President Botman’s assessment at last week’s town hall forum that “higher education is in a battle for it’s very survival” could well be remembered as the beginning of the end for the current incarnation of USM.
“The fact is USM has far too many small departments that tax our institutional resources,” Botman said. “We must recognize that departments and majors that made sense a generation ago are now due for reconsideration, revision, renewal, or elimination.”
Botman’s speech at the town hall forum -was an uncommonly frank assessment of the University’s financial situation.
University of Maine System Chancellor Richard Pattenaude announced on Oct. 19 that the state was requesting $15 million in cuts across Maine’s seven public universities. USM’s share of that is roughly $1.75 million a year. Part of the shortfall over the next two years will be offset with federal stimulus money the University had saved for lean times such as these.
But Botman said the stimulus money will only last for two years. UMS is holding onto the third year’s disbursement of funds to create “a strategic investment fund,” she said.
“In 2011, things look even bleaker,” she added.
“We need to ask if some programs even need their own departments,” said Provost Kate Forhan “We can save some money from consolidating the university structure.”
Administrators are using the “Five Rule” to determine which departments need to undergo further assessment. This guideline would bring under review any program that averages fewer than five graduates a year for three years.
“I would say there are about ten [programs] that are right on the threshold,” said Forhan, who notes that with state appropriations expected to continue falling, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact amount USM will need to cut from it’s operating budget. “It’s a moving target, we can only guess from year to year what is going to happen,” she said.
According to Forhan, such programs would then be closely scrutinized to determine how to improve their enrollment and graduation rates. Methods would include updating curriculum, improving teaching quality, and doing more outreach to market the program.
Forhan also suggests that system-wide consolidation of certain “niche” programs could go a long way in conserving resources. “When the university [system] population as a whole is 30,000, niches need to be broad, need to be un-niched,” said Forhan. She used the example of French, a major that graduated 3.4 students a year on average between 2004 and 2008.
“Orono also has a small French program, but if it were done collaboratively, it would have a healthy enrollment,” she said.
USM’s administration wants to solicit restructuring and consolidation ideas from faculty and staff, acknowledging that “we have a lot of good minds here to help us figure out how to deal with it,” but adding “not everyone is going to want to play.”
Biology professor Dave Champlin is one faculty member who dove headfirst into the restructuring process. Champlin’s department has been discussing possible reorganization strategies since last summer, and he has launched a “Reorganization Planning” website (http://tiny.cc/ReorgPlan) where he posts updates on the process, links to documents, and input from faculty and staff.
“The fact that there has to be a consolidation is unfortunate,” said Champlin. “But this is a good process, and a great opportunity to create new identities for the University.”
Champlin said institutions like USM often grow and expand as the result of “historical accidents,” pointing to the school’s two biology related departments – Biology and Applied Medical Science – as an example.
“The second department [Applied Medical Science] was started because it was going to be focused on research,” said Champlin. “Now we have two big, successful biology departments, and once they’ve begun on two separate pathways, it’s hard to separate them.”
Champlin seems optimistic that the process could help strengthen USM’s identity and consolidate it’s resources in a sustainable way. “It’s a way to emphasize what we do well here and what we should invest in further,” he said. “This is a stressful period we are in right now, and it would be great to resolve this as soon as possible so we can move on to our other challenges.”
Economics chair Joe Medley supports the general idea of reorganization, but is careful to emphasize the fiscal implications of cutting majors.
“Cutting undergraduate programs, at least in the College of Arts and Sciences – which could be entirely supported by the tuition its faculty members generate in the classes they teach, with a multi-million dollar surplus – would cause more lost revenue than it would generate in savings,” he warned.
CAS is the largest of USM’s colleges, and can cover its costs because of its large enrollment, he said. “If department members on average are teaching about 75 students each then they are pretty much paying for themselves,” Medley said.
“I support the idea of increasing revenue by re-allocating faculty time from low enrollment courses to courses that promise higher enrollment, especially to those in the new Gen Ed curriculum,” he added.
Faculty and Staff input to the process are important, but Medley wants to hear from students.
“I think students could make a valuable contribution to this discussion by explaining, if they came here for their first year of college, why more of their high school classmates did not follow, or if they have transferred into USM, why they did not come here first.”