ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine System board of trustees on Monday approved the University of Southern Maine starting a two-year international high school and accepted a report backing the system’s push for more academic cooperation among campuses.
The international school hopes to start off with 50 “academically advanced,” English-language-ready students, recruited to come to the University of Southern Maine to complete their junior and senior years of high school. During that time, they would take 100- and 200-level college courses to complete their diploma and gather early college credits.
The University of Southern Maine expects the program to cost $1.6 million to start but believes those costs will be offset by the $32,000 per year that each student pays in tuition. The hope is that many of those students will return to the school to complete their college education.
An official from the International Early College program, as it’s called, will be responsible for traveling to other countries and work with organizations to find students who want to come to Maine to finish up high school, according to University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings.
The school hopes to bring in its first crop of students during the next school year, but it could be delayed until January 2017, as the school is still working to resolve visa issues and get final approvals.
In 2013, the system hired Study Group, an organization that recruits students to attend colleges and universities across the U.S. and internationally, to bring in students. Study Group, however, fell well short of its targets, leading to the phasing out of the partnership. For example, in year one, Study Group promised to bring 20 international students to the University of Southern Maine but only delivered one. The arrangement with the system, chalked up as a failure, ends officially in July.
Cummings said he hopes to avoid running into the same issues with this effort. First, Maine tends to be an attractive destination for high school students, he said, pointing out several successful international programs at Maine high schools and academies.
He also stressed that because university officials would be operating the school, the university would have more direct involvement in ensuring it reaches its enrollment goals. The university also expects to collaborate with the Portland-based Council on International Education Exchange, a nonprofit that specializes in international exchange programs.
During a financial update, the University of Maine System’s chief financial official, Ryan Low, said market “upheavals” over the past year have caused the system to lose $3.6 million from its investment pool. The system expected that pool to generate $3 million. Overall, halfway through the fiscal year, Low said he is projecting a preliminary budget loss of $6.6 million.
The system’s seven campuses are expected to submit budget proposals to the system office by the end of the month. System officials will vet those budgets next month and will bring final budgets to the board for approval in May. The fiscal year 2018 budget will be the system’s first unified one, with the system allocating budgets for the individual campuses.
Several campuses are grappling with projected budget gaps.
Also during Monday’s meeting, trustees accepted a report from North Dakota-based education consultant Ellen Chaffee, in which she lays out recommendations for how to proceed with efforts already underway through University of Maine System Chancellor James Page’s One University Initiative. The system hired her to explore the academic transformation process, formerly known as the Academic Program Review and Integration Process.
Trustees acted on one of her recommendations Monday, giving Page permission to appoint someone to the vice chancellor of academic affairs post, which hasn’t been filled full time since Susan Hunter left to take over the presidency of the University of Maine. The vice chancellor of academic affairs position is still included in the system budget, so there won’t be an additional cost.
Chaffee also recommend creating an associate vice chancellor or assistant for that vice chancellor. Trustees also backed that idea. Those two people will play a vital role in the system’s push to restructure how it offers academic programs across all its campuses.
During her review, which brought together faculty representing 16 academic programs, groups tried to identify ways to share campus resources and eliminate unnecessary duplication in programs from campus to campus. However, the group couldn’t find the data it needed to make solid recommendations about what should be done with programs, Chaffee said.
She recommended the system invest $60 million in infrastructure before taking another look at its academic offerings. Those investments are already included in a series of proposals that have hit the desks of trustees, and they are not unexpected. The bulk of the spending would be in IT, where officials have called for a $44 million investment over the next four years — covering new staff, Wi-Fi, an overhaul of MaineStreet, and upgraded technology across the system’s classrooms and offices.
Chaffee also said the system should work to drive up revenue, and it should consider “modest” annual tuition increases. The trustees have voted to keep in-state tuition at all seven campuses flat for the past four years to keep its education affordable.
Once more data is available on the popularity and feasibility of programs, the system should consider “pruning” the offerings based on a cost-benefits analysis. Chaffee said she didn’t believe the program changes had to be drastic.
“I don’t think there are lots of programs to be cut, [and] I don’t think there are lots of programs to be added,” she said.
Investment in IT infrastructure that allows campuses to collaborate and offer courses to students no matter where they are in the state would be key, however, she said.
Much of this work is already underway or has been proposed in theory to the trustees in the past.
Several faculty members expressed concern about the process before the trustees’ vote, arguing they hadn’t had time to meet and properly vet the report and its findings. The report was made public a few days before Monday’s meeting.
Trustees agreed to allow faculty groups to review the proposals and take any concerns raised into consideration before trying to advance other initiatives or recommendations in the report.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.