Existential crises are nothing new for the University of Maine System. In its 46-year history — and before — report after report has responded to the problems of flat or declining enrollment, skyrocketing tuition, floundering public confidence, questionable quality, tenuous budget outlooks and excessive administration.
Each report has sought to answer the question: What should Maine’s public higher education system look like so it can provide the people of Maine with affordable access to high-quality, university-level education?
Time after time, the University of Maine System has considered the call for change and avoided the hard choices.
Right from the start, lawmakers and Maine’s universities resisted the call to merge into one large university for the entire state. Instead, Maine ended up largely with the system it has today — autonomously run institutions with their own administrative structures — for a combined student population far smaller than some of the nation’s largest, individual universities.
Subsequent reports through the decades suggested fundamentally redefining Maine’s individual universities — designating some campuses four-year institutions and others two-year colleges, for example — but university officials quickly backed away once the outcry from campus personnel and legislators ensued.
Over time, the recommendations became less bold. A 1996 report from the Commission on Higher Education Governance declared, “The current structures of The University System, the Technical College System and the Maine Maritime Academy work well. It’s time to call a truce on this issue, and move on.” That was the wrong conclusion with the wrong recommendation.
Then, the next time a university chancellor did suggest a major realignment — Chancellor Joseph Westphal’s 2004 proposal to merge the University of Maine at Augusta into the University of Southern Maine — the Legislature reacted by etching the seven-institution structure into law.
In 2009, another strategy report backpedaled on the issue of relocating the chancellor’s office to Augusta from Bangor. After an early draft recommending the move drew opposition, the final draft simply recommended that the chancellor spend more time in the state capitol.
Now, the University of Maine System is proposing to shut down the central office in Bangor that it moved into in 2005. But the system’s history of bold discussion with little strategic action makes us skeptical that the system will follow through.
Of course, the university system has yet to outline its specific plans and put forward a fully thought-out, convincing case explaining why shutting down the system office is the right course of action. The system needs to make clear that this isn’t simply a relocation of the central office to various university campuses. The public needs to know that this is part of a genuine effort to significantly cut overhead expenses and fundamentally change university system operations.
What is clear at this point is that the university system erred when, a decade ago, it committed to occupying the top three stores of the historic W.T. Grant building in downtown Bangor for 20 years. Higher education is only likely to continue changing as technology disrupts the post-secondary marketplace and throws the raison d’etre for the University of Maine System — and all its brick-and-mortar infrastructure — into question. Nothing can be so certain for 20 years.
Yes, removing more than 100 employees from downtown Bangor would be a blow for the Queen City’s resurgent downtown. But bold action that starts to shrink the University of Maine System down to a reasonable and affordable size for the digital age and for a small state is long overdue.