UMPI receives $1 million gift
establishing first-ever endowed
chair
Permanent faculty position named in honor of
internationally known potato scientist Dr. Robert Vinton Akeley
by University of Maine at Presque Isle
With the stroke of a pen, officials with
the University of Maine at Presque
Isle received a gift of $1 million from
benefactor Mary Barton Akeley Smith to
establish the first-ever endowed chair in
the institution’s history. The permanent
faculty position was formally named
the Dr. Robert Vinton Akeley Chair of
Agricultural Science and Agribusiness
during an official announcement and
naming ceremony on Oct. 23.
Smith’s gift to UMPI’s Foundation
endows a permanent faculty position
within UMPI’s Agricultural Science
and Agribusiness program. Funds will
support the initial salary and benefits
for the position as well as start-up costs
of the program during the first four
years—including equipment for the
program and greenhouse, and summer
research fellowships—with the balance
held in an endowment. The endowed
resources guarantee a strong future
for the program, providing the Chair
with additional resources for research,
including financial support for student
research, industry partnership, and
program development and delivery.
Smith—who lives in California, hails
from Presque Isle, and whose generosity
has benefited several Presque Isle
institutions over the years—offered the
gift in honor of her father, Dr. Robert
Akeley, and in memory of her husband,
Rodney Smith.
“I was so proud of my father when the
University of Maine at Orono showed
“This is an incredible milestone for appreciation for his work by granting
UMPI, not only because this is the him an honorary doctorate degree,”
largest one-time gift we’ve ever received, Smith said. “It is now so fitting that the
but also because it’s the first gift of this University of Maine at Presque Isle is
magnitude ever explicitly designated naming the chair of its new Agricultural
to the development of an academic Science and Agribusiness program after
program—our new Agricultural Science him. What a wonderful final chapter.”
and Agribusiness program—that will
directly impact the economy and well- The endowed chair is named in honor
being of the County for generations to of Dr. Robert Vinton Akeley, a Presque
come,” UMPI President Ray Rice said. Isle native who was an internationally
“We give our most sincere and profound known potato breeder and leader
thanks to Mrs. Mary Barton Akeley of the United States Department of
Smith for this gift. Her exceptional Agriculture’s National Potato Breeding
interest in the economic development Program. Growing up on a potato farm,
of the County, her vision and generosity, he started his career with the crop at an
and her engagement with higher early age. In 1932, at age 22, Akeley
education, is truly remarkable.”
joined the Federal Program of Potato
WINTER 2019
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