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The University of Maine Faculty Senate grappled with projected budget shortfalls and responded to the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group proposed program eliminations in its March 31 meeting.
According to projections by Vice President of Administration and Finance Janet Waldron, there is a $25.2 million budget shortfall projected between fiscal years 2012 and 2014; $12.3 million will be cut from academics through proposals that will originate in APPWG.
Student Sen. Nate Wildes, General Student Senate’s liaison to Faculty Senate, said the APPWG proposals go beyond financial concerns in a statement to the senate.
“It was very clear that students take these cuts to mean not only a loss of their future,” Wildes said, “but really a loss of the hope that their families placed in them.”
Wildes spoke after a group of students addressed General Student Senate to express disapproval of APPWG’s proposals on Tuesday.
“This really goes to our souls,” Wildes said, “and what it means to be students and what it means to be youth in the state.”
UMaine has “the largest percentage of the state appropriation,” Waldron said. “The state appropriation has been hammered and we’re going to get hammered with the state appropriation. It becomes almost as simple as that,” Waldron said.
“I just have great nervousness about the curriculum being stripped away,” said art professor Michael Grillo. “There seems to be not much communication to us.”
Geology professor Daniel Belknap wanted to make sure that current students know they will graduate with a degree in their chosen major, and that proposed changes will be phased in over the next 12 to 14 months.
Wildes said students are aware of the proposed changes and that their greater fear is a loss of degree credibility.
Associate French professor Kathryn Slott questioned the justification for proposed APPWG cuts.
“What other university system in the U.S. … is eviscerating the core of its flagship campus for the benefit of balancing the budget across its system and satellite campuses?” Slott asked the senate.
“I can’t speak to those other campuses,” Kennedy said. “I do know that as I’ve followed, informally, the magnitude of the cuts made at those same universities that, in most cases, budget cuts at comparable campuses are equal to or greater than those proposed” by the APPWG committee. Kennedy said he did not know how public these campuses’ budget cut announcements have been, in comparison to UMaine’s. Several senators expressed appreciation for the APPWG interim report public forum held March 29.
The University of Maine System will have a public agenda meeting April 6. The day-long symposium, “Advancing Maine: Aligning Academic Programs to Meet Future Workforce Needs,” will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. at Wells Conference Center.
