The University of Southern Maine (USM) is a public university with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston in the U.S. state of Maine. It is the southernmost of the University of Maine System. It was founded as two separate state universities, Gorham Normal School and Portland University. The two universities, later known as Gorham State College and the University of Maine at Portland, were combined in 1970 to help streamline the public university system in Maine and eventually expanded by adding the Lewiston campus in 1988.

Theodora June Kalikow is an American academic, university president, author, and women's rights advocate. Holder of a master's degree and PhD in philosophy, she taught at Southeastern Massachusetts University for 17 years before becoming Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado in 1984. From 1984 to 1987 she was Dean of Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. She then served as 13th President of the University of Maine at Farmington from 1994 to 2012, and Interim President of the University of Southern Maine from 2012 to 2014. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.