BANGOR—University of Maine System Board of Trustees announced Wednesday morning the board had appointed new presidents at University of Maine at Farmington and the University of Maine at Presque Isle. 

Dr. Kathryn A. Foster, currently a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., was appointed UMF president. In addition, Dr. Linda K. Schott, dean of the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, was appointed as the next president at UMPI. 

Each will begin on July 1. The salary of each position is $160,000.

 The Board’s executive committee met late Tuesday to consider the appointments.

“I very much look forward to having Dr. Foster and Dr. Schott join our team,” UMS Chancellor James Page said in a press release. “I will look to them for fresh innovative ideas as we begin to design and implement systemic change at the University of Maine System.” 

Dr. Foster is currently a one-year visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution where she is researching and writing about the governance of cross-state regions.  From 1993 to 2011 she worked in various capacities at the University at Buffalo (UB) in New York.  Most recently she served as director of the UB Regional Institute, a research and policy center. She also served a dual role as director of research at UB and associate professor in urban and regional planning at the State University of New York at Buffalo.    

Foster has a Ph.D. in public and international affairs from Princeton University, and received her M.C.P. in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley.  Her undergraduate degree, from Johns Hopkins University, is in geography and environmental engineering. 

Schott has served as dean at Fort Lewis College since 2008.  Prior to that she was at Eastern Michigan University from 2003 to 2008 where she served in several capacities including associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, and interim department head of the Department of History and Philosophy. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history and German from Baylor University, as well as a master’s degree in history and doctorate in history and humanities from Stanford University.

Schott will succeed Donald Zillman, who has served as UMPI’s president since 2006.  Last year, Zillman announced that he would step down as president and return to his position as a tenured professor of law at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland.