. It’s hard to put into words just how much both of these champions of our institution will be missed, but we will always remember them fondly.
