On the north side of campus, nestled cozily between Shibles and Neville—and within eye range of the newly constructed Ferland Engineering, lies a white building crumbling into obscurity.

The East Annex was home to two notable hubs for student support: what was once the shared hub of TRiO Student Support Services and Student Accessibility Services (SAS), which aimed to assist students with a variety of needs.

For those unfamiliar, TRiO SSS is a bit of an underutilized treasure for disadvantaged students. They service students based on financial need, first-generation status or disability status. TRiO SSS aims to offer personal academic, well-being, and financial support, among other branches of counseling, by matching a student with an advisor. Additionally, they offer tutoring separate from the Knack program that the university offers, but many students who qualify for these programs are not familiar with them.

Student Accessibility Services is the hub for students who need accommodations to connect with the people who can make that happen. There’s an overlap in the serviced demographics, and it allowed SSS advisors to help students connect with SAS easily. Running these operations in the same building makes sense, as they create a hand-in-hand operation.

The building also offered a computer cluster with printing for SSS students, as well as a lounge where students could buy refreshments.

Eventually, the East Annex fell into disrepair.

Issues with heating arose, and the building became more expensive to fix than to demolish. While the building still stands tall on campus, it’s unsure how much longer this will last.

Throughout the first two months of this year, SAS and SSS were in the process of moving into their new university-provided homes.

SAS settled into the old University Credit Union, merging with the Bodwell Center and the Black Bear Exchange to become the Center for Accessibility and Volunteer Engagement (CAVE).

SSS was moved into a portion of Alumni Hall, next to the library and the new Hotel Ursa. This immediately presents an issue in that two programs, accustomed to working together with similar populations, are now split across campus. The programs were also made responsible for spreading the word about the move. Despite their best efforts, confusion inevitably arose as a complication of this drastic separation.

Further, these new buildings pose accessibility issues, which is an obvious problem for programs whose goals are to support the disabled student population. SAS’s new CAVE building is technically accessible. However, the problem with CAVE is that it lies on the far end of campus. For students on the opposite side of campus, they could be facing a mile-long walk. While there are parking areas, some students report anxieties about being unsure how or where to park, as well as being unsure if they were even allowed to.

Furthermore, complaints have been voiced about the SAS private testing centers bordering office walls prone to sound leakage, creating a distraction in what is ostensibly a distraction-free zone.

For SSS students, their new location in Alumni Hall is an accessibility issue.

To enter the TRiO SSS portion of the building, students must either enter up a set of stairs and through a fire door or come through an alternate door and go down a set of stairs. Barring a more hidden entrance that I am not aware of, I personally have not experienced any route to the TRiO section in which a student in a wheelchair could access the advisors’ offices.

Despite all of these negatives, I still want to highlight the positive aspects of these programs. SAS and SSS are great offerings for students that they should know about and take advantage of.

The University may not have given them the best locations during this move, but I still recommend getting to know their new space and familiarizing yourself with these programs if you’re eligible. To many TRiO and SAS faculty and students, myself included, the East Annex will always represent a unity between these two programs that will survive this move and long past the demolition of the building. While I will miss the computer clusters and the snack lounge, SSS is doing its best to offer amenities to its population.

Imagine yourself in this scenario. You’re a first-year, or perhaps a second-year, at the University of Maine. The time for class registration is here. You’ve constructed your wishlist according to what your recommended sequence says you should take. You have room for one more class, and you think you should fill a general education requirement. You can’t decide between two classes and aren’t particularly sure if you’d enjoy either. All you have to go off of is a course description, which may or may not accurately reflect the course. It certainly doesn’t tell you what kind of work you’ll be doing or what you’ll be reading. 

Consider, now, another scenario. You’re a new professor at the university. They’ve brought you in to replace a professor on a course. You don’t have any contact with the old one. The department gives you some semblance of an idea of how the course should work. You’re left to figure out the rest on your own. You don’t have any frame of reference for how the class was conducted in the previous semester.

A logical solution to these issues faced by both the theoretical professor and student is a syllabus bank, also known as a syllabus repository. A syllabus bank is an online database where students and faculty can go and look at syllabi for prior semesters. Students can get a feel for how a certain professor operates and what kind of assignments they can expect. This provides a much clearer idea of what a course entails than the descriptions, which can sometimes be inaccurate. Students can also find what materials they may be expected to buy. This also allows access to specialized reading lists for students conducting research. Professors can get a sense of how their colleagues are running courses and also if they happen to be an advisor, help their students make better-informed decisions.

Luckily, this exact project is currently being pushed for. Jacob Chaplin, Vice President of Student Leadership for UMaine Student Government Inc., and other members of UMSG have begun the process of pushing for this to be created. There’s a clear precedent, with this being implemented at peer schools such as UConn and also required by law in Florida and Texas. Right now, the project group is meeting with campus stakeholders to discuss the project and to figure out the path forward that works best for everyone. 

As for expectations on professors, Chaplin states that participation in the bank would be “voluntary but encouraged.” 

The only potential drawback is that syllabi are considered intellectual property by the professors. Care would need to be taken to ensure that the system is accessible only to people within the UMaine system. There would likely be a required log-in and an acceptable use policy stating that the information is not to be redistributed. 

“There needs to be work done on the UMSG side to encourage professors to submit syllabi,” Chaplin said. “What makes it easier is that we have reached out to admin assistants within departments, and every department collects syllabi internally.”

Any student, UMSG affiliated or not, can get involved in two main ways. The big one is filling out the survey the team uses to collect their data. This is crucial in helping determine student opinion. You can also get involved in the project team and participate in stakeholder meetings. For more information on this or any questions about the project, please email Jacob Chaplin at jacob.chaplin@maine.edu.