Opinion

Consolidate, but communicate

UMS strategic plan relies on cooperation

By Tracy Collins

Posted on Sept. 24, 2004, at 12:00 a.m.

It looks like the architects of the UMS merger plan may need a little help from their friends, whether they admit it or not.

The situation is dire: A funding crunch drove the board of trustees to give the green light to a strategic plan that would save the system $12 million a year by combining the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine at Augusta and create a partnership among campuses at Fort Kent, Presque Isle and Machias, despite pleas from community members to find another solution.

In another signal the budget has reached crisis status, Chancellor Joseph Westphal will request $29 million more from the state at the end of this week to compensate for what UMS spokesman John Diamond calls “serious underfunding” of student financial aid, teacher education, nursing programs, and research and development, among other things. Prospects are bleak that Gov. Baldacci will be able to prioritize these requests into the already too-tight budget for 2006-2007, according to a report by the Bangor Daily News.

What the solution of a merger means to some Mainers is the flushing of educational options if campuses are eliminated or if tuition increases follow, and they haven’t been quiet about it. Their objections have been heard loud and clear, and although it would be nice to continue offering the state university option in its present form, there is one thing that propels the system in a capitalist nation, and it isn’t the innate right of residents to higher learning. For the sake of the system, the most judicious course of action seems to be to bear through the changes and keep communicating to find a better solution – that is, if any of the suits are listening.

Though we can admit that a merger of this degree may be necessary – though not ideal – to keep the university financially afloat, it is deplorable that UMS faculty have not been more included in the construction of mechanisms that they themselves will be chiefly affected by.

According to a Sept. 20 article in the Bangor Daily News, merger leaders have neglected to keep communication up with professors about these major changes and what they would mean for each campus’ faculty.

“[Faculty] have no definition of what ‘consortium’ means,” Bruno Hicks told the NEWS. They aren’t clear on the implications of having one consolidated budget for multiple campuses would work, and they wonder why a feasibility study wasn’t done on this model, he said. The professors are in the dark, and they, of all people, shouldn’t be.

Though the economic issue is undeniable, the engineers of the merger should remember that fundamentally, the University of Maine System is not a business. It is not a factory, and it is not an environment in which certain pieces can be deleted or added as if they were merely cogs in a machine. By leaving the people whose careers are rooted in the institution out of the process, merger engineers are suggesting that faculty, student and community input are not absolutely crucial to the discussion. This would be a direct indication that the campuses are simply expendable divisions of a conglomerate that smacks of corporate corruption.

Of course, this is a bold conclusion that I’m sure the planners do not subscribe to. But in order to keep their principles in line with their actions, I call to the engineers of the strategic plan to include faculty – who define the calibur of the educational experience in the University of Maine System – and give them the respect and credit they are due. The merger planners owe it to these key players to treat them as the esteemed colleagues they are, instead of whiny obstacles to their master plan.

Let this stand as a challenge to merger planners to prove they are working toward a plan that will benefit UMS as an educational environment, rather than as a business venture. Show us that you view the university as a network of educational institutions whose priority should be providing the best higher learning experience possible. Prove to us by ceasing to alienate faculty from the process that we can trust you with decisions as exigent as this.

Tracy Collins is a senior

journalism major.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 24th, 2004, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.