Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

What is a Continuing Education Unit (CEU)?

A CEU is a way of measuring an individual’s participation in a continuing education program. CEUs were established to verify that a person has completed the required program to get their professional certificates, which allows them to continue practicing. Professionals can use CEUs to improve skills and stay current with new technology, laws and requirements that may apply to their fields.

The Continuing Education Unit (CEU) is a nationally-accepted uniform unit for measuring participation in applicable noncredit continuing education activities. CEU programs are generally designed for a specific audience and are often used for professional development in a particular industry or profession. The CEU permits individuals to participate in many different kinds of programs while accumulating a uniform record available for future reference.

By definition, one “Continuing Education Unit” is described as ten contact hours of participation in an organized continuing education activity under responsible sponsorship, capable direction, and qualified instruction. For example, a 30-hour program meeting these criteria would typically qualify for 3 CEUs.

Further inquiries about the CEU application process should be directed to us at um.continuinged@maine.edu.

Individual participants of continuing education programming may request a CEU transcript to document their learning. Participants are responsible for submitting or returning completed CEU Participant Forms.

A $10.00 processing fee must also accompany the completed CEU Participant Form. Checks should be payable to “University of Maine.” You can also pay at the UMaine Continuing Education online store; select “CEU Transcript”.

The form must be completed in full with the signature of the original sponsor. Both the participant’s biographical information section and the CEU sponsor’s (or the sponsor’s representative’s) signature verifying the attendance and participation of the participant must be completed.

We will then issue an official University of Maine transcript to the participant. All participants’ CEU activities taken under the auspices of the University of Maine are comprehensively archived; each participant’s CEU activity will be added to any previous CEU activities. CEU credit is not transferable to academic credit.

Hosting a conference or continuing education program? We can process CEU credits for your attendees. The approval process generally takes a minimum of 10 business days. All CEU applications must be pre-approved. Approval of educational activities after the fact is generally not possible.

Department / Agency CEU Application

Upon completing the CEU application process, we will assign a CEU number to the application and create and send back a CEU Participant Form. The CEU Participant Form may be copied and distributed to each participant.

A $50 fee for reviewing the program must accompany your application. Checks should be payable to “University of Maine.” You can also pay online at the UMaine Continuing Education online store; select “CEU Application Processing Fee”. UMaine departments may submit an interdepartmental order (IDO).