PRESQUE ISLE – The University of Maine System Board of Trustees voted yesterday to name the University of Maine at Farmington Education Center after the college’s longest-serving president.
The Education Center, which was built in 2006 at the corner of Lincoln and High streets, will be named after former UMF president, Theodora Kalikow, who retired in 2012. Kalikow, who came to UMF from Plymouth State College in 1994, served as the college’s president for 18 years.
Following her retirement in 2012, she was replaced by president, Kathryn Foster. Kalikow went on to work as president of the University of Southern Maine and for the UMaine System in other roles until 2015.
Kalikow was UMF’s longest-serving president since the school became a four-year university in 1945. In addition to the Education Center, she oversaw the construction of a residence hall and the Emery Community Arts Center off Academy Street.
Envisioned as far back as 1972, the 44,500 square-foot Education Center was completed in 2006 and opened the next year. It contains classrooms for UMF’s education and services programs, as well as faculty offices and a resource center. An environmentally-sustainable, LEED silver certified facility, the building uses a geothermal system to maintain internal temperatures.
The building, referred to as the Education Center, will instead be known as the “Kalikow Education Center.” Its full name will be the “Theodora J. Kalikow Education Center.”
My congratulations to Ms. Kalikow.