This year, ahead of her retirement, Dr. Caron established the Sandra L. Caron, Ph.D. Scholarship with the University of Maine Foundation. The fund aims to support promising UMaine students who graduated from Brewer High School in pursuing their academic dreams. The Foundation is honored to steward the fund in respect and recognition of Caron’s dedication to the University of Maine, a dedication which impacted (by her estimate) nearly 30,000 students enrolled in her classes over her tenure.
For 36 years starting in 1988, Dr. Sandra L. Caron, Ph.D. has been a member of the University of Maine faculty teaching and educating on matters of family relations and human sexuality. Responsible for two of the largest classes at the university – Family Interaction and Human Sexuality – her tenure also saw her personally establish and advise three nationally-recognized peer education programs: Athletes for Sexual Responsibility, Male Athletes Against Violence, and the Greek Peer Educator Program.
Beginning as a faculty member, Caron was heavily involved in campus life and culture, including work in a Hancock Hall faculty-in-residence program, serving as a live-in advisor at the Pi Beta Phi sorority, and hosting “Sex at 7” question-and-answer sessions in residence halls during evening hours. Her teaching and advice on human sexuality expanded to include a weekly column, “Sex Matters,” in The Maine Campus newspaper that was syndicated in other campus papers nationwide, and her own WMEB radio show. She has gone on to have authored and co authored more than 50 scholarly articles and several books, including the latest “The Sex Lives of College Students: Three Decades of Attitudes and Behaviors,” a cumulative publication of her over 30 years of research.
Caron, a Brewer, Maine native, studied at the University of Maine beginning in 1975. In a time of sexual revolution such as the landmark Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Stonewall Riots in New York City, and the beginning of widespread birth control access, she looked to pursue a career as a sex educator. She completed a B.S. in Health and Family Life in 1979 and an M.S. in Human Development in 1982 from UMaine before pursuing her Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
In her retirement, Caron hopes to continue her work as a licensed therapist in private practice focusing on sexuality-related issues, and carry on in her involvement in numerous nonprofits that work to support the causes that shaped her career.
Give to the Sandra L. Caron Ph.D. Scholarship Fund
Read Dr. Sandra Caron’s full story on UMaine News
