Dear YourPace students,
Five months ago, after being featured in a national newspaper, I wrote to you with a simple message about the program: your education is real, it is rigorous, and you should keep going. I’m writing today because UMPI has been in the news again, and you deserve to hear the whole story, because so much of it is worth celebrating.
Our accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, made a standard request for updated information following that national story and is currently reviewing the detailed report we submitted about YourPace — our enrollment, standards, assessment practices, and faculty. I want to be direct about what that means, in the Commission president’s own public words: this review is routine, and UMPI’s accreditation “is not at risk.” We welcomed the Commission’s questions, answered each one with evidence, and went even further — we commissioned our own independent evaluation from the national organization that sets standards for competency-based education. Nothing about this review changes anything for you: your courses, your faculty, the standards you’re meeting, your financial aid, and the accredited degree you’re working toward — or have already earned — are exactly what they were when you began your journey with us.
And what a moment this is for your university. Yesterday, the Portland Press Herald published a story built on interviews with more than two dozen students, faculty, and community leaders — about a program that helped drive the University of Maine System to a ten-year enrollment high, that local employers call essential, and that students describe, again and again, with one word: community. That community is you. Every one of you who logs in after a shift ends or the kids are asleep, who submits work that must meet an excellent or near-excellent standard on every assessment — no exceptions, no shortcuts — is the reason this program has become a national story.
Scrutiny often accompanies things that matter. Our answer to it, every time, will be transparency, evidence, and pride in your work. So I’ll close the way I did in April, because it is as true now as it has been since you started in this program: your degree is real; your learning is proven; keep going.
With admiration and gratitude,
