Though the statewide University budget cuts were only finalized last week the expected decrease in revenue has affected the UMaine system since November when Baldacci proposed the initial $13 million cut. The stringent emergency hiring freeze introduced in November was the reaction to the inevitably plummeting budget.
There are approximately sixty unfilled positions at USM, said Bob Caswell director of media relations. Two thirds of these unfilled positions are in the Office of Academic Affairs, which oversees all schools and colleges.
The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), which houses the most majors and logs the most credit hours, currently has the most requests out for new positions. Due to unfilled positions a combined eighty course sections were cut from the fall and spring semesters, said Head of Academics Affairs Provost Joe Wood.
He said there was a loss of around 200 student seats due to dropped courses The majority of students were able to shuffle their schedules to include alternative classes, he said, though they may not have been the classes they needed.
“A public university can’t ensure every student gets every class at a time he or she wants…if we offered everything to everyone, we’d go broke.”
Though the freeze was introduced to save money, Chief Financial Officer of the University Sam Andrews said, “I don’t know how much money is being saved.”
There are twelve open positions in Andrews’ division and though he declined to give specifics he did say “they range from custodial positions to record tech positions.”
Wood said many variables are considered when evaluating whether a position is essential to the University.
“We have to protect accreditation,” he said.
The University needs a minimum number of staff positions to maintain accreditation. Some programs go through a separate more stringent accreditation. For example, The School of Business accreditation requires a certain amount of faculty demonstrate “academic qualification” which means they must produce a body of research that shows their “active scholarship.” Accreditation, said Wood, adds a certain amount of prestige to a degree but lack of it also sometimes means an inability to transfer credits from a non-accredited to an accredited university.
Enrollment factors into the hiring equation as well, said Wood. Higher student numbers in a program/department require more faculty teaching classes. However, the Communication Department and the Media Studies Program had some of the largest numbers of any majors and were only able to win a new hire by merging their programs. Wood urged other programs to streamline their resources in a similar fashion but said others weren’t following the example.
“No one else is responding. Maybe I need to start using a stick.”
In some cases full-time positions are being substituted with part-time and temporary positions. These positions offer fewer or no benefits and therefore continue to save the University money.
Vice President Of Student Life Craig Hutchinson says he has 10 open positions in his division including positions in Police and Safety, Childcare and the Parking Garage.
Director of Media Relations Bob Caswell said the ability to generate revenue will also factor into whether or not a position is filled.
In childcare there’s a regulated child-to-teacher ratio and Hutchinson says he has worked to fill his childcare positions with temporary people to prevent loss of revenue due to lower numbers of children. Initially the parking garage was planned to open on Saturday’s as well but that plan stalled with the hiring freeze.
“I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world…we know what we need,” said Hutchinson.
Christy McKinnon can be contacted at [email protected]