Suffolk University announced today that it has received the gift of an expansive property on the Penobscot River in Maine that will be used for scientific study and research and to provide a location for future arts, humanities, and creative and professional education and endeavors.

The property, about 30 miles north of Bangor in Passadumkeag, Maine, provides Suffolk University with its second academic location in that state, an inland riverfront facility that will complement the environmental, biological and physical studies taking place at the coastal Friedman Field Station on Cobscook Bay in Washington County, Maine.

The Passadumkeag property consists of more than 80 acres of farmland and forest and extends along more than 1,000 feet of Penobscot riverfront, with additional frontage along smaller streams. The facility was developed at a cost of $3.5 million in 2004. It includes residential buildings and structures that will support future research and academic programs.

“This is an extraordinary gift that will serve to measurably enhance our science programs,” said Barry Brown, the University’s acting president and provost. “The facility will provide our students and faculty with untold opportunities for scientific research as well as workshops, retreats, seminars and intensive study in the humanities and arts, as well as a location for programs for our professional schools. As an urban institution serving students of promise, we must afford our learning community opportunities to expand its horizons in the broadest range of educational, research and creative settings. We are very grateful for this gift and the confidence that it demonstrates in our future.”

The University envisions a range of study taking place on the property. With 86 acres of field, pasture, forest and river frontage, opportunities for wildlife exploration, environmental monitoring and biological study are boundless. The location is ideal for research into wind, solar, water and geothermal energy.

Looking forward, the facility has the size and potential to serve the University in many ways, including student and faculty retreats, workshops and summer projects in areas such as writing, theater, communication, law, business, and fine and applied arts.

Suffolk University’s other Maine property, the R.S. Friedman Field Station, provides a living laboratory for observing and studying marine life in a pristine coastal environment dominated by the dramatic tides of Cobscook Bay. For more than 30 years, Suffolk University science students and faculty have used the facility to extend the reach of undergraduate and graduate scientific programs and to study and experiment in a broad range of the biological and physical sciences in a natural environment.

"The new property in Maine will offer wonderful opportunities to enhance the education of our students and the research of our faculty. When we add this property to our already thriving coastal science facility in Maine, we are now in a position to offer our community the best of both worlds: everything that a great urban institution can provide supplemented by a rich rural environment for special programs in the sciences, the humanities, the social sciences and the arts," said Kenneth Greenberg, dean of Suffolk University’s College of Arts and Sciences.