When she learned that the University had decided not to renew her annual contract, Erika Anderson, Lecturer in Communication was dismayed, she says, not for herself, but for the already short-staffed department she served. In an email sent to many communication majors on April 5, she urged students to organize and protest the communication department’s dwindling resources. In the week that followed, outraged students reactivated a long-dormant advocacy group, distributed petitions, formed an online message board and secured a long meeting with a top administration official. After an initial period of confusion and outrage, some students are optimistic that a solution will be discovered, though no one knows exactly what that solution will be – and funding continues to wither.
Anderson’s position of “lecturer” falls short of full-fledged professorship, but she is one of the communication department’s most well-liked teachers. Her contract expires after she finishes teaching classes this summer. In her email, she assured students that she was not worried about finding another job, and both students and administration stressed that their issue was not in the choice to let this particular staff member go. In a department where admission to classes is already highly competitive due to low teacher-student ratio, though, students are worried whether the department will be able to offer the classes Anderson was slated to teach next semester.
“Everyone was already frustrated and this is what made people get out there,” said Danielle Mulkurn, a communications junior.
At a meeting last Monday, students expressed frustration that their concerns were not being heard by the University administration.
“I just don’t want to be ignored,” said Mike Green, a senior. Several members of the group met with Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Louiza Deprez, for an hour and a half the next day, and have since expressed optimism with their ability to communicate with the powers-that-be.
“We’ve created a productive crisis,” said Jennifer Babcock. “Our intent had been to create a sense of urgency. We also got a good backing on how stuff works” in the administration, she said.
“I felt really proud of them,” Deprez said. “They accumulated all this data. They created a real pain in the neck for me, but that’s okay.”
At the meeting on Monday, students shared stories about their efforts to get into the classes they need each semester. They described classrooms where every desk in the room was occupied on the first day, with a line of additional students begging to be admitted.
“I’ve been here for nine years and it’s never changed. From intro to this semester I’ve always had to fight to register,” said Jen Griffin. The group worried that with the loss of another faculty member, conditions could only worsen.
“Russ and I combined teach 7 classes/semester,” Anderson said in her email, referring to Russ Kivatisky, the current Chair of Communications, who will be going on sabbatical for a semester. “this results in a loss of 6 COM classes for the Fall semester,” Anderson wrote.
The loose coalition of students plan to resurrect the moribund USM Communication Alliance (USMCA), an officially recognized by the Board of Student Organizations group, through which they will be able to officially voice their collective interests.
Students and administration are hopeful that the situation will improve in the years to come. Deprez said that the communication department is “three to four years” overdue for a UMaine-system mandated “self-analysis,” a formal analysis of, among other factors, what kind of faculty the department needs to hire. The self-review is supposed to be done every five years. Deprez said that she wants to wait for the department to hire its new chair before that analysis takes place. “I don’t envision the next year as our best year, but two to three years later, we’ll be in a good place. This is like our awkward adolescent phase.”