Students, faculty, staff and community members last week met in forums to respond to a proposed restructuring plan that would consolidate USM’s eight colleges into five.
Student Body President Maggie Guzman helped the Student Senate organize a series of student forums in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston-Auburn last week. Students responded to the proposed restructuring plan and voiced their concerns, hopes and ideas to design team members.
The design team and faculty senate also scheduled three meetings across the three campuses for anyone wishing to share feedback from the proposal. Mostly faculty and professional staff gathered to the first on Thursday, March 11, in Portland to give input to five of the eight design team members.
At the Thursday meeting, Jim Shaffer, chief operating officer and dean of the business school, responded to faculty concerns about the merging of the Muskie School and the School of Business. Joe Medley, chair of the economics department, said he didn’t think there is balance within the proposed Muskie School where the departments “don’t have a history of playing well together.” Members of the Business School have questioned whether they would lose their important Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation.
“I propose that we add to [the second draft] language with the effect that AACSB accreditation is a high priority,” he said.
Shaffer said the AACSB International accreditation team “wants to see business leadership at a business school.” He said the plan might need to create four schools instead of three for the School of Business to remain accredited.
Professional staff also expressed concern over how and when the restructuring would affect them. “I think it’s important to tell when it affects staff,” said Kerry Sullivan, a staff member at Muskie.
She said she thinks the people behind restructuring should talk to professional staff more and “it’s about time they started looking at cutting higher-ups.”
Eve Raimon, a professor of arts and humanities at the Lewiston-Auburn College, addressed a misunderstanding of the restructuring’s effect on her college. “I understand there is some confusion and resentment that LAC is held harmless,” she said. Raimon said the college is only being left unchanged at the dean level and thinks they need to look at LAC’s programs during the restructuring.
Students at the Lewiston-Auburn forum expressed interest in seeing more cross-listed courses and collaboration between departments. They joined their Portland and Gorham peers in urging the administration to facilitate more student involvement in the restructuring design and implementation.
The student government submitted a summary of students’ input to the design team. “Students want to be proud of where they went [to college] and want to have a high-level prestigious school to put on their resume,” said Guzman. The forum summary also shows that students want better support services from offices like student billing and financial aid. The forum summary document also called for a greater focus on teaching from faculty, especially in the pre-med area.
Many students lamented the state of USM’s buildings and spoke out for improving the facilities in classrooms. While the restructuring draft proposal deals only with the administrative structure and organization of departments at USM, the convocation and forum process has brought other student concerns to the fore.
Students in all three forums said that USM should be careful about promoting online courses as a way to save money. Many students worried about the quality of online versus real classroom experiences. Students also noted that some professors teaching online courses are not fully trained in the technology. The student forum summary cited a March 1 memo from Shaffer calling for a “cost savings of $100,000 in the information technology area,” and students expressed concern that this might impact the quality of online courses.
The student forums brought up the old problem of transportation between Portland and Gorham. Students urged the administration to improve buildings and create an appealing campus center to attract and retain more students. “Students are very discouraged by the physical conditions of our university. Although they are aware of the financial issues, it would really draw students here and retain students if they were in a more physically appealing space,” according to the statement released by the SGA.
The Muskie Student Organization met and formed a subcommittee to draft a response to the design team’s proposal. Apart from cosmetic changes, the MSO recommended marshaling political assets to re-address the way the state channels funding to USM. “We would like to see more specific information, for one thing,” said MSO President William Walker. “Also, we would like to see the administration talk about the larger context: the fact that a 40-year old funding formula still dictates how USM is funded.” The MSO also echoed other student groups in citing a need for students to be directly involved in any departmental changes and restructuring.
There are several areas where the design team and students agreed. Students support the idea of increasing the availability of “3-2” programs where students can complete an undergraduate and master’s degree in five years. Both groups want to see more inter-disciplinary collaboration, cross-listing of courses and cooperation among departments as a result of the restructuring process.