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Dear University of Maine System colleagues and students,
Today, the University of Maine System (UMS) will award its first System-wide enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) platform contract to ChatGPT Edu from OpenAI. Through the two-year agreement that will begin this July 1, every faculty member, staff member, and matriculated student will have access through their UMS account and the opportunity to use this tool (or not) as they see fit.
How we are paying for this solution
Based on your input, UMS will fund the first year (July 1, 2026 - June 30, 2027) entirely from System resources generated through investment income. There will be no new student fee or campus cost share.
Our reasoning is straightforward. AI tools like ChatGPT Edu have quickly become essential infrastructure for teaching and learning, research, and operations. We are committed to ensuring Maine’s Public Universities remain the most affordable in the region while providing our students with the foundational experience and knowledge of the tools that are increasingly common in the workplace and that employers expect them to have the skills to utilize. We want adoption to move forward in a timely, thoughtful, and widespread manner while we learn together what the platform actually delivers in a UMS environment.
The Board will revisit funding for the second year of the new contract as part of the FY28 budget development process, and any student fee or shared services cost would be subject to a transparent, public review process that proactively engages faculty, staff, and students.
How we got here
Last September, a UMS AI working group, which was inclusive of faculty, staff, students, and Trustees, issued this public report. Among their recommendations was that an AI solution be made available System-wide to ensure equitable access to tools and training. This award is the outcome of a competitive and transparent procurement process led by UMS Strategic Procurement, informed by that recommendation and evaluated by a System-wide team that included a faculty member, presidents, a Trustee, and representatives from finance and IT.
I want to thank those in our university community who shared their use cases, concerns, and feedback throughout the process, and the evaluation team for their careful consideration of the proposals received through that RFP process.
What we are getting
ChatGPT Edu is the higher-education tier of OpenAI's enterprise platform. It includes OpenAI's most capable models, custom GPTs that units and courses can build for themselves, data privacy protections (your prompts and files are never used to train OpenAI's models), single sign-on through existing UMS credentials, and administrative controls that let each university manage its own deployment.
Rollout
Rollout begins July 1. Provisioning will move in phases over the summer, coordinated by each university’s IT lead with the System AI program team. Additional details — onboarding, training, login mechanics, and what to do with your current individual subscriptions and trial licenses — will follow in the coming weeks from your university IT teams and from my office. Implementation will continue to be informed by input from across UMS as deployment proceeds.
Training and professional development
To accompany the rollout, the System will dramatically expand its professional development opportunities for faculty and staff in the coming year and cover those costs. Building on our existing AI professional development programming, which is delivered through the Maine Center and has trained hundreds of UMS employees over the past two years — we will add capacity for additional cohorts and role-specific tracks across administrative and operational functions. Participation in training and use of the tool will remain optional, and decisions about how AI is used in any individual classroom, lab, or office will continue to rest with the people doing that work.
Our operating philosophy
Our operating philosophy is straightforward: the System is building a secure AI grid and each university decides how best to use that power to advance teaching and learning, discovery, student success, and service.
We are providing a platform that is reliable, paid for, and integrated with existing UMS credentials and systems. Universities have full discretion over where and how it is used and may continue to acquire complementary tools as their academic, research, or workflow needs require, consistent with relevant policies, approval processes, and resource availability.
In the coming weeks, we will host a System-wide Q&A session that will be recorded and posted online, with details to come. In the meantime, questions about this new solution can be directed to AI@maine.edu.
Sincerely,
Ryan W. Low
Vice Chancellor for Finance & Strategic AI Integration
On behalf of the Enterprise Generative AI Services RFP Evaluation Team
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