A battle over budget cuts and how they’ve been carried out has consumed the University of Southern Maine over the past few years — and especially in the past year — as the university has eliminated five academic programs, cut 51 faculty positions and dismissed others from the ranks of non-teaching staff.
The level of rancor that has overtaken the campus over the past year, coupled with denial that major underlying problems exist, make for a sad state of debate at Maine’s second largest public university.
The union representing USM faculty alleges 11 different contract violations took place as USM administrators went about budget trimming and the two sides are in arbitration over the allegations. On Wednesday, a national group representing college faculty interests issued a report claiming additional wrongdoing on the part of USM administrators. The American Association of University Professors concluded administrators didn’t properly involve faculty, per the principles of “shared governance,” in program elimination decisions, nor did they prove the university was facing “financial exigency” before cutting programs and faculty positions. USM faces possible censure by the AAUP as a result.
Incoming USM President Harvey Kesselman has many tall orders ahead when he starts his job July 1. One of the first will be to start shifting the conversation on USM’s three campuses away from acrimony and toward productive, participatory discussions about USM’s raison d’etre. Kesselman should show faculty he’s serious about honoring their role in running USM. USM’s faculty union should engage in these future-oriented discussions, accepting the fact that significant changes — some difficult — are needed.
While USM has eliminated positions, its budget troubles are far from resolved. The University of Maine System transferred $7 million from reserves to the three-campus institution in order to balance this year’s budget. It’s expected USM’s budget for 2015-2016 will require at least $1.6 million in campus reserves.
USM, with campuses in Maine’s most populous regions, has seen its enrollment decline more quickly than the University of Maine System as a whole over the past decade and much more quickly than the rate of decline among Maine’s 15- to 24-year-old population. That trend is unlikely to let up in the new academic year. According to the latest application and enrollment figures, USM’s first-year class this fall will be 11 percent smaller than last fall’s. That puts major pressure on USM’s largest revenue source: tuition.
The fact that 35 percent of USM’s first-year students typically don’t return for a second year also limits tuition revenue, as well as the fact that more than two-thirds fail to graduate within six years. Many improvements need to be made at USM for the sake of the institution, not to mention the benefit of its students.
Unfortunately, the AAUP-issued report could lull some into a false sense of comfort with the status quo and prevent needed discussions about and planning for change.
The report concludes the University of Maine System is “not in any financial trouble” by showing the system is in financially sound condition because of responsible management. (The report’s analysis of USM’s individual financial situation is much less complete and neglects to note that, as of 2013, the university performed below where it should have on four key financial ratios that indicate whether USM is operating within its means, has sufficient reserves on hand, can manage its debt and has sufficient financial flexibility.)
But there’s discussion only of past financial performance with no projections, even though budgets are necessarily based on projections. In fact, the report effectively criticizes university administrators for the fully responsible act of developing projections, predicting deficits and planning based on them.
Projecting those deficits — which the report dismisses as “purely estimates” that “do not represent what has actually happened” — and responding is necessary and involves making difficult decisions. We agree with the AAUP that as much budget-cutting as possible should come from administrative ranks. The university system also needs to scale back its expansive and expensive physical footprint.
Faculty will play a critical role in helping USM successfully respond to its specific challenges and to the shakeup bound to hit higher education. That role must be based on a realistic understanding of those challenges and the need to work through them.
