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If one could buy stock in the University of Maine, it would have sunk to new lows after the release of the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group’s report on Wednesday, which called for the elimination of 16 majors and 80 faculty. Despite cuts, administration insisted UMaine’s commitment to education will remain unchanged.
The university has said the proposed restructuring will not affect current students, even those in programs that are cut. This is a lie. Students whose degrees are eliminated after they graduate will suffer when their degrees no longer carry the weight they once did; students who want to continue their studies with a graduate program will have to seek a new university; faculty disillusioned with the school will flock to greener pastures long before programs are phased out.
Second-guessing the academic areas marked for elimination is fruitless. All academic pursuits have merit — a point the group that produced this report should be reminded of — which is why this editorial board will not dignify the process of identifying departments or majors that are better or worse than others. Some cuts must be made, but we suggest exploring other cost-saving measures that do not have the potential to academically or culturally sterilize the state.
Less academically destructive solutions to budget shortfalls have been proposed at other universities, and APPWG would do well to take notice. One example is in our very system, at the University of Southern Maine, where a design committee recommended combining the university’s eight colleges and schools into five, saving an estimated $1.38 million a year and leaving academic offerings unaffected.
But this administration — which has shown a willful disregard for community opinion in other university decisions, such as the recent tobacco-free initiative — is, to be honest, unlikely to be convinced of its ignorance. Despite the almost certain outrage of students and faculty at today’s open forum, the APPWG report is unlikely to see major changes before it is presented in final form to Provost Susan Hunter in 10 days.
What Hunter, President Robert Kennedy and the University of Maine System board of trustees do with the report after April 8 can’t be predicted, but none of the three have the reputation of listening to their constituency.
As USM President Selma Botman wisely said in an interview with The Maine Campus, “You have the chance about once every three generations to remake a university. This is our chance.”
Restructuring the University of Maine could define the state as a leader in public education or as an academic and cultural wasteland, and so this board has a question for the administration: How do you want to be remembered?
