As chancellor of the University of Maine System, Dannel Malloy led the system through COVID, unified accreditation for seven campuses and navigated a decline in college students.
But a contract extension he received in May will mark his final years in the position.
The system’s board of trustees will begin the search for the next chancellor during the upcoming academic year, Chair Roger Katz said in an interview Thursday with the Bangor Daily News.
Malloy’s contract extension to June 2028 gives the board time to find his replacement, Katz said.
“It takes a while to find new leadership. I mean, it’s obviously a very important person, the most important person in the system, and it gives us time to talk with our campuses, to talk with business leaders, to talk with statewide leaders to figure out exactly what the profile is that we will be looking for in a new leader going forward,” Katz said.
It may be a lengthy process to replace Malloy, who was paid $421,975 in 2025, according to state records. The chancellor has wide influence on Maine’s higher education — from navigating uncertain federal funding to balancing rising costs — which often invokes criticism from the state legislature, campus staff and faculty.
Malloy was unanimously approved by the board of trustees as the 11th chancellor of the system following two terms as governor of Connecticut. UMaine was one of multiple university systems that contacted Malloy for a leadership position, he said.
In interviews for the role, Malloy saw that UMaine’s seven campuses had challenges but were positioned to succeed because they had good leadership and knew what they could offer students and Maine in terms of education and job force.
“One of the reasons I chose to go to Maine was that if you could get someone of the outstanding attributes that [UMaine President] Joan Ferrini-Mundy has, that’s an organization that that is capable of attracting people, and that opened my eyes to what we could do as a system,” Malloy said.
Not every person has been happy with Malloy’s decisions.
In a letter outlining concerns for the future of UMaine, the university’s faculty asked Malloy, Ferrini-Mundy and the board of trustees for more accountability and transparency about plans for the school.
Questions about sustaining UMaine’s research university status, calls for cuts to faculty and staff, and funding priorities that “have not focused on support for the core missions of teaching and research” were included in the letter and went unanswered at the most recent Faculty Senate meeting.
Malloy received four votes of no confidence during his time in Maine, and three presidents have resigned.
Transparency in conversations with campus presidents has been important for his seven-year tenure, he said. Giving advice and not acting as a “big boss,” which some previous chancellors may not agree with, are the main facets of his position, he said.
“We have to trust one another and we have to work together, and that has to be reinforced, and people have to feel that they’re being understood, and I think we do a good job at that,” Malloy said.
Malloy — along with four vice chancellors — directs the future of the seven campuses by meeting with their respective presidents and implementing changes to account for shifting challenges like federal funding, enrollment and infrastructure, he said.
The first task Malloy faced was changing how the system’s campuses were accredited, a voluntary process that qualifies a university for federal funding. At the time, campuses had to go through their own accreditation process, which was slow and costly. Malloy and campus leaders sought out unified accreditation across the system, and became the first system in the nation to achieve it.
Although it’s been six years since that happened, leaders in higher education are still reaching out to Malloy to ask about the process, he said.
“This is a model that now people all over the country are taking a very serious look at, and I get calls from near and far about how it’s working,” Malloy said.