Interim Report Addresses UMaine Academic Reorganization; Next Stage in the Process Involves Community and Public Feedback
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — An interim report from the University of Maine’s Academic Program Prioritization Working Group (APPWG) lists a series of potential changes that would reduce UMaine’s academic program budget by $12,255,000 over three years beginning in July 2011. This is the primary component of an overall university budget reduction process that will total $25 million, as presently forecast.
The changes are intended to align efforts with new budget realities. Certain savings will be used for reinvestment in priority areas. Planning has focused on maintaining quality, meeting student commitments and maintaining affordability. Currently enrolled students will be provided with the opportunity to complete their degree programs.
Several steps remain before final decisions, on changes to be phased in between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2014, are formalized. This interim report makes public the adjustments APPWG is recommending following seven months of intensive research and work. The next step in the process involves the collection and assessment of public and community feedback on the initial recommendations. The report is available online. An associated Web page includes email links for providing feedback.
APPWG is a group of UMaine faculty members and administrators. Led by Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Susan Hunter, APPWG began meeting late last summer to recommend academic changes to address budget challenges while responding as effectively as possible to student interests and state needs.
The current version of the report was developed based on a thorough program review, including the input of the UMaine’s five college deans, to thoughtfully analyze and address a reduction of this magnitude.
“This is a serious, deliberate process which has involved hundreds of hours of effort and a thorough review of quantitative data and qualitative information,” Hunter says. “UMaine is in the same situation as every other public college in the U.S. and we are exhausting every possibility as we work toward a new paradigm that matches available resources with our critical mission. I am immensely grateful to our faculty for the leadership role that group is playing in helping address these challenges.”
President Robert Kennedy says he retains some hope that the cuts may be mitigated by revenue enhancement through increased enrollment and other means.
“We can not count on new revenues,” Kennedy says, “so we must continue aggressively planning for program reductions and other efficiencies. At the same time, there is an opportunity for all of us to take steps to help with enrollment, student retention, private fundraising and other initiatives that can help reduce the impact of the challenges that face us.”
By April 8, the group will make a final report to Hunter, who will craft recommendations to Kennedy. He will make final decisions on the changes to be implemented. Kennedy and Hunter will use the final APPWG report to inform their planning, but the group’s recommendations are not binding.
A public informational forum is scheduled for 1-4 p.m. on Monday March 29 at Wells Conference Center. Kennedy, Hunter, UMaine’s deans and others will be at that forum to discuss APPWG’s interim recommendations with those in attendance and to gather feedback that will be used to create the final APPWG report.
Other UMaine units — those outside the academic realm including central administrative units — are undertaking similar budget reduction planning, on the same scale as academic units, for the three-year time period beginning in the summer of 2011. These review processes are components of a broad-based effort aimed at achieving all possible efficiencies including the creation of an infrastructure that enables the university to optimally teach, innovate and serve the state.
To provide a sense of scale, Hunter notes that the total planned reductions amount to 15.4 percent of the current year’s total budgets for colleges that will be affected by the changes.
“Reductions of this magnitude will fundamentally change the university” Kennedy says. ” While this is painful and difficult, it is the hand we are dealt. All we can do is maintain our focus on our core responsibilities as Maine’s flagship university and find ways to continue providing the top-quality, liberal arts-based education that Maine people and others have depended upon for generations, while also working through R&D and outreach efforts to help define Maine’s economic future and serve citizens statewide.
“No matter what route we end up taking,” Kennedy continued, “UMaine will emerge a more nimble and responsive institution, well-equipped to meet Maine’s needs well into the future.”
This package of proposed changes would result in 80 fewer faculty positions by 2014. It also calls for a reduction in undergraduate majors from 86 to 70, with the university retaining undergraduate minors and the capacity for instruction in most of those academic areas. The number of master’s degrees would decrease from 64 to 58. Seven units would be merged into three and one department would be eliminated.
Transformative actions under consideration include the following:
- elimination of the Dept. of Public Administration and its undergraduate and graduate degree programs
- downsizing the Master of Arts in Teaching program
- elimination of the Master’s in Instructional Technology program
- elimination of three undergraduate and three graduate degrees in engineering by restructuring the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, the School of Engineering Technology, and the Spatial Information Science and Engineering Department
- elimination of the Women’s Studies major and graduate concentration, while maintaining courses and the minor
- elimination of foreign language majors (French, Spanish, German and Latin), while maintaining capacity for foreign language instruction
- elimination of the theatre major, while maintaining theatre instruction and the minor
- elimination of the music and music performance majors and the music master’s program, while maintaining music instruction and the music education major
- elimination of distinct bachelor’s degrees in aquaculture, wood science, forest operations and forest ecosystems science/conservation, while combining those programs with other degree options to create efficiencies
- merger of three departments into an integrated School of Food and Agriculture
- merger of anthropology and sociology
- merger of physics and astronomy with chemistry to form a School of Physical Sciences
The college deans and provost’s executive staff are working to develop other models that will further streamline curricula, reduce course offerings and eliminate low enrollment minors.