The Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Lab is a campus research hub located in Carnegie Hall, where students and faculty work together on human–technology interaction. Amid the University of Maine’s broader budget pressures and the University of Maine System Strategic Re‑Envisioning (SRE) effort to address these concerns, the VEMI lab was identified as one of the research centers to be formally restructured. Lab Director Dr. Richard Corey and several student employees spoke with the Maine Campus about shifting revenue streams and changes at the lab related to the SRE re-structuring effort.
The VEMI Lab gives undergraduates and graduate students hands-on roles in experimental design, publications and conference presentations, positioning itself as a “people‑first” space for universally designed tech and research education. The university’s official SRE progress tracker now lists “VEMI Lab Restructuring” as implemented, describing a “strategic restructuring” meant to match the lab to “evolving funding streams” by tightening communication lines and financial processes so that staff and faculty can deliver “industry‑standard” work more efficiently.
The Maine Campus asked VEMI Lab director Dr. Richard Corey to explain what had changed, given the SRE language suggested there are “evolving funding streams” that are linked to increasing demand for “industry‑standard” work. He said the biggest shift has been where VEMI looks for money.
“I would say the majority of our funding sources before were federal grants. When grants got harder to find we started going after and working with more industries, and we’re doing a lot of work right now with the automotive industry,” said Corey. He elaborated that the VEMI Lab has now “moved more towards industry dollars and foundations and some Department of Education fundings that are not NSF and NIH related.”
Corey then explained in more detail how the funding process has specifically shifted.
“One of the biggest things that we have recently done is moving from, say, a 15 to 20-page document that you do for NSF and NIH grants,” said Corey. “Now we’re doing a lot more things called quad charts, which is basically a paragraph. And those get submitted in and the funding is equal to where you would have been before, but it’s just a lot less writing effort, a whole lot more talking.”
He emphasized that the lab has always been strict in monitoring its spending, which are efforts that predate the SRE process.
“We’ve always been very good at making sure that all our money is spent in the right way and the cheapest dollar we can get. We haven’t changed that policy yet,” said Corey.
What has changed, he suggested, is how the lab defines the standard it is aiming to meet. Corey drew a line between “an academic standard, which is a very high level of academic research standard” and an “industry standard” — where large companies come in “with an expectation for the result of what they’re after.” Corey shared that the lab’s primary focus is to ask: “How do we start to meet what is being asked of us from industry, and do it in a way in which they’re satisfied with the answer and want to continue to work with us?”
In Corey’s view, the biggest benefit right now is “that students are now working directly with industry people and that experience is worth everything for them.” He also suggested that what SRE now labels as “VEMI Lab Restructuring” mostly formalizes a trajectory the lab has been on for years.
“A lot of what is happening with the SRE changes are stuff that we made years ago,” said Corey. “We started working with industry seven or eight years ago. So our sort of growing pains towards that have already sort of happened.”
Given progress made ahead of a formal re-structuring effort, when the Maine Campus asked students and staff working at the VEMI Lab about the restructuring, employees like second-year communication sciences and disorders student Raina Movalia said they were unaware that any new change was happening.
“I started working here a little over a year ago. It was last, I think I got hired last February. And so since then, I feel like not much has changed. My hours have been the same. I don’t know. At least for me personally,” said Movalia.
Fourth-year journalism and anthropology student Maizy Weirich, who is an employee in the lab’s ASAP Media Services group, also has not noticed any major changes. ASAP is a student-run part of the lab that handles media, general videography and focuses on producing video content.
“When I came in, we started up a couple shows that were new, but that’s what I’ve always worked on since I’ve been here. So I haven’t noticed any sort of shift in terms of what I’ve worked,” said Weirich.
As the university continues implementing SRE initiatives, the VEMI Lab’s evolving funding and business practices offer only one example of how research programs on campus are adapting to changes linked to ongoing budget cuts and restructuring. Those interested in learning more about ongoing SRE initiatives can review the official SRE progress tracker website.
