Hansen Uses Nationwide Experience to Support Students as Upward Bound Director
Contributing writer Cole Writeout says, “One of the big services that Upward Bound provides is the opportunity to tour different colleges so that students get a feel for different institutions.” (Zachary Myers)
Image: (Submitted Liz Hansen)
May 1, 2026
Cole Writeout, Contributing Writer
As UMF’s Upward Bound Director nears one year in their role, it may be time to get to know this recent addition to our Student Services team.
Hansen grew up on the coast of Maine, in a small town named Spruce Head, just south of Rockland, and returned here to take the Upward Bound position.
“Born and raised here - I went to college at UMaine, Hansen said. “Undergrad and grad school. My undergrad degree was in elementary education. And then I went and did the total opposite end of the spectrum.”
Hansen faced a bit of a revelation about what she wanted to do in her life post-grad; something many seniors can likely relate to.
“I got to my senior year and realized I may not actually be that happy if I were in the classroom teaching,” Hansen said. “And it was around the time that the No Child Left Behind Act was coming about. I had some moral opposition to this idea that we're just gonna pass a kid along to make us look better, but that doesn't help them out at all.”
Hansen made her trek outside of Maine, working at different universities across the country in Student Services positions, working in Georgia, Washington and Oklahoma. After her time away, Hansen made her transition back to the Pine Tree State.
“I was getting ready to come back to Maine,” Hansen said. “When I had first left, all my friends and my folks would be like, “you're coming back. Right? Like, when are you coming back?” I said I don't know. But I'm ready to explore some other things, so not yet. But a real motivator for it is that my folks were getting older, and I'm an only child.”
Hansen explained what exactly it is that TRIO does, as it’s made up of a lot of different programs with different, but complementary goals, typically assisting high school students with the often confusing and stressful pressure put upon them to attend higher education.
“TRIO is a big umbrella term that's used nationwide, Hansen said”. “The name is misleading now because TRIO is obviously three, but there are actually eight. Upward Bound, SSS, and Talent Search were the first ones that came about in the early mid-sixties.”
Hansen slotted right into the Upward Bound Director position, having done similar work at her previous jobs.
“At its core, TRIO programs work with first-gen and low-income students,” Hansen said. “And when I was in Washington, working at the school out there, that was the majority of what our population was. So while I wasn't doing it through the lens of TRIO programs, it's like I know this population of students, and you know what some of their needs and challenges might be. [I knew] things like that, so that helped me sort of make that transition in Oklahoma to the SSS program. So I had gotten to work with them a little bit and learn about how those programs operate before I came up here.”
Although we typically associate these programs with high schoolers and young adults in general, some of their programs target non-traditional learners.
“Other programs have added educational opportunity centers,” Hansen said. “Like for adults, who have their high school diploma or maybe dropped out of high school and have gotten or need to get a GED, and then want to continue on to college. So it's helping them out too.”
Here at UMF, our Upward Bound program serves eight different high schools, for a total of 79 students in their program.
“They have to be first-generation and/or low-income and have some kind of academic need,” Hansen said. “Maybe they just need more support going into college, maybe they want to do a STEM field, so it might be something a little bit more competitive to get into. They might have a learning disability of some sort, you know, beyond an Individualized Education Program or something like that. So we balance it because we see that they have the potential to go to college, but we don't care what type of college it is. Just anything post-secondary, really.”
One of the big services that Upward Bound provides is the opportunity to tour different colleges so that students get a feel for different institutions.
“It's totally free for the students to participate in,” Hansen said. “So when we have our summer program that's housed here, we do college trips. Just a couple of weeks ago, a coworker and I were in Massachusetts for a couple of days, taking a small group of students to see Smith College, Mount Holyoke, Boston College and Brandeis University. And so for that, like the hotel, us driving down there, all of our meals out, we cover all of that for the students.”
These programs often struggle with people’s misconceptions, especially misconceptions about getting help in general. Hansen works to educate people to help fight against these.
“[One thing] I've encountered is people who think that TRIO is just for 'dumb kids,’ Hansen said.
Hansen commented on what she would do with infinite resources, and her answer spoke to who she is as a person, as well as just how focused the department is on helping students.
“ A month, well, barely even a month into me starting here, I didn't realize it at the time, but we actually had two grants here, two Upward-Bound grants,” Hansen said. “One that worked with eight schools and one that worked with six schools. For a total of 139 students across both of the grants. We lost the smaller grant. It got cut back in October. One of many across the country that got cut from stuff with the current administration. It's just heartbreaking, like all of the things, [so I would like to] get that back.”
