What began as a frank discussion about USM’s strengths as a university ended with skits, the Brady Bunch theme song, and a limerick.
Roughly 500 people – mainly staff, faculty and administration – attended a day-long convocation at the Sullivan Fitness Complex on the Portland campus last Friday to discuss USM’s strengths and assets as administrators and faculty begin drafting a restructuring plan to guide the university toward fiscal sustainability.
But free lunch and an opportunity to help shape the school’s future could only convince a handful of students to attend the event. Maggie Guzman, student body president, estimated there were 15 students in attendance at around noon. Guzman blamed student attendance on the timing of the event and the lack of advertising. Ads weren’t prominently featured on USM’s website, she said, and it was scheduled on “Friday when a lot of students have classes or jobs.”
Dolby said that many staff members attended because they were on the clock. “Are staff the most important part of USM? Because that’s what this event is catering to,” she said.
Some professors made attendance at the convocation mandatory. Junior Curtis Coleman said his physics professor, Julie Ziffer, required the class to attend the Convocation and write a paper on it. He also wasn’t surprised that few other students attended, but appreciated that his professor required it.
“Face to face conversation is really important,” said Coleman. “We’re the ones paying the bills.”
President Selma Botman walked around and joined in some groups’ discussions, holding a multi-colored coffee mug that read, “work with me people.” She downplayed the lack of students. “I think there are students here. They may be coming in and out,” she said. “We hope they will come and we can work with them.”
To start, everyone paired off and told their partner about a story highlighting a strength of the university. “I think the strength of this type of convocation is the stories behind the statements, ” said Meg Weston, vice president of advancement and a key figure behind the idea of the convocation. She said those writing the final restructuring plan were there and heard the stories.
After the storytelling, the partners teamed up with others to form 65 small groups. The groups discussed the university’s strengths, values, assets, and wrote everything on large pads of paper on easels. Eventually each group came up with a “strength statement” about the university. Some strength statements stressed lifelong learning for students while another noted the importance of the “human touch” at USM. To conclude the convocation, some groups presented their statements to the crowd creatively on stage.
David Nutty, head librarian for the Glickman Library in Portland and member of the convocation planning committee, agreed the university could have better reached out to students, but said themes like “commitment to students” surfaced frequently among the groups. “The nature of this process was to surface the more positive things [about the university],” said Nutty.
People agreed on the importance of discussion between different members of the USM community, but worried how the university will take the information and go forward.
“It will be interesting to see where it goes after this,” said Rodney Mondor, coordinator of student service in Portland. “I’m optimistic they will be able to take some commonalities between the 65 groups and move forward.”
Not everyone shared his optimism. “The downside is it could lead to a bunch of vague ideas,” said Jeannine Uzzi, chair of the classics department.
“We’re concerned this is such broad strokes that even if they consider this, they can do whatever they want. This seems vague and broad and easy to manipulate,” said Eric Favreau, a senior geology major. “We’re hoping the next step involves actual specifics.”
Some faculty members were guardedly optimistic. “It will be interesting to see how much the [restructuring] committee mines this for the unique insights. Everybody’s had enough of the high-sounding rhetoric,” said economics chair Joe Medley.
“I think it’s problematic in that the agenda and frames are set by people who don’t do the daily work of the university,” said Lorrayne Carroll, English professor. “It’s difficult to have 500 people talking at this level of abstraction. What I do like about it is being able to discuss these kinds of things with my colleagues.”
Jason Read, professor of philosophy, said he thinks the administration will take the ideas seriously, but thought the convocation lacked earnestness and was “designed to produce a series of a very general ideas more appropriate for advertising copy than any real discussion of the university.”
He added that the one-on-one interviews were informative, but said they lost their power by the time they “were filtered through the discussion of values, assets and strengths.”
Provost Kate Forhan said the university will compile the groups’ sheets to transcribe and organize for analysis. She said three faculty members who are experts in qualitative social research will go over the strengths.
Carol Nemeroff, professor of social behavioral sciences, is one of the three faculty members analyzing the strengths, according to Nutty. He said they will record everything written down at the convocation but “will use the strength piece for the analysis because it has the most data.”
Nutty said everything should be transcribed and put up on USM’s website in the coming week, while the analysis of strengths will be finished around the week of Feb. 9.
Weston concluded the convocation by saying the day had been helpful and productive. “This is critical input as we go forward,” she said.
The next convocation will be on Thursday, Feb. 11 from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., with dinner provided, and Friday, Feb. 12 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.