March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Kings pledge UM $4 million > New faculty, scholarships planned

ORONO — Stephen and Tabitha King pledged $4 million to the University of Maine Friday and took the opportunity to criticize the governor and lawmakers for not adequately supporting education.

The gift, a commitment to give $1 million to the university for four years, is the largest the campus has ever received from living alumni. Half of the money will be devoted to scholarships for academically and financially qualified students and the other half will be used to hire faculty.

The string of donations began Friday when Stephen King, clad in a UM women’s basketball sweat shirt, handed a $1 million check to Burton Hatlen, one of his college English professors who is now interim dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. At a ceremony in a second-floor alcove at the Maine Center for the Arts, the Kings said they are committed to making similar annual donations for the next three years but want to be assured that the university is effectively addressing scholarship and hiring needs. The authors also called on state lawmakers and Gov. Angus King to increase financial support for education.

“Anybody in government … who suggests there’s a dichotomy between balancing the budget and funding education is flat wrong,” Stephen King said, taking aim at the governor’s recent refrain that the economy must be improved before additional money can be devoted to education. “Good education is good business.”

The world-renowned horror writer, who graduated from UM in 1970, encouraged other alumni to stop talking about the university’s plight at cocktail parties and to get involved and let their legislators and the governor know that they should invest more state money in education.

“If you invest in your children, they will return it to you,” Tabitha King said. She said investing in education was just as important as investing in infrastructure such as water and power.

She said their donation was meant to “prime the pump” and encouraged other alumni to give back to their university. “We hope to remind folks who graduated from the university that if you’re doing well, you have them to thank for it,” the 1971 UM graduate said.

Both Kings said they could not have attended college without the scholarships they received. Now that they have been successful, they would like to give something back to the university that invested in them, they said.

“We feel really privileged to be able to do this for a school that gave us so much — including each other — and for a state we love very much and never want to leave,” said Tabitha King, who is also a writer.

She said the timing of the gift, in the wake of recent reports that the university is in decline and that dozens of professors are fleeing the Orono campus, is purely coincidental.

“It is not our intent to mount some kind of rescue operation,” she said.

For university officials, the gift could not have come at a better time.

“Today’s gift is a vote of confidence in the quality of education at this university,” Hatlen said. He said the gift, which is earmarked for liberal arts and science education, is particularly helpful for these areas of study because the majority of outside funding goes to the hard sciences rather than the humanities.

Last month, for example, Democratic legislators announced their intentions to secure $40 million in additional funding for science and technological research at the state’s colleges and universities. Such initiatives are rarely targeted to the humanities, so the Kings’ efforts are especially appreciated, Hatlen said.

“Because of them, the basic underpinnings of a university education — that is, liberal arts and sciences — will be stronger,” UM President Frederick Hutchinson said. “Furthermore, because of their generosity, hundreds of talented and motivated students will receive merit-based scholarships created by today’s gift.”

University officials said they had not determined how many new scholarships will be offered. Provost Judith Bailey said a significant amount of money will be invested in first-year students with lesser amounts devoted to upperclassmen. She said it will be important that students who are given scholarships when they begin college have that funding sustained throughout their university career.

Hutchinson said 12 or 13 new faculty members will be hired with the Kings’ money. He said no decisions have been as to what departments will be able to hire new professors.

The Kings have long been contributors to the university. Robert Holmes, vice president for university development, said the Bangor couple annually gives about $75,000 to various entities on the Orono campus, including the National Poetry Foundation, Friends of the Library and the swim team.

Before Friday’s donation, the largest single gift the university had received was $2.5 million from Portland philanthropist Elizabeth Noyce. Among his many gifts to the university, Harold Alfond gave a $2 million contribution for the 1991 expansion of the hockey arena which bears his name.


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