BANGOR, Maine — To Harold Alfond Foundation officials, the numbers compiled in various studies of Maine’s workforce were grim.
A mere one-third of Maine’s population has higher education degrees. Only 40 percent of graduating high school students complete associate or bachelor’s degrees, but by 2018, over 60 percent of future jobs in Maine will require some form of higher education. And roughly 75 percent of Maine’s fastest growing occupations with above-average wages will be jobs that require an associate degree or higher by the year 2022.
The numbers cited by foundation Chairman Greg Powell are among the major reasons the organization on Friday pledged a $1 match for every $2 donated to Husson University, up to a total of $4 million, for a new college of business building school officials hope to have built on university’s Bangor campus by 2021.
“We face a serious problem in the state with the inadequacy of the [state’s] skilled workforce to meet the needs of our employers. A lot of people don’t think about it that way, but that’s in fact the case,” Powell said Friday after the gift was announced at Husson’s Gracie Theatre. “What this school has made a point of doing is producing students who are job-ready — students who can meet the needs of area employers who are building the economy of the state and needing it to prosper.”
Husson officials hope to finish fundraising to open the $16 million, 32,000-square-foot building by fall 2021. With $1.7 million already raised, they hope to begin construction in late 2019 or early 2020 and start classes in the fall of 2021, Husson President Robert A. Clark said.
The gift to Husson University from the foundation created by the founder of Dexter Shoe Co. is the largest in the school’s 119-year history. It adds to a flurry of construction projects already underway as part of an ongoing $36.6 million campus buildout that began in 2012.
Powell told a theatre audience of more than 150 people that Husson has long been an academic leader in producing homegrown entrepreneurial talent.
“Husson is a vital contributor to sustaining and growing our state’s economy and to increasing the supply of workers with higher education required for today’s jobs,” he said.
Husson, Powell said, has the largest College of Business in the state, with more than 1,400 students. Business program enrollment has grown 32 percent over the past 5 years, with students hailing from Presque Isle to Wells.
About 75 percent of the school’s approximately 3,669 students, including 2,834 undergraduates, come from Maine and remain in the state after graduating, according to Eric B. Gordon, Husson’s executive director for marketing and communications.
The $4 million pledge compliments $1.7 million already raised for the new college, Clark said, calling it part of the “initial phase” of fundraising.
Since its creation in 1950, the Harold Alfond Foundation has helped fund 13 stadiums, ice arenas, student recreation facilities, and athletic fields or centers at Colby College, the University of Maine, St. Joseph’s College, Husson, Thomas College, Kents Hill School and the University of New England, according to its website.
The new building will be a neat fit with Husson. The school’s most popular majors include business administration, health professions and related programs, criminal justice and communications. It will boast 32,000 square feet of classrooms and offices, supported by an advanced technology infrastructure, located near and connected to the Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business on the 208-acre campus, Gordon said.
The college of business will likely help Husson continue to grow, Clark said. Overall admissions at Husson increased 8.3 percent, and admissions into the University’s College of Business, grew 14 percent during the fall 2016 semester.
The proposed site of the new building is near another construction site located on a grassy knoll opposite the Dyke Center, where crews are erecting three townhouse-style buildings that will house 72 beds for juniors, seniors and graduate students. Those buildings will be completed for the 2017-18 school year, Gordon said.