Annie is an opportunity matchmaker
The Roux Institute’s Annie Chuprevich matches learners with opportunities—degree programs, professional assignments, research, and entrepreneurship—tailored to their interests.
Before joining the Roux Institute in 2020, Chuprevich spent 10 years working in higher education for the University of Southern Maine and Unity College. “The Roux Institute is radically different, in that it works with employers from day one to design academic, research, and entrepreneurship initiatives. We’re all about turning Portland into a technology hub, and about graduating learners who will fill advanced tech jobs in Maine.”
As the Roux Institute’s self-described “connector,” Chuprevich makes opportunity happen for learners. “When learners say, ‘I have this passion or this interest,’ I try to match them with a particular opportunity that is unique to the Roux Institute,” says the senior director of academic operations and learner services.
Our flexibility in delivering education reflects our mission to serve the needs of all Mainers.”
Annie Chuprevich
Senior Director of Academic Operations and Learner Services
The Roux Institute
One of Chuprevich’s project-management learners, for example, is interested in startups, particularly the crucial role a project manager can play in a new company’s early success. She connected him with the institute’s director of entrepreneurship, Chris Wolfel, and the team for an informal get-to-know-you interview. That learner, Chuprevich says, is now engaged with startup-focused events, workshops, and talks hosted by the institute, as well as co-ops available with a resident startup.
“Our learners are wonderful—the most engaged group, and very ambitious. They want good careers, lives, and prosperity, and they want it here, in Maine,” says Chuprevich, herself a lifelong, diehard Mainer. “They’re getting involved with the Roux Institute and its mission in a way that is really personal to them.”
Flexible course formats appeal to learners in more remote parts of New England and in Maine, like Mount Desert Island, where several employee learners of Roux Institute partner The Jackson Laboratory reside.
“Some of our learners at first didn’t think this opportunity would be possible since they lived in Bar Harbor, three hours north of Portland,” Chuprevich says. “But our flexibility in delivering education reflects our mission to serve the needs of all Mainers.”