When David Flanagan was tapped in July to serve as president of the University of Southern Maine for a year, the former Central Maine Power Co. CEO’s charge was to balance a budget that had proven nearly impossible to balance and to allow a strategic plan for the university to take hold.
On Monday, Flanagan announced that USM plans to cut 50 positions from its faculty and two academic programs in order to trim $6 million from its $134 million budget. Those cuts still won’t get the university to the point of a balanced budget for the next academic year, but the package shows USM is finally starting to move in a deliberate direction and change, rather than simply making cuts to its budget.
That’s because in addition to the cuts, USM Provost Joseph McDonnell on Monday released a proposal to group together a number of academic programs in an effort to trim administrative expenses, reduce competition among academic departments and encourage a greater interdisciplinary focus. He also proposed that full-time USM faculty be on campus or working with students directly at least four days a week.
The recommendations for a reorganization mesh with the early outlines of a strategic plan for USM — one that would make USM, with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston-Auburn, the state’s “metropolitan university.” But USM leaders must show how the specific position eliminations they have proposed match the objectives outlined in the strategic plan, which should guide all decisions about remaking the university.
While cuts are never easy, it’s clear that USM is on an unsustainable path — especially given that a surge in state subsidy is unlikely — and needs to make cuts quickly. Between 2003 and 2013, the university shed nearly 20 percent of its enrollment, compared with a 12 percent slide across the University of Maine System. Preliminary figures show USM’s headcount dropped again this fall by another 5 percent. And USM this academic year was set to run the largest deficit of any campus in the university system.
Those factors point to long-term, structural deficiencies — not one-time challenges that can be overcome with bailouts.
In his proposal for reorganizing academic programs, McDonnell invited USM’s faculty to weigh in. “We essentially have two options: eliminate many of our academic programs or reconfigure our many small departments into more interdisciplinary programs,” he wrote. “If we are unable to secure [faculty] cooperation, we must pursue the first path and eliminate more programs.”
USM’s professors have a chance through this process to join the conversation about reorganizing academic programs into more sustainable structures that don’t compete with each other. They should accept the opportunity and be productive participants rather than deny that any changes need to be made to USM’s academic programs or claim that changes should be made in areas other than their own.
Flanagan and his administrative team also have a big responsibility ahead. Part of Flanagan’s charge from the University of Maine System was to mend fences with a faculty that, by and large, is distrustful of any administrative directive. Announcing cuts and faculty reductions based on a plan for the campus’ future that hasn’t yet been finalized and doesn’t yet have widespread buy-in furthers that distrust.
When Flanagan took charge, he promised transparency when making major decisions — especially academic program reductions and eliminations. The administrative team has given professors the basic criteria for its decisions, made preliminary recommendations and given its preliminary reasoning for budget cuts. That’s an important start, but administrators have yet to release fully developed program elimination proposals.
Those proposals will need to be fully transparent. For administrators, that will mark another critical step toward building up some trust among skeptical — and vocal — faculty members.
As the University of Southern Maine moves forward, all members of the community have a responsibility to be productive participants in wide-ranging discussion that answers the question: “What should USM be known for?”