The faculty senate last Friday continued to push for their incorporation into USM’s restructuring process and presented alternate options to faculty retrenchment, passing a resolution requesting they be informed before any faculty are laid off.
The resolution, drafted by Bruce Clary, professor of public policy and management at the Muskie School, said the senate must be informed prior to any decision regarding faculty termination due to program elimination.
President Botman was scheduled to attend the meeting, but couldn’t due to a recent minor surgery, according to Jerry Lasala, senate chair.
The faculty senate agreed to strip down Clary’s resolution on retrenchment to include only a mandate that the senate be informed before any decision about faculty termination due to program elimination is made. Some senate members initially expressed concern that programs could be eliminated without faculty termination and wanted to include the possibility for the situation in the resolution. After back and forth discussion, the senate agreed it wasn’t necessary.
“We certainly take [faculty senate resolutions] under advisement and give them certain consideration,” said Bob Caswell Sunday afternoon. He said that when administration reaches the point of the making any decisions regarding faculty termination they will “follow all governing procedures and adhere to all contractual obligations.” He said these spell out notification periods and the university is “going to follow those to the T.”
Lasala began the meeting by relaying the news that “thanks to the spirited discussion at the meeting two weeks ago,” President Botman reversed her previous stance and will allow three faculty members to help draft the reorganization plan.
Fourteen faculty senate members had submitted their names for consideration. On Monday the executive committee elected Bruce Clary from the Muskie School, Jeannine Uzzi from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Lynne Miller from the College of Education and Human Development, to help draft the plan.
Lasala held some reservations about Botman’s decision. “I’m terribly disappointed we don’t have more than three senators on the committee and disappointed they couldn’t take faculty from outside the senate,” he said.
Medley presented a report from the economic task force that offered an overview of the costs of programs versus their revenues. The task force, headed by Chief Operating Officer Jim Shaffer, has been charged with finding how changes to USM’s organization can be looked at in terms of the total economic impact on the university.
Medley emphasized that the numbers were simply “provisional” and need to be improved with more input from faculty members. He said the report includes the kind of information that can help focus organizational decisions as the university becomes more tuition-driven.
“This gives us a sense of where the departments stand in terms of expense and in terms of how many students and how many students pay,” said Medley. He said the administration should look into reallocating resources to programs with high enrollment and demand.
Medley suggested increasing the cap on how many students can take each class in order to compensate for the late adding and dropping of classes. “If students are able to get in and out of classes more easily, we tend to retain more students in those classes overall,” he said.
He described a hypothetical situation in which all classes capped at 20 students were increased to 21, allowing more students to come and go. The university would end up with around 4,000 more students and make $2 million more over the whole year, he said, concluding it would improve enrollment by 5 percent.
Michael Hillard, economics professor and economic analysis task force member, USM needs clarify its purpose as a university before it can decide what programs to cut.
He said the administration needs to look at programs losing money and ask “are they essential to our mission?”
“Basically, the mission is quite vague and faculty in general don’t look at it. Even if they looked at it, it’s not clear what it really means,” he said.
Hillard said he thinks judging programs using this data is more useful than the “5 graduate rule,” a Board of Trustees mandate that programs that routinely graduate fewer than five students a year be considered for elimination. “The five graduate rule is at best a weak metric,” he said. “It’s not irrelevant but it’s not as relevant as [looking at the costs versus revenues].”
During the meeting Provost Kate Forhan discussed the importance of everyone – including students – attending the second convocation. “I think this will be the edgier and more analytical part,” she said.
Those who attended the first convocation on Jan. 29 discussed the university’s strengths. The second convocation, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, will focus on what people want changed at USM.
Maggie Guzman, student body president, said that faculty should encourage all of their students to attend the second convocation. “I think you guys have the ability to convince students to go,” she said.