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Chancellor Richard Pattenaude’s task force met April 9 in Augusta to receive advice from two experts about ways to restructure the University of Maine System – advice that may have painted an inaccurate picture of the University of Maine’s relationship with the state and its fellow campuses, according to an off-the-record statement by a university official.
Aims McGuinness, a consultant who works to improve higher education systems in several states, told the task force he believes the system administration should focus more on gaining consensus for the system’s restructuring and that without “political will” the system won’t receive the support it needs. He also felt the system should align its goals with the state’s, and that outsourcing a university system’s mission to a research institution such as UMaine will clash with the university’s objectives, stagnating both.
Janet Waldron, vice president of administration and finance at UMaine, who attended the public meeting via videoconference, disagreed.
“A research institution has education and teaching at the heart of its mission,” Waldron said. “I think there is an assumption that was being made that the University of Maine System institutions right now are not focused on meeting state priorities – that we’re separate from state priorities – and I would challenge that assumption, from what I was hearing from him [McGuinness].”
McGuinness said putting a strong research institution and a strong university together is a bad idea.
McGuinness, who works for a nonprofit policy group in Boulder, Colo., said Pattenaude should go to the legislature, not to “whine for money,” but to show the state government how the system connects with Maine’s future. This, he said, would build the political will the system requires for gaining resources. He said Maine is much more de-centralized than most states in terms of government involvement in higher education – meaning the government’s involvement in higher education is very small.
“Starting in about 1997 . there was a definite feeling of shift from the subject being institutions and the sustainability of institutions to a question of how those institutions connected to the future of the state,” McGuinness said. “[The system] needs to raise the issue beyond the level of actors it’s at right now.”
McGuinness said higher education administrations need to focus more on Mainers than universities and that there isn’t enough of an involvement of students and faculty on important issues such as the restructuring process. He said faculty and students are a university’s most valuable resource.
“They [university systems] have been messing around on issues that faculty and students ought to be involved in,” McGuinness said, emphasizing the need to include both in decision-making.
McGuinness cautioned against moving too fast and thinking exclusively in terms of cutting costs.
“Cheap right now is not the solution,” McGuinness said.
McGuinness believes the Board of Trustees and system office should drive change by providing incentives for state support, and help set an agenda for higher education to implement change. Waldron believes McGuinness’ points are valid and his suggestions to drive change and help set a higher education agenda for Maine are already being conducted by the system office and the Board of Trustees.
“I think that all of the system institutions and the system office are very focused on trying to assess what the state of Maine has as priorities, and really trying to direct our programming to meet those priorities,” Waldron said.
“It is so great to get an outside perspective,” task force chairman David Flanagan said.
The second speaker was Terry McTaggert, a former UMS chancellor, who suggested a model of higher education used by other states. He recommended the system administration work toward educating more Mainers, maintaining greater accountability for itself and building its reputation. He recommended doing away with the position of the system chancellor, and integrating the person’s responsibilities with the president of UMaine – creating one position for both jobs.
“[It would be] very similar to the powers the chancellor has now, except they would also be the president of the University of Maine,” McTaggert said.
While McTaggert did not mention a specific person he believed would be suited for the new role, he said that person should have an academic background, political skill and a sense of the public and state-wide agenda.
Charles Weiss, the student member of the task force, asked whether consolidating the two positions would create an overwhelming workload for the UMaine president and the UMS chancellor; McTaggert said he did not believe so. Flanagan expressed concern the interests of UMaine and the system would conflict with each other if they were committed to one person.
In response to a suggestion of reducing or eliminating campus presidents’ power and giving the chancellor more, to streamline decision-making, McTaggert said giving presidents that power is the price of having energetic campuses.
“Good leaders can make almost any structure work,” McTaggert said.
The task force is scheduled to meet April 22 at the system office in Bangor and will complete the first draft of its report by May 1.
