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CMP parent company to fund sustainability-oriented position, scholarship at USM

Pedro Azagra, CEO of Avangrid, parent company of Central Maine Power, speaks at the University of Southern Maine. The company's philanthropic wing is funding an endowed professorship and student scholarship at USM focused on sustainability and climate change.
Patty Wight
/
Maine Public
Pedro Azagra, CEO of Avangrid, parent company of Central Maine Power, speaks at the University of Southern Maine. The company's philanthropic wing is funding an endowed professorship and student scholarship at USM focused on sustainability and climate change.

The Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine is creating an endowed professorship and student scholarship focused on sustainability and climate change.

The initiative will be funded through a $1.2 million gift from the Avangrid Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the parent company of Central Maine Power.

Muskie School director Firooza Pavri says the gift will establish the first endowed professorship at the Muskie School.

"It will help USM attract and retain top faculty with public policy expertise to facilitate teaching and research in sustainability, energy transitions, climate adaptation, and environmental policy," Pavri says.

Pavri says it will also allow USM to collaborate with the state's largest utility for research. A $200,000 endowed scholarship fund will be for graduate students studying policy planning and public health.

The gift is in honor of the late David Flanagan, a former president of USM and two-time CEO of CMP.