PORTLAND, Maine — Interim University of Southern Maine President David Flanagan announced Monday that he has appointed Lynn Kuzma, an associate professor of history and political science, to lead the school’s high-profile effort to reinvent itself as Maine’s “metropolitan university.”
“The metropolitan university mission is why this university is here, in this place. It is about doing things differently, with purpose,” Flanagan said Monday in a statement. “Lynn will get us back to where we once were — the thriving university in the best city in the Northeast.”
Kuzma said Monday afternoon she’ll have a reduced teaching load to provide her more time to spearhead the effort, which will involve the assembly of a steering committee of fellow faculty members, staff, students and community members.
USM administrators and other stakeholders have touted the metropolitan university approach as one that could finally turn around years of declining enrollment and annual budget battles, which have created tension between faculty and administration.
Flanagan’s elimination of 51 faculty positions and five programs last fall in response to what he called a $16 million budget shortfall fueled protests and grievances by faculty.
“I believe this [metropolitan university concept] could be the uniting idea that could bring people together,” Kuzma said. “There is definitely within our culture a finger-pointing mentality going on, and I’m hoping this will be able to change it.”
The metropolitan university approach involves the school’s widespread integration into the Portland-area community, prioritizing hands-on, experiential projects with local businesses and nonprofits as primary learning opportunities. Central to USM’s pursuit of the model is achieving the Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Community Engagement Classification by 2020.
“We as an organization are thrilled about [Kuzma’s] appointment and look forward to working with her to get USM students properly matched with internships and jobs that exist within the Greater Portland community,” said Chris Hall, CEO of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.
University of Maine System Chancellor James Page is reviewing two finalists for the USM presidency, with hopes that one will be in place by July.
Richard Barringer of USM’s Muskie School of Public Service, chaired a committee charged with developing metropolitan university strategy. That group submitted its report in December.
Kuzma will take those blueprints and attempt to implement them, but with the extra challenge of fiscal constraints. Barringer’s committee reported that a full transformation to a metropolitan university could cost $125,000 in startup costs and $925,000 in additional annual costs after that — an amount that included $250,000 in yearly investments in student projects and $100,000 in annual professional development for faculty.
Kuzma suggested she will be seeking to guide the reinvention for less.
“We have to look at how to align the university and all of its parts to fulfill this mission,” she said. “Resources are scarce. We’re not going to have all this money poured into the university to fulfill this mission, so we have to look at the resources we have.”
Kuzma has experience integrating her own teaching work into the local community — she founded Maine’s model United Nations conference for high schools soon after she arrived at USM 17 years ago and has continued to link up with refugee populations and nonprofits for continued work in the years since.
