Posted on April 05, 2012 in News
By Paul Koenig

A group of senior members of the University of Southern Maine faculty gathered 53 signatures — roughly 15 percent of faculty at USM — from full, tenured faculty over the last week and a half, triggering a faculty-wide referendum for a no-confidence vote in USM President Selma Botman.

The petition was drawn up three or four weeks ago, said signer and physics professor Jerry LaSala, partly in response to a survey conducted by the faculty union that showed significant amounts of discontent among faculty regarding the administration and USM’s academic reorganization approved in May 2010 by the University of Maine System Board of Trustees.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that this is a chronic and apparently unchangeable solution,” LaSala said.

Below is the petition and the signers, obtained by The Free Press from the Faculty Senate Blackboard site.

College Breakdown of Signers

College of Management and Human Services: 18

College of Science Technology and Health: 15

College of Arts, Humanities and Science: 15

Lewiston Auburn College: 4

Russell Scholars Program: 1