Eleanor “Ellie” Baker, a member of the University of Maine System board of trustees and graduate of UMaine with a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law, will head the committee composed of faculty, staff, students and alumni.  It is expected the committee will make recommendations to University of Maine System Chancellor Richard Pattenaude by the end of the summer.

“I’m delighted that trustee Baker has agreed to chair the search, as an alumna and participant on advisory boards, she has an excellent sense of the university,” Pattenaude said in a statement.

Current UMaine President Robert Kennedy announced in March of this year his intention to step down from the position in June 2011.  He will remain at the university to oversee several projects dealing with statewide economic development and educational opportunity.

Other search committee members are University of Maine System trustees Charles O’ Leary of Orono and Michelle Hood of Bar Harbor, UMaine professor of spatial information science and engineering Harlan Onsrud, professor of wood science Robert Rice, associate professor of management Stephanie Welcomer, Department of Facilities Management budget analyst Joseph Szelesta, Department of Athletics administrative assistant Ranee Dow and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Jeffrey Hecker.

UMaine graduate student James Beaupre, Class of 2012 president and student Sen. Nathaniel Wildes, along with James Goff of the UMaine board of visitors and alumnus John Rohman, a Bangor engineer, were also named to the committee. Second-year business student Katie Foster, also the nonvoting student representative to the University of Maine System board of trustees was named to the committee as an alternate.

“Our search committee represents a broad cross-section of the UMaine community which is key to helping us make the best possible recommendations,” Baker said in a statement.

Kennedy’s resignation allows him to transition to a position where he will oversee special projects in statewide economic development and educational opportunity, according to university spokesman Joe Carr.

Chancellor Richard Pattenaude and the president began discussions about the possibility of a new role for Kennedy at the system level in October.

“We just sort of started to explore what I wanted to do and what I wanted to spend my time and focus on,” Kennedy said in an interview on Wednesday. “We came to the conclusion that these would be not only interesting projects but something that my background would help with, and also something very important to the students across the system at other campuses.”

“This is an evolving process,” Kennedy said. “I talked to the chancellor this morning, and neither of us really know how this role will be structured or where exactly it will be going.”

Kennedy said that while the specifics were unknown, the focus of his new position would be on sustainability and green initiatives, and to create a statewide curriculum on alternative energy. He said he would continue his focus on federal research funding to benefit the university and the state. He said he would continue to tackle the challenges, especially economic pressures, that face the university system.

“I’m an optimist,” Kennedy said. “But part of me has always asked, ‘How can we surmount these challenges, what can we do to overcome them, to put the university and ourpeople in the best position?’”

Though his new role will have him working on system- and state-wide projects , Kennedy will be a faculty member of  UMaine, according to University of Maine System spokeswoman Peggy Markson.

“We’ve had faculty members at the universities work on special projects before, sort of ‘on-loan’ to the system office,” Markson said. The university will be compensated by the system office for Kennedy’s position.

A search committee to find a new president for UMaine, comprised of a board of trustees member, undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty members, will begin the process of replacing Kennedy in September, according to Markson.

With the time he has left as president, Kennedy will continue projects he’s been working on, including the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group, the establishment of UMaine as a tobacco-free campus and continuing to secure grants and federal funding for the university.

“My focus will be on positioning the university in the best possible way as we surmount the challenges we face,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy names the expansion of the Honors College, the focus on climate change, the success of Habib Dagher’s Advanced Engineering and Wood Composites Center and his fundraising record among his proudest achievements as president. According to a statement from UMaine, the university has amassed more than $100 million in investments under Kennedy’s nearly seven-year tenure, which includes his time as interim president.

Kennedy came to UMaine in 2000, and served as executive president for academic affairs and provost, as well as interim president, before his appointment to the presidency in April 2005. He holds a doctoral degree in plant botany from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a finalist for president at Kansas State University but withdrew his name from consideration before a final decision was made.

Kennedy’s resignation was first reported in Wednesday’s issue of the Bangor Daily News.

Kennedy praised members of the audience for their financial and political support and told legislators that UMaine is working to reorganize academic programs, but warned that due to financial constraints, “some academic programs and other services, not just academic, but throughout the institution, will go away.”

In September, Kennedy created the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group (APPWG), which has been working since the fall to find a way to meet a $20 million saving target over the next five years. Kennedy said the reorganization will be more than cuts — it will also invest in “meaningful things” for the future.

“I really think, in many ways, we’re heading in the right direction,” Kennedy said. “For the coming 10 years, we’re in a very good position.”

The university has had to cut or reduce 7 percent of its work force, equal to 130 positions, over the past two years, said Janet Waldron, vice president of administration and finance at UMaine. Waldron said the university has had to cut money from its budget every year for the past seven years, but that the past three have been the worst.

“As we do program prioritization, we may have to pare back in one area, but we may be able to make some investments in other areas, which was much of the discussion here this morning,” Kennedy said Friday.

Despite the tough times, Kennedy said money from the Legislature in the form of research and development bonds and capital improvements, among others, have contributed to the stability of the university.

Sen. Elizabeth Schneider — who represents state senate district 30, which includes Orono — attended the breakfast. She said there are several state legislators who recognize UMaine’s importance to the future of the state, but that “there are others who really need to have more experience with higher education.”

Schneider said students and faculty are key to demonstrating UMaine’s importance to the state to legislators. She said more legislators must understand the importance of the University of Maine System. Emily Cain, who represents UMaine in the Maine State House of Representatives, said that number is growing.

“People get it, and that’s a change,” Cain said. “I think there’s a sense that the university is not the place we want to go [for savings]. We don’t want to dismantle the university system, or the University of Maine, as a way to short-term balance the budget.”

Cain said the Legislature’s challenges mirror the university’s, concerning the decisions to make cuts to programs, which may eliminate some departments altogether, or horizontal reductions that would affect a majority of programs in a small way.

The university is awaiting a vote from the Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Fincancial Affairs on Gov. John Baldacci’s proposed budget. The governor’s budget contains what may be painful cuts for the university system.

Kennedy wrote in his blog after the meeting, “As we all understand, the Legislature is not in a position to provide more resources right now. Nevertheless, it is encouraging — as we look to the future — to note the degree to which these important state leaders understand this university’s role in defining Maine’s future.”

Part of the discussion Friday involved distance learning education and online courses. Nate Wildes, a student senator who attended the breakfast, said he has taken online courses in the past, but that they can’t replace on-campus classes. Cain said she wouldn’t be able to take graduate courses at UMaine without distance learning and said it saves her the trouble of driving from Augusta to Orono.

Distance learning and online courses “provide greater flexibility and opportunity. We’re certainly not going to become a distance education or online university,” Kennedy said.

While discussing the opportunities UMaine offers, Schneider suggested pairing students with state legislators as liaisons as a way to advance students’ careers and provide greater insight for senators and representatives into their districts.

The Academic Program Prioritization Working Group, or APPWG, has been created and charged by UMaine President Robert Kennedy this semester to look at the academic programs the university offers and find ways to optimize them and make them more efficient. The work group was formed after the 2009 accreditation committee — following its annual review of the university — suggested UMaine take a look at its programs and find ways to restructure them to better serve the campus community.

“I think we have all realized we’re in what you might call a non-sustainable structure organization. The approach of endless tuition increases is not feasible; you are all very aware of the current economic climate … and so in looking at that we realize we have to take a sort of broader look at academic programs on this campus,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Susan Hunter. “I wanted to make the point, though, that we just went through our tenure reaccreditation process … [and] one of the areas they identified in their analysis of our campus is academic program prioritization.”

Kennedy charged the work group to present him with a plan by Feb. 26 to reduce Academic Affairs’ budget by $24.5 million to $28 million during the next four years. The written charge says, “The goal of this process will be strong support of our highest priority degree programs funded by a reduction in those ranked as our lowest priorities.”

Hunter said the work group’s primary focus is academics but that it also has a financial underpinning. The group consists of the college deans, seven faculty members, Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron, Director of Budget and Business services Claire Strickland and Hunter. Several other UMaine administrators are unofficially part of the group. The committee has met twice this year and during the following months it plans to meet weekly.

“This isn’t Lake Wobegone. Everyone can’t be above average, and there has to be a distribution,” said College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Jeffrey Hecker. “My point is that not every program can be found superior, because if you’re rank-ordering things, something has to fall below something else.”

Hunter said the point of the group is not to find programs to eliminate, but to find those that the university needs to adjust or change in some way.

“I think it’s the right thing for the provost to do,” Hecker said. “I think, in some ways, the college stands to benefit from this kind of analysis. I think a lot of what we do here in the college is essential to the university, to the university’s success in every area. Every student, regardless of their major, regardless of what college they’re in, takes required courses in the college of liberal arts and sciences and I think a review like this will demonstrate that.”

When asked whether this process could possibly change the university’s general education requirements, Hecker said it could.

“I guess my opinion is I hope it will,” Hecker said. “My own opinion is that it’s time for this campus to do that, and it’s time to revisit the goals of general education and to evaluate them. How well are we achieving those goals, and are there other alternative means for achieving them?”

Hunter said the accreditation committee gave no example of what they felt the university should strive for throughout this process.

“There’s a lot of interaction across the spectrum on campus, and we have to be able to weight all that and make sure we’re appropriately accessing and valuing all that,” Hunter said.

Hunter said there will soon be a Web site containing the work group’s charge from the president, its criteria for analyzing programs and areas to follow and comment on the process. The work group intends to facilitate public comment on the process some time in the future, according to Hunter. John Rebar from Cooperative Extension is working with Director of University Relations Joe Carr to schedule those public comment sessions.

“It’s not about the people. It’s not about ‘Oh, this is a good faculty member and that’s a bad one,’ it’s not that at all,” Hunter said. “It’s really looking at the programs themselves and how they relate to the 21st century. … One of the things that I think that we’ve all talked about is … are there some interdisciplinary programs that we should be thinking of creating out of some of the units that we currently have that are perhaps disparately partitioned on campus.”

Currently, the work group’s 10 categories of analysis include the history, development and expectations of programs; their internal and external demand; their quality, size, scope, productivity, costs, impact on the university, and justification; and their overall essentialness to UMaine academics.

The group’s members have been asked to read a chapter of “Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services,” a book designed to provide a framework for measuring and evaluating classes. The book includes the 10 categories of analysis and ways faculty and administrators can create measurable criteria from them that fit UMaine.

“Our first task, either now or next week, is for smaller sub groups to come up with specific criteria — measurable criteria — that we could use to evaluate those 10 categories,” said professor of education Eric Pandiscio, a member of the work group. “The deans will probably have to present information about their own colleges.”

The other faculty members on the work group include professors Gail Werrbach, Aria Amirbahman, Judy Kuhns-Hastings, Mary Tyler, Michael Grillo and Francais Amar.

“A university should be always reinventing itself,” Hunter said. “It’s not that we’re outdated, but periodically, the same way you update your wardrobe … you have to update a university as well.”

The group hopes to finish its work by the mid-point of spring semester, 2010, Hunter said.

Kennedy announced the recent creation of a university-wide workgroup to look at ways to improve the university and streamline its programs. The workgroup is made up of Kennedy, Provost Susan Hunter and the leadership of the Faculty Senate.

“This is one of the most important jobs we’ve undertaken,” Kennedy said. “This institution is the future of the state.”

Kennedy also announced an increase in private gifts to the university compared to last year from $91.5 million to $106 million, and said the extra money will help fund two professorships and one faculty chairperson.

Kennedy praised the work of Habib Dagher, professor of civil and structural engineering and director of the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites center, saying Dagher was “UMaine’s own stimulus package.”

Kennedy said the university’s graduate student population increased this year, which has helped to offset the impact of decreased first-year student enrollment. He said UMaine’s graduate population increased by about 200 students this year as compared to last year.

“I think it says a lot about our research program,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said there is a “vital need to focus on our students and their needs” this year.

“Financial aid issues related to our economy are making it difficult for students,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy praised the work of faculty in today’s tough economic times and said he was “struck by how the campus has changed for the better over the past two years.”

In prepared remarks, Pattenaude said the plan is “bold in that it both reduces costs significantly through careful use of technology, strategic cost reductions and the many talents of our people, and simultaneously invests resources in key priorities facing the state of Maine.”

The report presents an action plan for the short-term — 2010 or sooner — and long-term — 2011 or later — future of the system.

Short-term goals include “Contain the cost of compensation and benefits at current levels for FY10 & FY11,” which is expected to save $13.8 million in fiscal year 2013, and “Create strategic investment fund,” which is expected to require a $5.6 million investment for an undecided return.

Long-term goals include “Develop a front end portal and virtual self service center for MaineStreet,” which is expected to cost $3 to $4 million for undefined returns, “Review and eliminate courses with enrollment of 12 or fewer,” which is expected to save $2 million in fiscal year 2013, and “Implement seamless student transfer of credit hours within UMS.”

The plan suggests the system contain employee compensation and generate a public agenda to more effectively lobby for funds.

Before the trustees approve the plan, there will be public meetings on each of the seven system campuses and at the system office in Bangor. The board will use input gathered at these meetings when making its decision on whether or not to adopt Pattenaude’s plan. Pattenaude said he hopes the board will approve the plan by November.

“[The plan] is very critical, first of all, because in these economic times, we have to be financially very, very careful, and we have to balance our budgets,” Pattenaude told reporters after addressing the board. “But also, the future of Maine depends upon an educated work force, so we need to continue to contribute and evolve so we do that. So it’s about the strength of the system, but it’s also about the strength of the state.”

Joe Wishcamper, the chair of the Board of Trustees, said the current structure is not sustainable. “We’re a state which is not growing in population,” Wishcamper said after the meeting. “We’re really in a position where our costs are continuing to escalate, and our enrollments are not growing to keep pace with the escalation of costs. So it’s crucial we address the fact that our trend lines are not going in the right direction, and that has to do not only with the financial stability of our system, but it really has to do with the viability of our higher education enterprise in the state of Maine.”

According to Wishcamper, if the system were to continue business as usual, “within four years, we’d have a structural gap somewhere in excess of $40 million annually.” The system’s annual budget is about $600 million.

“We’re taking this occasion where we really need to address our financial issues to address how to get better as a system,” Wishcamper said. “The economics of our system are essentially providing not only the opportunity but the necessity for us to analyze and address all our ways of operating.”

University of Maine President Robert Kennedy said he is pleased with the process thus far and is looking forward to the conclusion of the restructuring process.

“I think all of us are pleased to be at this stage in the process,” Kennedy said. “[After the] public comment period, it means this process will be done, and I’m looking forward to the outcome.”

“The concerns that we had … revolved mostly around the funding for the university and the centralization of services,” Kennedy said. “We’ve been quite proactive in … stating our concerns.”

“One of the things I’ve been pleased with is that the chancellor and the board of trustees and his staff have heard us,” he said.

Pattenaude said the decision of which classes to eliminate won’t be made just by the number of enrollees. “Each class we look at, [we ask] ‘Is it needed?’ ‘Is it part of a curriculum?’ ‘Do students need it for graduation?’ ‘Are there alternatives available?’ This is not a hard and fast rule; it’s a review process to make sure we are not unnecessarily running small classes,” Pattenaude said.

Kennedy said it is hard to make across-the-board decisions about class size. “It really varies from subject area to subject area,” Kennedy said in a phone interview. “It’s hard to make blanket decisions.” Kennedy went on to say, “On average, the University of Maine is at or above the level recommended in the document for our peer institutions.” He did not state what that level was.

Pattenaude said the restructuring will make transfers between system universities easier, and more classes will be offered online. Increased use of MaineStreet will lead to streamlining administrative staff. While the University of Maine System “will always keep the capacity for face to face,” Pattenaude said he likes the ideal of a student who never has to go to an administrative building because he or she can do everything online.

“GSBS is all that it could possibly have been in terms of the high expectations we have set for this program,” said UMaine President Robert Kennedy.

GSBS is a collaborative graduate education program involving higher education and biomedical research institutions statewide. Baldacci helped make the graduate program a reality and heaped appreciation on the work its students and faculty members have accomplished. After a quick speech, he took a tour of students’ research projects. Stodder Hall was filled with six-foot-tall posters of research methods and hypotheses and tables covered with biomedical research tools. Baldacci perused the posters and tables, stopping briefly to talk with each student about his or her research.

“I’m very proud of the University of Maine being the kind of conduit to bring all of the different businesses and non-profit and research institutions together, so that we can mobilize this state for not only being able to create economic development opportunities, but giving you an opportunity to do it here in our state,” Baldacci said.

Kriston Gabor, one of the graduate students displaying her research during the event, said her research focused on increasing resolution in microscopy to determine if a certain protein is involved in the body’s immune response. Qing He, another student, said her research could help identify a key factor of cancer migration and ways to stop it.

“Three GSBS students have recently completed their doctoral work and are now physicians at General Electric Health Care, the Jackson Laboratory and Case Western Reserve University,” said Carol Kim, director of the GSBS.

UMaine founded the program in 2006 and has since brought 36 students to it. Baldacci’s support was instrumental in winning financial support for GSBS from the state legislature, according to Kennedy. The program provides doctoral-level education in genomics, bioengineering, biophysics, nanotechnology, molecular and cell biology, neuroscience, toxicology and the molecular mechanisms of diseases. In honor of Baldacci, a student scholarship was created in his name. Baldacci last visited GSBS in 2006.

“Three years ago, I stood here to celebrate this bold step and its promise to better align our education system with Maine’s research and development strengths,” Baldacci said. “Students here have access to the talented pool of researchers and educators; they have the opportunity to get quality graduate education in the disciplines of the biomedical sciences. We are driving Maine’s innovation economy by combining cutting-edge research with education training and entrepreneurship. This graduate school is about creating economic opportunities for young people; it’s about attracting graduate students, but it’s also about helping Maine compete with the rest of the world and get the best and the brightest.”

GSBS member institutions include UMaine, the Jackson Laboratory, Maine Medical Center Research Institution, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health and the University of Southern Maine.

To the editors:

I am appalled by the story in the Sept. 10 edition of The Maine Campus about University of Maine President Robert Kennedy’s position on the board for FairPoint Communications.

The University of Maine community is facing more staff cuts, a faculty hiring freeze and low enrollments. Some students cannot continue with school due to lack of funding, and those who have been lucky enough to return are struggling to simply pay for books. In addition, a committee has recently been convened to determine which programs should be cut, which will put more educational opportunities out of reach for our students and cut more jobs.

Yes, other university presidents hold similar positions on corporate boards, but this does not make it right or appropriate. Some actually give their earnings back to their community. Yes, we also need to remain attractive to industry, but why are we allying ourselves with a communications company that is so poorly regarded? Not to mention being under investigation by regulators in several states? With the amount of money Kennedy is currently receiving for his participation on FairPoint’s board, he could fund several staff salaries, endow a faculty chair, make a significant contribution to the library for much needed books and electronic resources, sponsor the arts or establish a scholarship fund.

As an alumna of UMaine and a current graduate student, I am seriously disappointed in what I perceive as Kennedy’s lack of commitment, vision and support of what we are here for: education. The students, faculty who teach them and the staff who make our university function are the future we need to focus on in these tough times, not catering to the promises of corporations.

- Lisa Nielson
Doctoral student

Facebook has right to delete “I hate The Maine Edge”

To the editors:

In Thursday’s edition, Eryk Salvaggio wrote an editorial about Facebook reprimanding him for something as simple as creating a group devoted to hating The Maine Edge. The act was relatively innocuous, and let’s be honest, I think most people hate the Maine Edge. Eryk was standing up for the most-quoted part of the most-referenced amendment in the U.S. Constitution. While I agree with Eryk’s position that free speech means being able to express like and dislike equally, that really has no place in the argument.

The fact is that Facebook is a private enterprise, and can do as it pleases. If we don’t like the way it does business, we are totally free to go back to MySpace or even start our own online network. The idea that Facebook should somehow be legally obligated to allow whatever we want to post would be a violation of Facebook’s own rights as a private group. If Facebook wanted to disable every account of brown-eyed people, they’d be completely within their rights, because it’s a private networking Web site. If we don’t like it, we have plenty of other options.
Furthermore, Eryk goes on to say that Facebook has grown too powerful: “If you mess with Facebook, you don’t just lose access to a Web Site, but to pieces of your personal history and connections to your friends and family. It is too much power for a site to have.”

Does Facebook have the power to separate you from your friends and family? The short answer is “no.” The long answer is, “No, that’s stupid.” Facebook can’t control you phone, your car, your mail, your e-mail or what you do with the rest of the Internet. Facebook is not our only connection to our families or our personal histories. Facebook makes it easier to communicate with our friends and family.

Eryk’s final words concern me the most. “It is too much power for a site to have.” Facebook has grown, but what power does it have that we haven’t given it? Granted, it’s creepy that Facebook knows where my long-lost high school buds are before I do, but Facebook is only able to make that connection because I gave it the information to make the connections.

In the end, the editorial sounded less like a trumpet for free speech and more like a kid upset about being slapped on the wrist.

- Joey Pelletier
Senior English student

FairPoint recently bought the telecommunications operations for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont from Verizon. Since the switch, FairPoint has faced strong criticism for its service and has had to answer to regulators in all three states.

FairPoint and the University of Maine System are now competing for federal funds to expand high-speed Internet, according to spokespeople from both organizations. Kennedy said he has not been officially approached to take part in the discussions.

“The subject, in terms of decision-making, has not come up,” Kennedy said, although he has talked informally with both parties. Kennedy said the official conversation has not yet reached either the university presidents or the Board of Directors.

If Kennedy was asked to engage in an official conversation, or if he were in any other way to encounter a conflict of interest, he said he would immediately recuse himself.

“[Kennedy] believes that the state’s telecommunication’s infrastructure is critical to the state in many ways,” said Joe Carr, UMaine’s Director of University Relations. Kennedy now has a role in helping to determine the future of the state, Carr said.

Kennedy has not been involved in FairPoint’s regulatory hearings, either, saying only that there have been some “general briefings, occasionally.”

According to a report filed by FairPoint, non-employee members of the Board of Directors receive a $55,000 retainer for their service and about $45,000 in stock awards per year.

In addition, board members can receive an additional stipend for work on a particular committee. Kennedy received $15,000 over two years as a member of the succession committee, which picked FairPoint’s next Chief Executive.

Kennedy was appointed in March 2008, and therefore did not receive full compensation for that year. Kennedy received $84,068 in compensation from FairPoint in 2008, according to the report.

Combined with his $210,405 salary, not including benefits, from UMaine in 2008, he earned nearly $300,000 last year.

Kennedy has since been re-elected to serve FairPoint until 2012.

The board meets four times a year in person, and approximately four more times by teleconference. Kennedy said he takes personal leave when attending such meetings.

Kennedy was suggested for the Board of Directors by Verizon. When FairPoint purchased the telecommunications operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, Verizon spun its New England operations into a separate company, which FairPoint immediately acquired, according to Eric Rabe, Verizon’s Vice President for Media Relations. Verizon shareholders then had a majority stake in the company, and Verizon had the right to appoint three members to the Board of Directors. Verizon chose one member from each of the three states, although they had no requirement to do so.

“We tried to pick folks who we thought would be good stewards of FairPoint,” Rabe said.

According to Kennedy’s contract, he “shall not, without prior written permission from the Chancellor, enter into services of any professional nature with any person or firm other than to the UMS, and shall absolutely not engage in any activity that may result in a conflict of interest or be competitive with and adverse to the best interest of the UMS.”

Kennedy said his membership on the board was approved by the system office and that he met several times with the chancellor and the system’s legal counsel before making a decision.

“You want your president to be attractive to different industries,” Kennedy said. While he did not know of any predecessors in a similar situation, Kennedy said many of his counterparts at universities across the country hold similar dual roles.

In addition, 77 vacant positions were eliminated, for a total of 140 positions affected. The salary and benefits savings associated with eliminating or reducing these positions totals $5.8 million.

UMaine reduced its operating costs further by reducing travel, supplies, maintenance, equipment and related expenses by $1.7 million, according to the release. An additional $1.3 million will be eliminated through conservation at the administrative level.

All totaled, UMaine reduced its expenditures for the next fiscal year by $8.8 million.

In an interview, UMaine President Robert Kennedy said “hundreds of people were involved in making the decisions”. According to Kennedy, every department and program head was involved in the process. “Those decisions were made in the colleges and in the other service units,” said Kennedy. “The units tried to do it strategically to make as little impact, as negative impact on our programs as possible.

According to Kennedy, 43 faculty positions will be left open to accommodate the cut. In order to cover the gap in the number of faculty some colleges will hire adjunct professors to teach, whereas full-time faculty get money for research, class sizes may increase and in some cases classes may be scheduled less often.

In addition, the university has been able to use private money to hire for positions previously funded by public funds, according to Kennedy.

Fifteen of the layoffs come from UMaine’s salaried staff, including 10 positions at the Cutler Health Center. Four coaches were eliminated with UMaine’s volleyball and men’s soccer programs, and one faculty member who primarily worked with Cooperative Extension. The remaining 12 layoffs were hourly workers, including eight at Cutler Health Center. The Cutler Health Center layoffs came during the transition from a university-operated center to a center owned and operated by Eastern Maine Medical Center. Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron estimates six employees were hired back by EMMC after the transition.

Most of the reduced hours resulted in converting positions from 12-month positions to 10-month positions.