News Releases

Baker Newman Noyes Donates $50,000 to USM Campaign

July 11, 2006

Baker Newman Noyes, an accounting and financial services firm with offices in Portland, Manchester and Portsmouth, has made a gift of $50,000 to the University of Southern Maine's capital campaign.

The gift will support the development of University Commons, the centerpiece of the $25 million campaign, known as "Transforming USM: The Capital Campaign."

"The health of our businesses and communities depends, in large part, on a strong, vibrant regional university," said Eleanor M. Baker, managing principal of Baker Newman Noyes. "We believe that our gift is an investment not only in USM," said Baker, "but in the region in which we live and work." Baker, who serves on the USM Board of Visitors, is a graduate of the University of Maine School of Law at USM, and several of the firm's principals are graduates of the USM School of Business.

"This gift, and others like it, are very important if we are to build a margin of excellence in the form of facilities and programs that just are not possible to deliver through state support alone," said USM President Richard L. Pattenaude. 'We're very appreciative of Baker Newman and Noyes' generosity as we enter a critical phase of our capital campaign."

USM recently announced that The Kresge Foundation has awarded the university a $750,000 challenge grant to help fund University Commons. The award of the challenge grant is contingent on USM raising the $3.1 million needed to reach its campaign goal.

University Commons -- the campaign's centerpiece -- will be located on university-owned land along I-295 in Portland, between USM's Abromson Community Education Center and the Glickman Family Library. The Commons will be the building site for the USM Muskie School of Public Service and the national headquarters of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; an expanded Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education; and a redesign of the Glickman Family Library's first floor so that the main entrance faces campus, rather than Forest Avenue. The Commons also will feature a public promenade along Bedford St.

Later this summer, USM will file applications with the city of Portland to initiate the permitting process. It is hoped that site work will begin in late 2006.
 

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