The USM Faculty Senate Executive Committee submitted three “no confidence” motions to the faculty senate October 1 according to Roxie Black, USM Faculty Senate Chair. Motion one votes no confidence in the strategic plan; motion two in the chancellor; and motion three in the Board of Trustees (BOT).
A fourth motion, submitted by BOT Faculty Representative Lucinda Cole, recommends the chancellor and BOT “work proactively to mend relations, beginning by facilitating conversations between faculty leadership and the Board about shared governance with the intention of creating a joint system-wide proposal by the end of the 2004-05 academic year.”
Black said due to the importance of these motions, senators are bringing the motions back to their constituents for input over the next month. The motions will be voted on at the November 5 meeting scheduled at the Portland campus.
According to USM Student Senate Chair Ezekiel Kimball, in late September the Student Senate passed a resolution stating the senate does not support the Strategic Plan as currently proposed and urges a more open dialogue about the plan specifics.
Last Wednesday, students, staff and faculty of the University of Maine at Presque Isle sent a letter protesting “significant aspects of the University of Maine System Strategic Plan and, more importantly, the Plan’s lack of attention to the most impending problem facing the University System: the current relationship between the Chancellor’s office, the Board of Trustees and the University System itself.”
The letter emphasized the school’s support in the “necessity of a Strategic Plan,” but critiqued its failure to fulfill the promise by Chancellor Joseph Westphal that it was “an investment in Maine’s future and a commitment to the citizens of Maine.”
The USM Faculty Senate is the fourth faculty government to discuss votes of no confidence since the controversial BOT meeting last month. The faculty senate from the University of Maine at Machias and the Faculty Assembly at the University of Maine at Augusta have each voted “no confidence” in the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees. Orono’s faculty senate has sent similar motions to committee.
Less than a decade ago, Chancellor Orenduff resigned under pressure from faculty votes of “no confidence.” In this instance, it’s not just the Chancellor, or the strategic plan under attack; it’s also the Board of Trustees.
The BOT reports to the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, explained Senator Michael Brennan, a Democrat from Portland. An arm’s length relationship between the legislature and the BOT ensures the legislature isn’t too overly involved in the day-to-day management of the University System. He said that bills could be introduced by legislators, at any time, to alter that relationship; alter the configuration of the BOT or a host of other speculative scenarios.
Brennan says, as a legislator, he would look at whether there was a history of issues and events that show repeated dissatisfaction and an inability to lead versus one particular controversial situation. “At this particular point, while it concerns me that there are those votes of lack of confidence,” he says, “I don’t think it warrants either the removal of the Chancellor or the replacement of the Board of Trustees.”