Dean and Campus Director

A message from Megan Walsh, Dean and Campus Director

Dean Walsh has shoulder length brown hair and is wearing a white shirt and gray blazer.

We are now midway through the 2024-2025 academic year. This has been a special year because it marks the first time that UMaine Machias and UMaine have had a fully shared academic catalog, the official annual document that contains policies and courses for students. The joint UMaine Machias/UMaine catalog has provided our students with a greater variety of courses to fit their needs. Students enrolled in degree programs at UMaine Machias are now able to take any course they choose at UMaine and still pay the UMaine Machias tuition rate. Likewise, UMaine students can enroll in any UMaine Machias course that meets their interests. We are proud to have served nearly 839 unique students in fall 2024, over half of which were UMaine students taking UMaine Machias classes online.

I also want to share with you a few other updates, some of which you may have already seen in the news, on our website, or on our social media channels.

  • This past summer, we finalized a partnership with the University of Maine at Augusta to offer a four-year degree in nursing that can be completed locally. Beginning in fall 2025, UMaine Machias students in this program can take classes on our campus and online, or, when they reach their final two years, at UMA’s nursing simulation lab center in Ellsworth. Thanks to a generous partnership of the Down East Community Hospital and Calais Community Hospital, students will be able to complete their required clinical rotations close to home as well.

  • We also created new avenues for our students to achieve their goals. UMaine Machias students can choose a free tutor from among their peers at UMaine Machias or UMaine and, if they wish, can also become paid tutors for classes here or at UMaine. We are always cognizant that academics are not students’ only concerns. We have recently partnered with the Counseling Center at UMaine and with Northern Light Health to provide physical healthcare through telehealth portals to all UMaine Machias students. Additionally, we completed an upgrade of spaces in Dorward Hall, including lighting, restrooms, and the newly renamed Black Bear Lounge.

  • If you have visited the Reynolds Murdock Center lately, you likely have noticed lots of construction on our basketball gymnasium. Our contractors, many of whom are local, are finishing up their work in the coming weeks. We will be hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony at 1:00pm on April 4, 2025. We hope you will join us!

  • Our students have benefited tremendously from the generosity of alumni and friends in addition to the tuition and state funding we receive. In fall 2024, 59.1% of in-state students paid nothing in tuition or fees. To contribute to our Downeast Promise scholarship and other funds please click here.

I want to express my deep gratitude to you, the UMaine Machias community, for your continued support of our campus. I look forward to seeing you at our April 4 basketball gym opening ceremony, at our May 10 commencement, or at another campus event this spring.

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Megan Walsh, Ph.D.
Dean and Campus Director
University of Maine at Machias

About Megan Walsh

Megan Walsh is Dean and Campus Director of the University of Maine at Machias. She joins the University of Maine and UMaine Machias communities from St. Bonaventure University.

Walsh was a member of the St. Bonaventure community for more than a decade. In addition to holding the rank of professor of English, she served in several administrative roles, including as director of St. Bonaventure’s Honors Program.

In 2021–22, Walsh was acting dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. She helped obtain external funding to support computer science and cybersecurity technology upgrades, as well as a new technological literacy learning module.

As chair of the Department of English, Walsh led multiple curricular revisions, including the development of a new Literary Publishing and Editing B.A. Program.

Walsh is the author of The Portrait and the Book: Illustration and Literary Culture in Early America (University of Iowa Press, 2017) and numerous articles and reviews. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Temple University.