One of the most critical players in the state’s effort to build long-term, sustainable economic growth is the University of Maine System. It must be supported by our tax dollars, valued by our civic leaders and understood by all for the role it plays.
But the university system also has a responsibility to manage itself efficiently, and it must continually adapt so that it effectively integrates its programming with the state and its economic needs. It also must earn and retain the trust of Maine residents by assuring them that it is operating under those principles.
The recent news of hefty raises for staff is a perception problem for the system. Such perceptions quickly become reality, especially when many Mainers already believe university faculty and staff have cushy jobs with lots of time off and better-than-average compensation.
In the last six years, the system doled out $7 million in raises at a time when campuses were facing state subsidy cuts and most private and public sector employees in Maine were seeing flat wages.
The headlines give the system a black eye, but the broader context of the story is less shocking. Most of the pay hikes went to staff who took on additional tasks, part of a reorganization that came with recession-inspired belt-tightening. Other raises came when employees were transferred to other posts or promoted within the system.
The system notes that there are about 325 fewer full-time positions since October 2005, which undoubtedly shifted tasks to remaining staff.
And here is further context: the University of Maine System pays $275.4 million in wages annually for its 5,750 employees. That works out to an average annual salary of about $48,000; not outrageous, given the qualifications required.
But the status quo is not acceptable.
The system’s new chancellor, James Page, is well-poised to take on the system’s challenges of perception and mission. Mr. Page’s career has been in the private, nonacademic sector, yet with an engineering background, he clearly respects and understands the importance of higher education. And he understands the perception problem.
“We’re asking people to take the two things they most value and give them to us — their tax dollars and their family members,” he said Thursday, putting what he believes is the system’s accountability challenge in perspective.
Mr. Page also understands what others in the system have not, that it cannot continue to exist in a bubble, protected from the new economic realities. In a telling observation, he describes UMS as a federation, not a system. The individual campuses should remain independent in many respects, but Mr. Page sees great potential for streamlining their management.
He plans a “systemwide, comprehensive review of administrative services with a goal of freeing up resources to use for mission-critical functions,” he said. Changes that follow such a review should mean that every program, every staff position and every dollar spent should be clearly linked to the system’s core goals.
He also wants to tackle some perennial problems with the way the system functions for consumers, such as allowing easier transfer of credits from campus to campus, ensuring that coursework leads to degrees in a timely fashion and keeping tuition affordable.
And action should come sooner than later. “It can’t happen overnight,” Mr. Page said, “but it can’t take a decade, either.”
The result of such a push toward efficiency and effectiveness is more accountability with state government and consumers, and broader support among the general public.
By most accounts, the University of Maine System provides first-rate public postsecondary education at reasonable price. But now is the time to undertake bold moves to ensure it remains true to its mission and role. That UMS trustees chose Mr. Page, with his nontraditional background, as chancellor suggests he has their support. Together they can achieve change.
For all the cuts in the System in recent years, as the editorial notes, almost none have come at the System level. Far from it. The Trustees take millions for Strategic Investment Initiatives but rarely specify what they mean. They spend millions on consultants without considering the use of their own “experts.” And they treat faculty and non-System staff as peasants. They have not a clue as to what goes on apart from a few sexy projects like wind energy and wood composites. Unless and until the System is downsized, and some greater degree of autonomy given to the seven campuses, little positive will occur. Let us hope that Dr. Page can turn things around. He indeed has the right combination of experiences and credentials.
It’s more than a perception problem. It is a profoundly, deeply-rooted system of functioning where the more you kiss political butt, the more money you make and the less work you have to do. Until the University is willing to change this, it will keep losing its best and brightest faculty and staff.
I share your concerns. I am currantlly a U Manie gradute studant. We believe in politics to do ppour workk four us. I submit..I submit..that our perfessorrs are the best instruoturs around. We need to keep changing our administrarrors frequently…that is good perspectively. I will recieve my Dsc degree next year…good luk U Maine people.
That’s just ignorant.
You should be more respectful of a budding professor of Women’s Studies.
“By most accounts, the University of Maine System provides first-rate public postsecondary education at reasonable price.” Not anymore. The education is OK, but it’s not affordable. Even the most financially worthy have to take on serious debt to be in college, and those without that student aid need easily rack up $20,000 a year in loans which cannot be repaid in the current economy.We are returning to a pre-WW II situation were only the wealthy will be able to afford college. The state doesn’t want to increase its support to the University; the University is mired in its own bureaucracy, spending more that half its funding on administration and non instructional activities, and the federal government is limiting the bulk of its financial aid funding to loan guarantees. (Those billions in loan guarantees are about to become the next national financial crisis because graduates (and dropouts) cannot repay them.)
Liberal academics couldn’t efficiently run a lemonade stand
Gripes about the system office are understandable, but keeping the campuses as individual silos seems contrary to the need to become more efficient. Much larger state university systems operate less like a federation, as the chancellor says. The campus presidents can remain, but isn’t more administrative consolidation possible?
7 Million in raises: are you kidding me. We are in a resention??? Liberals do not get it..
“resention” is not even a word.
Education is fundamental to economic development.
Maybe the answer is to shut down the University entirely and pay for Maine students to go to college in states with far larger, better-funded state universities that offer more and better programs. I seem to recall that the student population of California’s university system is about one-third of the total population of Maine. And there are other, closer states, of course.
flat lander: name one “liberal” on the UME Board of Trustees, the persons with the ultimate power. There are none. Nearly all are conservative Republicans like Sen. Collins’ brother Sam and the handsomely paid CEO of Eastern Maine Healthcare Michelle Hood. So spare us your nonsense about “liberals” ruining the UME System. These business-oriented folks are obsessed with making the System into a business even though higher education is not quite a business, to say the least, and students and staff are not quite workers on the line, though Hood, Collins, and the rest of the Board are pushing that pseudo-scientific model ever more. Business values and experience are certainly important, but, as the new Chancellor understands, insufficient. Those who believe otherwise are deluding themselves and cheating Maine taxpayers.
Eliminate waste by eliminating the chancellors position. Never miss it.
7 million in raises what planet are they from….
How much did they save by combining or eliminating over three hundred jobs?
Maybe the University wouldn’t have such a problem if the BDN didn’t sensationalize their headlines. The editorial even points out that the headline doesn’t tell the real story.