Our nonprofit
Maine College Circle was established in 1992 as a publicly-supported, 501(c)(3) nonprofit to help provide better, equal, and earlier access to information and inspiration about the opportunity of higher education. The name of the nonprofit was changed in 2018 from the Foundation for the Advancement of Education to Maine College Circle. Today, Maine College Circle's Future of Maine Initiative helps shape early aspirations, while we emphasize the value of effort. Our goal is to help build a brighter future for rural Maine students and for their communities.
Maine College Circle is led by a staff of one,
the program director, an active
Board of Directors made up of educators, business professionals, and college students from Maine. And, much of the work is done and led locally by over 100 volunteers from around the state. We have a strong partnership with the Mitchell Institute and Mitchell Scholars who join us at most of our Aspirations Workshops. And, we have a very active group of students at Bowdoin College (the Bowdoin College Maine College Circle Group through the McKeen Center). We are slowly developing partnerships with other Maine colleges so that we can engage the next generation in shaping the future of rural Maine.
The Maine College Circle Mission:
To inform and inspire early aspirations . . . to empower the youth of rural Maine . . . to build a brighter future for themselves . . . and for their communities.Our
mission is clear.
Our goals are not small. And they aren’t simple. Our goals are not to extract the best and brightest from rural Maine and send them off to Harvard. Our goal is to help young students along a path to a career and life that they will be proud of. And, our parallel goal is to build a brighter future for the communities of rural Maine.
We recognize the value of education beyond high school, what we call “a college education,” in building a brighter future for all. The future will require more skills, more knowledge, and a greater ability to solve not only more challenging technical problems, but even more so, more complex social and global problems.
We are convinced that aspirations are fundamental to successful learning, and fundamental to building a brighter future for every individual. Aspirations are equally important to the future of every community. Communities that aspire, and put in the effort, will have a brighter future. Communities that don’t aspire are destined to a future of despair.
Connecting the aspirations and effort of the individuals to their communities is our challenge. It is done by engaging the next generation -- those who will shape the future of the community. Plenty of rural Maine teenagers express a determination to “get out of town,” but that is in part because the community hasn’t engaged them and helped them connect their future to the community’s future.
Maine College Circle's Aspirations for the Future
1. Continue to offer Aspirations
Workshops and Aspirations
Scholarships and
educational resources at all interested rural Maine schools with grades 3 - 6.
2. Expand our "
Connections" to help more students explore their career opportunities of interest.
3. Expand our larger
Pathway Scholarship offerings for students especially interested in particular careers.
4. Engage local
high school and college students as leaders, mentors, role models, and cheerleaders.
5.
Celebrate students, their aspirations, their schools, and their communities more.
