Lecture in Aubert Hall
Lecture in Aubert Hall, circa 1968

1965–1974

  • A Centennial Convocation and Exercises were held in February 1965. Gov. John Reed delivered the main address at the Centennial Founders’ Day Luncheon. University President Lloyd Elliott remarked: “A university is the work of many hands. It is a task never complete. It is a dream never quite fulfilled.”
  • Dean Emeritus Weston Evans wrote of the 100th anniversary: “The educational needs of the State are as different today from the needs of 1865 as the jet plane is different from the wood-burning steam locomotive of the Civil War era…The future of the University rests with the State; so also, the future of the State may well rest with the university.”
  • Enrollment in 1965 hit 6,800, a 1,300-student increase from 1964.
  • The Black Bear football team played East Carolina in the 1965 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida.
  • In 1965, Ira Darling donated his 148-acre seaside estate in Walpole to the university. In 1968, he formed a trust that helped launch UMaine’s first oceanography program.
  • Edwin Young became president in 1965.
  • In 1968, the Maine State Legislature created the app System. The name of the app was changed, over the objection of faculty, to the app at Orono (UMO).
  • In 1968, Eugene McCarthy, William Hathaway and Barry Goldwater spoke on campus.
  • Winthrop Libby became president in 1969.
  • In fall 1970, there were 2,976 students in arts and sciences, 1,635 in education, 1,359 in life sciences and agriculture, 799 in technology and 561 in business administration.
  • Title IX, which protects people from discrimination based on gender in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance, became law in 1972. In ensuing years, UMaine re-instituted and added women’s intercollegiate sports programs, including volleyball, skiing, gymnastics, tennis, swimming and diving, basketball, softball, cross-country and track.
  • In 1973, Howard Neville became president of the only land grant university in the nation located on an island— Marsh Island.
  • Also in 1973, the UMaine Institute for Quaternary Studies was founded; now its name is the Climate Change Institute.