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Last updated: Thursday, May 24, 11:59 a.m.
News

Three University of Maine System chancellor finalists announced

By The Maine Campus
Posted on Dec. 14, 2011, at 1:06 p.m.

Two University of Maine System employees and an Arizona higher education official are in the running to replace system Chancellor Richard Pattenaude.

Pattenaude, chancellor since 2007, announced earlier this year he would leave his post by June 2012.

Eleanor Baker of Cape Elizabeth and Gregory Johnson of Harpswell, co-chairs of the search committee and members of the system board of trustees, announced the finalists Wednesday, according to a system press release.

The finalists are:

  • Meredith Hay, currently a special advisor to the chair of the Arizona Board of Regents for Strategic Initiatives and professor of physiology at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine. She formerly held vice president-level positions at UA, the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri System. She served as provost at UA from 2008 to 2011, overseeing a sweeping reorganziation plan.
  • James Page, currently principal and chief executive officer of the James W. Sewall Company and adjunct associate professor of philosophy at UMaine. Formerly, he was president, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Sewall Company. Earlier this year, he also was announced as one of four finalists in the search to replace former University of Maine president Robert Kennedy.
  • Rebecca Wyke, currently vice chancellor for finance and administration for the University of Maine System, formerly commissioner of the State of Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, and formerly chief deputy secretary of state for Maine.

The release said campus visits by each individual are scheduled to take place between January 17 and 20, taking finalists on tours beginning at the University of Southern Maine in Portland and going to UMaine, the System Office in Bangor and ending at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.

Students, faculty, staff and local community members at the system’s other universities will be able to participate in campus visits via a videoconferencing system, the release said.

“Our universities are facing unprecedented economic and demographic challenges,” Johnson said in a statement. “These candidates offer the right type of expertise and present innovative ideas on how we can reshape the future of higher education to best meet the needs of Maine.”

“We have an impressive group of finalists with solid experience in higher education, business, and administration,” Baker said.  “The search committee looks forward to receiving feedback from the university community and members of the public as the candidates travel the state of Maine and meet with our various constituencies.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011, 1:06 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.

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  • Herbert Hoover II

    Meredith Hay has no chance whatsoever. She has an academic background that is no longer deemed helpful to becoming the state’s highest person in higher education. Sad but true. The other two have strong political supporters who will prevail in the end, as they’ve already prevailed in the process to date. Page was a finalist for the Orono Presidency and is a professional philosopher as well as a highly respected corporate executive–a very rare combination. But the person who will surely prevail is an accountant by training and orientation well known to UME System ordinary workers as claiming, form her current $165,000 salary, that the millions in the System’s reserve funds cannot be used to provide any real salary increase after nearly three years of frozen salaries for nearly all UME System employees. Of course the accountant is a pillar of the Maine Democratic Party, where it’s easy to wax rhetorical about underpaid if not unemployed Mainers while, in the day job, making sure that poorly paid System custodians, daycare workers, secretaries, and others get screwed yet again.

  • Anonymous

    Why is there a System Chancellor? University of Maine campuses did fine without the addition of this expensive position and the added expense of all the administrators attached to the Chancellor’s offices. Effective education does not require a chancellor. Why not spend this money on teachers and facilities? 

  • Anonymous

    Close the small campuses – distance learning technology is quite mature. Or privatize them – they are a convenient luxury Maine can no longer afford.

  • Patten_Pete
  • Rkt224

    Page makes good sense to me. Women these days seem to be moonbats.