Presidential Town Hall Meeting — October 30, 2025
University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Faculty Senate President Amanda Klemmer co-hosted a Presidential Town Hall on October 30, 2025. University leadership joined the President and Klemmer to discuss strategic re-envisioning progress, FY26 performance, and an FY27 process update.
A recording is available online, as well as slides from the presentation.
The recording of the Town Hall meeting began late, the video commences with interim executive vice president for academic affairs and provost Gabriel Paquette’s presentation on the Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) initiative.
Transcript
Gabe Paquette:
…fellows got together to address a number of areas that were understood to be of absolute critical importance. Those working groups have now given way to four smaller implementation groups that have taken this earlier work. That is the town halls, the various work products developed by the working groups led by the provost fellows, and tried to take those to the next level.
I just wanted to say parenthetically that I’ve been really honored to work very closely with many of the leaders of the working groups, as well as obviously serve on the implementation group.
I can say that all employees and students associated with this university will be very pleased, I think, by the creativity, the esprit de corps, and the absence of cynicism that all of the individuals involved in these processes have demonstrated. It’s made me very proud to work at this university as we drive things forward.
This slide shows the challenges as well as the opportunities and the ways in which the SRE is beginning to address those. I do want to emphasize that the SRE is not only about teaching and learning and research, but actually about other parts of the university as well.
Every part of the institution must be examined, since the solutions that we’re going to develop, the responses to problems and challenges, are, of necessity, integrated ones. I would just mention here two of the implementation groups, let’s say, and the challenges they face.
The Workforce Alignment Group, for example, we’re trying to strive to ensure that the University of Maine, the offerings that we have, are aligned with workforce needs. We’re trying to ensure that our graduates are prepared for the future job market through strong industry connections. Fortunately, the manufacturing, materials, and workforce acceleration is doing precisely that.
Similarly, we’re trying to ensure, given our scarce resources, that we are efficient, especially as we allocate resources. Here, the Administrative Business Services Group has evolved to now becoming a President’s Advisory Committee on Administrative Excellence that was just launched recently. This is, I think, very exciting.
I’ll spend a little bit of time now, though, talking about the Academic Portfolio Review and then the Research Portfolio Review. I think that we are now very well poised to take advantage of the fruitful and insightful contributions and data collection analysis that have occurred since May 2024 and begin to move towards action.
On this slide, you will see the current state of play for two of the implementation groups, the Academic Program Portfolio as well as the Research Portfolio Review Group. I’d just like to, here, thank Deb Allen and her team in OIRA because the APR data in particular has been very difficult to compile and analyze, and her group has led the way there and deserves great appreciation and recognition for that.
We’re finally in a place where we’re actually able to ask the question, where do the various academic programs at the University of Maine stack up against important metrics as well, as how do they stack up relative to each other in this particular moment in time? We’re using both quantitative measures as well as qualitative ones.
I just want to emphasize here that we’ve been incredibly transparent, especially of late, in sharing the data that has been developed by the groups. Various composite metrics were shared with the Faculty Senate executive committee in early September.
Then, more recently, we shared a data workbook as well as a methodological appendix document with both the Senate and also with the deans to share with their faculty. I encourage those of you who have not yet seen those documents, to reach out either to your faculty senators from your college or to your dean or, indeed, write directly to me. I’d be happy to share those documents with you.
Something very similar is happening with the Research Portfolio Review Group. There, an assessment framework for centers and institutes has been developed, as well as a tool for strategic action planning.
I won’t say very much about that, except for that the APR Group and the Research Portfolio Review Group have been working in concert very closely. I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Jason Charland and Sandra De Urioste‑Stone in that work and also being such great collaborators with us.
I mentioned data collection and analysis. I now want to dive into that just a little bit more. First, thanks to Deb and her team, we were able to collect data related to quantitative metrics. Those are listed on the slide. I’ll just mention a few of them just to give you a flavor.
We’re looking at enrollment in major, student credit hours generated, job growth capability, doctoral degrees awarded, and others. Those important quantitative metrics are displayed here on this slide.
We then sorted programs into three categories. The first were programs of distinction, that is, those programs that are doing extraordinarily well according to various metrics.
Programs that are in a steady state, that is, they’re making good contributions, credit hours are being generated, graduates are succeeding, but perhaps haven’t quite risen to that level of excellence. Then programs in need of review, which, according to a range of quantitative metrics are not performing as well vis‑‡‑vis other programs at the university.
After those categorizations were made, deans were then asked to either confirm or recategorize programs based on their detailed local knowledge. Detailed local knowledge, of course, is not just their own experience, but also working with their chairs and directors to find out whether or not, essentially, the metrics were misleading in some way.
Give you one example. If, for example, a particular program had two faculty retire very recently, they might be generating fewer credit hours, because we’re only looking at a snapshot, particular moment in time, as opposed to looking across a longer period of time.
Deans will be aware of that program, department chairs and school directors will be aware of that, and their local information helped to inform that either confirmation or recategorization.
Now, I’m happy to say that deans are in the midst of college‑wide discussion. Not only with their chairs and directors, but actually with their entire faculty and staff.
In discussing programs of distinction and programs in need of review, how can we potentially build on areas of excellence and distinction? How should we approach programs in need of review? How can we position them from positions of weakness to positions of strength?
It’s in that context that we’re applying a qualitative rubric. I’ve just spoken before about the data that had been collected and then analyzed, and the metrics that were created, including the composite metric. Now what we’re doing is we’re applying a qualitative rubric.
That is essentially a way of assessing whether or not programs are truly those of distinction or in need of review. That work is taking place right now, led by the deans in conjunction with their faculty. Of course Faculty Senate is involved in that at every step along the way.
Now, as a result of that work, as a result of the application of that qualitative rubric ‑‑ here, I’ve provided an example of several of the rubric criteria ‑‑ we’re going to be in a much better position to determine whether or not a program that we offer at the university should be grown or maintained, or perhaps modified significantly, and, in extreme cases, closed or eliminated altogether.
I realize that this particular slide has small type. I should say also that, renew my invitation to write to me and I’ll provide you with the workbook as well as the methodological appendix document that I referred to before.
Essentially, you can look at a number of the different criteria. One, for example, would be reputational risk.
Of course, there’s a certain degree of subjectivity here, but I think that when you look at programs holistically, using a range of quantitative as well as qualitative data, it’s possible to reach conclusions, to guide action, to determine whether or not investments should be made, programs should expand, or whether or not they should be reconfigured and, in some cases, eliminated.
As I’ve said, deans are now working very closely with faculty and staff in their colleges to apply this qualitative rubric to the programs that have been identified, either as those of distinction and perhaps worthy of further expansion, new investments, or those programs that have been determined to be, according to quantitative as well as qualitative data, ripe for reconsideration, if not, elimination.
Here on this slide, we see, essentially, some of the potential outcomes of this work, the work that’s taking place right now, and some of the recommendations that will be made by December 15th by deans, obviously in close collaboration with their colleagues, with their faculty colleagues.
There are a whole range of different actions that are possible in the short, medium, and long term. Some of these are listed here.
I do want to emphasize, however, that program closure is a last resort. At the same time, our analysis as a result of collaboration shows that the status quo is not viable for reasons that I think you’ll understand even better after my colleague Jenny Boyden speaks and tells us about the current budget situation.
We need to align our resources with our priorities, and that is an imperative that we must follow at the university now. This slide, as I’ve said, suggests several of the possibilities, several of the recommendations that might come out of this phase of the SRE process by the middle of December.
I mentioned earlier that the Research Portfolio Review Group has also been engaged in a parallel and comparable effort. Perhaps I shouldn’t say parallel, because, as I mentioned before, Jason and Sandra have made sure that they’ve been working very closely with the Academic Portfolio Review group.
Under their leadership, they’ve developed a framework for the RPR, and they’re asking, “How do research centers and institutes contribute to and advance our university’s mission?” Here, I can draw your attention to the various dimensions on this slide.
They’re looking at the contribution to learner‑focus research activities, research expenditure and funding productivity, the level of internal collaboration at the university, as well as the level of external collaboration and engagement.
I’ve already spoiled the ending, which is to say that what happens next. The steps that the deans are currently undertaking will be completed by December 15th, and that’s very exciting, as I anticipate receiving those recommendations.
The RPR’s analysis and planning continues apace. The Administrative Business Services Group’s work will inform the newly formed presidential advisory committee that I have mentioned before. The manufacturing materials and workforce accelerator group will establish stronger coordination across colleges and research centers as well as public‑private partnerships.
Here we stand at a exciting, if somewhat daunting, juncture. If we work collectively and do this right, as I expect we will, based on what I’ve seen since May 2024, I believe that the University of Maine will be set up for success in both the short and the long term.
That success means that our learners will be better taken care of, that students will be able to succeed, not just at the university but as they leave the university to pursue professional opportunities, and that our university as a whole is making contributions that the state and, indeed, the nation expect of us.
I look forward to fielding questions later on after all the presentations are finished, but I appreciate your time now.
[pause]
Gabe: Sorry, Jenny. I should have introduced you. Jenny Boyden.
Jenny Boyden:
Thank you. Thank you, President Ferrini‑Mundy and Provost Paquette for the opportunity to talk a bit about budget today. I’ll probably start with, I’m a budget nerd, so I apologize in advance, and somebody can give me the honk if I go on too long. Let’s start with just some basic information about what we mean when we talk about our budget.
Each year, each campus within the system presents a balanced budget to the board of trustees. When we talk about that, we’re talking about our education in general funding and our auxiliary funding. Those are the two funds that we present to the board. We also budget for certain designated operations, including MAFES, Cooperative Extension, and MEIF.
What really drives the budget? It’s the revenue and expenses, obviously. Revenue is enrollment in student credit hours, tuition and fees, the state appropriation, financial aid, the percentage of our residential students versus our out‑of‑state students, research revenue, F&A cost recovery.
Our expenses, as you’ll see when we get to some later slides, are really driven by our compensation and benefit costs. We try to encompass some inflationary increases in our budgets when that’s possible, investments in strategic priorities, capital expenditures, including debt service, and contractual commitments.
Our role is unlike any other in the state. We are Maine’s R1 research university with a D1 athletics program, and it’s land, sea, and space grant flagship. This is a profound, multifaceted responsibility that includes our vital coastal regional campus in Machias.
We are, as stated here, a cornerstone of Maine’s heritage and its future, driving cultural enrichment, leading academic advancement, and ensuring community impact from every corner of Maine. Our budget is a blueprint of how we do that.
Let’s start by looking back at fiscal ’25. We did better than budget. We had budgeted to use just over four million dollars’ worth of reserves to balance our budget, and we did not use any. We actually ended up transferring over a million dollars into reserves at the end of the fiscal year.
Some things that contributed to that were higher‑than‑anticipated F&A recoveries and the efforts of everyone here and all of our financial managers to control costs. We implemented some things last year that are continuing. The critical hire review process, I feel, was very successful for this university to be able to evaluate which positions are hired and when.
We’re using that even more now as we evaluate the grant funding and whether or not that grant funding is dependable at this point on if we should fill a position.
Our approved FY ’26 budget also includes the planned use of reserves. Let me take a second to walk you through ‑‑ Oh, one of my numbers slid over ‑‑ to walk you through a little bit about the FY ’26 budget.
If we start with the revenue pie chart, net tuition and fees are budgeted at $129.7 million. That’s about 47 percent of our revenue. We receive $109 million in state appropriation. Indirect cost recoveries, we have budgeted at 24 million, and sales, services, and other is 15 million.
This is really the mix of our revenue picture. Again, about 47 percent from tuition, 39 percent from state appropriation, 8.5 from indirect cost, and 5 from other sales and services.
If we look at our expense side, that’s what the $279.9 is, supposed to be over there on the right, 67 percent of our costs are compensation and benefits. 33 percent is operating, so that’s everything else. I can say 10 to 11 of that is fuel and utilities. I’m looking back for a head nod. I’m close on that number.
Once we start to peel out some of those facilities costs that are more difficult to manage, that are driven by weather, the amount of funding that is operating, that is not discretionary but is changeable, it starts to diminish.
Let’s talk a little bit about where we are right now. We just had census, and we’ve probably all been hearing since the start of the semester that enrollment and credit hours have come in below what we budgeted.
Our student credit hours at fall census are 3,199 under budget on the undergraduate side, and 216 below budget on the graduate side. The estimated net fiscal impact of this is six million dollars. This is just on the revenue side.
We’re going to assume everyone stays on budget on their expenses. That’s part of our strategy. We have to address a six‑million‑dollar revenue shortfall in the next eight months. We’ll talk a little bit more as we go forward. We will have to adjust our spending to reflect this decrease.
We’re actively working with the provost and the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school to strengthen our spring ’26 enrollment and to maximize fall‑to‑spring retention. The FY ’27 budget process is going to be based on some of this information.
I’ll say thank you to Deb Allen also for providing me with some nice enrollment slides. This is a bit of an enrollment history for undergraduate enrollment at UMaine. Our in‑state enrollment is at the highest level since the fall of 2020. We have seen a bit of a decline in out‑of‑state enrollment, and that includes international students.
Machias has leveled up. There was quite a sharp decline for a while, but their enrollment from ’24 to ’25 is leveling. What stands out to me about the Machias enrollment is the percentage of out‑of‑state students. They have 64 percent of their degree‑seeking enrollees are from out of state.
[pause]
Jenny:
This slide offers some different comparisons based on where we were in fall of 2024 and what we projected for fall of ’25. If we start at the top, fall of ’24 for UMaine in‑state undergrads, we were at 5,333. At that time, we were projecting for our budget to be at 5,525.
What we’ve actually come in at in the fall of ’25 is 5,433. From our projected number, we are 92 students below budget. It’s a little more stark on the out‑of‑state side, and that really is why the financial impact is so large, because of the mix of students.
[pause]
Jenny:
On graduate, we are pretty steady. There is an increase in in‑state graduate enrollment and a slight decrease in out‑of‑state. Again, another look at graduate comparisons. What I will highlight here is the record‑breaking number of doctoral‑seeking enrollees.
[pause]
Jenny:
We talked about enrollment and the student credit hour changes that are driving the six‑million‑dollar shortfall. Let’s talk about some strategies on how we can close that, or at least hope to mitigate as much as we can.
We need to maintain our sales and services revenue. That is certainly helped by our strong athletics that are happening right now. We appreciate that, as well as other sales…Lost my place. Apologies.
Reducing our compensation costs, this is through the critical hire review process as we look at what positions are being filled, what needs to be filled, and when. We are evaluating that twice a week. We meet to review hiring requests.
Also, the provost’s office will be looking at low‑enrolled courses, managing part‑time overload, and we’ll all be managing additional compensation costs. As I started with, we really need all of you to help us keep this at a six‑million‑dollar shortfall by staying within your budgets.
If that means things may have to go to gift funds or some things may not be able to happen, reach out to finance. Talk to us. If you need help brainstorming how to manage something, we are here to help you however we can.
My team in the back, they will do whatever they can to be helpful and assist as we work through this, but it really will come down to managing the expenses so that we only have to deal with the six‑million‑dollar revenue shortfall.
The last point isn’t a way to close the gap, but it’s almost a bit of one more risk. President Ferrini‑Mundy mentioned the F&A revenues. We’re obviously continuing to watch the grant receipts that we come in, changes that are made to terms and conditions, what’s going on with the different models that are being proposed.
We’re also watching what’s happening at the state level with our state appropriations. There is an approved budget for fiscal year ’26 and fiscal year ’27, but I also know that the state will face other challenges as they work to present their fiscal ’27 budget and decide what portions of the federal budget reconciliation bill they will comply with on the tax changes.
The last projection I had seen was that full conformity could be $400 million a year. That will be something that the state has to wrestle with this winter, and how that is implemented could impact us. I just think it’s important for us to be aware that that’s a risk out in the future.
As we begin the FY ’27 budget build, here are some more risks and challenges and some revenue potential. Our student credit hours are currently declining, especially in non‑state residents.
Our state appropriation and F&A recoveries, as I just mentioned, those are affected by government decisions. We don’t have a lot of say. We do what we can to influence and provide as much information as possible to the decision‑makers, but some of that is a bit out of our control.
Our residence hall capacity is at a maximum, limiting our ability to attract more non‑resident students. One of the things that we did this fall that I think was very successful was we held an enrollment summit.
We had a meeting with finance, enrollment management, academic affairs, auxiliary services. How many people were there? Probably, 30 people? 30 people. We all met together in a way that I don’t think has happened before to talk about some of the opportunities to increase enrollment and some of the constraints that we face.
One of our constraints is our ability to house students. If we only have the capacity for 1,950 freshmen, we are going to be challenged if we try to recruit 2,100, and then not be able to provide them housing. We need to talk together about what our strategies are and how we adapt to make sure we’re making the best choices for the university.
We also have capacity challenges in sales and services. If we’re selling out the Alfond for hockey, we are not going to be able to sell more than capacity.
Compensation and benefit costs continue to rise in a highly competitive talent market. Absolutely. We, I think, have current contracts for all of our bargaining units, and that’s helpful for this point in time because we know what the increases will be for next year. We’ve been told by the system to budget four percent for compensation increases.
For next year, our fringe benefit rate at this point is staying the same, 48.6 percent for full‑time employees, 8.2, part‑time. Those percentages are staying the same. The compensation number is budgeted to increase by four percent.
We have inflationary pressures that are driving cost increases. I know the inclination is, we just need to increase our budget by that percent or by CPI. That’s not often what’s happening at this university or any place, because there’s just not the capacity for that.
When that doesn’t happen, but your costs continue to increase, you have a service contract for a piece of IT software that increases by five percent a year, and your budget’s not increasing, we have to make some choices.
I’ve already said we have to stay on budget. What’s not going to happen in order for you to fund that additional five percent cost on the technology increase, or are we not going to do that? We’re going to have to make those choices.
We have an aging infrastructure that drives additional maintenance, capital expenditures, and debt and interest payments. The sign, the sign is great. I should put up that sign.
[laughter]
Jenny:
I appreciate everyone’s patience. We’re doing great work in facilities. We’re getting a lot of things done. We’re fixing the steam traps that have failed. We’re putting up barriers where we think there could be a problem. We’re building new buildings.
We also have some, like the steam pits, some things that are less exciting and visible. A lot of the road work that’s been disrupted this year is because we’ve been doing electrical infrastructure underground. That’s not an exciting…Nobody’s going to go to a ribbon cutting because we put in a new underground electrical conduit.
[laughter]
Jenny:
That’s just not going to be a fun thing to have, but they’re things we have to do. The other big, not fun thing will be when we figure out what we do with UMEC and how we make sure our steam plant is sustainable going forward to provide heat for the campus. Those all relate to our additional maintenance, capital, and debt and interest payments.
Where we have opportunities. From our summit that we had, definitely people thought we could build more online offerings and programs. We should encourage the marketing and promotion of programs with growth potential.
That’s things like criminal justice program, the survey engineering and technology program, the MBA. Those are areas that are growing and have high demand. How can we market and promote those programs with growth potential?
We should expand programs for learning in the workplace and meeting the needs of Maine employers. Three years ago, we committed to the board that we would balance the FY ’27 budget without using reserves.
I’m going to go to the next slide and I’m going to show you where we’re starting from to get to that commitment. These are just initial numbers. This is like status quo.
Based on enrollment and student credit hours this year, we would project initial revenues of $274 million. Based on current staffing and current operating costs, expenses would be $294 million.
At this very early stage, and I can’t stress that enough, we haven’t even sent out expense templates to all of the departments yet, this is our very early analysis, we would have a gap of $19.8 million. That’s what we have to address. Over the next few months, that’s what we’ll be working to close to zero. It’s pretty stark.
Let me walk through the timeline a little bit. In November, we’ll hope to finalize some strategic plans for our FY ’27 budget templates to be sent out to all of the departments.
December and January, we’ll work with the unit and department levels to identify any opportunities for revenue generations and savings, as well as departments ‑‑ I probably should have flipped those ‑‑ departments and units will be submitting budget templates. The finance office will review those submissions and ensure all targets are met.
Starting in February is where we start to engage with FFT and the Board about our budgets. In February, we have a preliminary presentation to the system leadership. In March, our full budget is due and we do our first presentation to FFT. In April, we do our second public reading. In May, the board takes up the budget and approves it.
That’s where we are. I’ll just flip back to this one for a second. This is where we’re starting. This is a path forward. We have lots of ways that we’re going to engage.
We have a meeting tomorrow with [indecipherable 33:20] . We have the President’s Advisory Committee on budget. We will have regular conversation with all of our departments and our partners in the academic affairs and research as we move forward and develop a plan on how to close that gap. That is it for my slides.
[pause]
Amanda Klemmer:
Thank you, Jenny. Now we’ve move to the Q&A portion of the town hall. We do have a question online to begin. Can I ask for a volunteer to help with the microphone, if that’s at all possible? Thank you, Daisy.
I’ll start with an online question just to get them rolling, but then we can go back and forth between questions online and questions in the room. Just a reminder to all 176 folks online, please submit questions as you think of them. The first question is, what are the primary causes behind the recent decline in out‑of‑state student enrollment? Kevin.
Kevin Coughlin:
We have several hypotheses and there are several factors that we’re looking at. One, we did very well in fall 2024 at the expense of many competing institutions that have more levers that they can push.
For example, some of the flagships in and around the Northeast are able to push well into their wait lists to go get students that normally they wouldn’t enroll at those institutions to make up for some of the pressures that they’re facing. That has a negative impact on the students.
Where our natural draw is, we placed a lot of negative pressure on our discount rates. Perhaps, we were thinking we put in one or two more controls on our discount rate than we actually needed to, thereby making it slightly more expensive for out‑of‑state students to join us than it had been in the previous year.
In February and March of 2025, things were looking very positive. I was asked, is there any reason that we wouldn’t adjust what we were looking for as far as our base budget number in headcount and student credit hour?
I didn’t have the evidence to tell someone ‑‑ who is in a position to fire me, actually ‑‑ and say, “Don’t do that,” when all the evidence would suggest that I would be being disingenuous for me to say that, so we adjusted upward expectations.
Those three things combined to have an impact on our comparison with the budget projections.
To be fair, given some of the constraints that we had run into, the fall 2024 performance was always going to be a difficult hurdle to get over, and we are still trying. In spite of what the budget thresholds are going to be, there’s going to be the starting point for where we have aspirational goals. Did that address the question?
Amanda: Thank you, Kevin. Any questions from the room? Joan, you have a question?
Joan Ferrini‑Mundy: [inaudible 37:11] Thank you [inaudible 37:14] Kevin, or perhaps Provost Paquette. It would be good at this moment to say a little bit about what we’re doing to mitigate this, what we can say in this kind of a setting at least.
Kevin: Can I take a crack at it?
Gabe: Sure.
Amanda:
Yeah.
[off‑mic speech]
Kevin:
Based on our discussion in October, the summit that Jenny had highlighted, we have begun all sorts of non‑traditional and traditional ways of pushing the enrollment machine.
Some of the traditional ways ‑‑ we are reexamining the way we manage our discount rate to moderate some of the controls that we put in place. We’ve opened up a lot of new avenues where we do full‑on national searches across multiple programs that historically we might not have.
We are putting counselors into places where we have not been able to in the past. For example, Florida. We will be doing a critical hire search for an admission recruiter in Florida, where we had one for a good chunk of fall 2024, we did not have any out‑of‑state. We, in fact, used those as when they became open, we cut them as budget control measures for the entirety of the fall 2025 cycle.
We will be putting a person in Massachusetts. Here’s where the biggest loss was in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is facing some of the same type of demographic pressures that we are facing. They will be getting very aggressive, though. There are a lot of institutions there, as I said, with many more levers to push than we have.
They are still our largest source of out‑of‑state first year students by far outside of Maine. We cannot afford to give up on Massachusetts, so we are committing an entire staff member to go pursue first year and undergraduate transferring students in Massachusetts exclusively.
We will be working with Scott Marzilli and the rest of the provost team to build a proposal for a re‑up program to go get stop‑outs that have been stopped out for more than two or three years. We’ll be working to push Finish Strong and Black Bear Advantage programs to bring in students that aren’t necessarily traditional but are undergraduate transferring students.
The president has had, what, one or two pretty fantastic ideas. I have to admit that we’re going to be pushing some of those programs where we think about high value majors in survey engineering, technology, and industrial partners that we perhaps not have optimized to the greatest extent we conceivably could.
These are just some of those things. We will be pushing more and new things.
I think at this point the marketplace is so unstable because, as I highlighted, February, March of last year looked like we were going to beat the daylights out of fall 2024, and we did not. Some of our statistical models will be failing. The idea is fail, fail quickly and cheaply, learn, and start something else. Thank you.
Amanda: Thank you, Kevin, any questions from the room, besides the president?
Joan: Sorry.
Daisy: None.
Amanda:
OK. I’ll go to another online.
The question is, with the SRE review of academic programs and overall assessment process, has the potential growth of academic programs by either moving to a fully online modality or adding more flexible modalities online been factored into the rubric? Will a change of delivery modality be considered in determining overall program growth and new revenue potential?
Gabe:
Thank you. That’s a great question. I think that that’s exactly where we are. Those are the questions that should be asked. That’s happening as part of the application of the qualitative rubric.
Where are there potential for growth? Would a modality change be important? Are there certain unexplored avenues in terms of areas of strength that would be responsive to student demand? Yes, yes, and yes. That’s a great question. That’s exactly the point we are in the process.
[pause]
Amanda: Eric.
Eric: That’s…
Amanda: Microphone.
Eric: One of the things that struck me, and again today with the presentation of the SRE metrics, is the partitioning of academics and research, but under the umbrella of promoting a learner‑centered R1, where those two areas necessarily need to be integrated. I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit towards the vision for integration of those two areas under the SRE?
Joan:
I’ll start that one and then others may wish to…
If there were two or three key messages that I took from the work that we did over the last year around SRE, one would be the one you’ve just expressed, Eric, that we can never be a learner‑centered R1 unless we have deep integration and, I would call it, conceptual and programmatic integration between the academic work of the university and the research and graduate school work of the university.
There have been a lot of very concrete operational suggestions coming through SRE, as you’re well aware, about organizational structures and so forth. I’m very, very heartened now by what I’m hearing about the collaborations between the two groups that the provost mentioned, the APR group and the Research Portfolio Review Group. They’re meeting together, as I understand it.
They are looking at solutions that would cross so that, although, the original data for each was within the specific domain over which they sit, the solutions that are possible now can cut across, can involve work that centers and institutes might be engaged with, that would bear upon the academic program decisions that get made, and vice versa.
We already have some very nice examples. I would point to ASCC and commend Habib and Giovanna and others who’ve thought hard about how we build up academic opportunities in the context of R&D situations with the kinds of credentials and potential new majors and things that are being discussed there.
It’s a work in progress, for sure, but it’s happening in a new way, I would say, over the last several months. I would ask that Gabe or whoever worked on…Jason add more if you wish, or if Sandra’s here.
More to say, or is that enough?
[crosstalk]
Joan: Yeah. It’s very high on the surface here.
Amanda: Stay there for a second, might have a question.
Joan: Sure.
Amanda: The question is, can you give us…I need a microphone. Can you give us a very high‑level overview of what the UMaine system is looking at in the future and how we can expect that change?
Joan:
I can do my version of that, for sure.
I can also tell you that there are a lot of good opportunities to learn about what the system is doing by watching the public portions of board meetings of FFT, the Finance, Facilities, and Technology Committee. Those meetings, as well as Academic and Student Affairs are very, very instructive to get a feel for how the system is moving and what’s being prioritized.
I’ll mention a few things. AI is front and center in a very, very big way. As you may know. Vice Chancellor Low had additional responsibility added to his title. I believe he’s called the Chief AI Officer for the system now.
If you’re not aware, he is offering a variety of courses and professional development options. Has anybody here done one of the $25 lunch hour things? I took his course, so Jason and I get to raise our hands for that.
He has decided to just make himself a national expert because he finds it interesting, I believe. Some groups on campus have had him in to visit to help them think about how AI plays a role. It’s clearly a system priority. There’s a new AI Task Force report that has been released, I believe, to the board. I served on that group. It’s all about getting out a bit ahead.
One of the most interesting parts of working on the report was that I made a call to a number of you for examples from research that are AI dependent, and they’re making their way into the report now because that’s a piece that sometimes gets left out of the discussion and all the very complex issues around instructional uses with AI. Peter is here and he’s very much out in the front on that.
AI is one. Alternative…How to think about it? Alternative audiences beyond our traditional audiences of learners for higher ed are very central for this system leadership right now.
You see their foray into 90‑credit degree programs, and we’re still awaiting final NECHE approval. The University of Maine at Machias stepped up, and Megan and team have put forward a 90‑credit degree offering.
These are very particular. They need to be aimed at returning adult audiences, and so there are some fairly high bars to cross. I think we need to do more of that. We’ll see how it goes with Machias.
The concept of direct admissions is something that this kind of inclusion and making sure that people really do know that this system is a resource to everybody. That’s very, very high on the list. Are we able to get students in earlier because we can make it easy for them to apply?
Related to that would be what we have in the form of Finish Strong, a program that is meant to help people who have some college but who haven’t finished to enable them to finish conveniently and easily. The online is going to be very central, and it’s coming through in almost every discussion.
Finally, if you take a look at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, their work in CBE and their YourPace programs are doing extraordinarily well internationally. These are programs attracting students in large numbers, and their numbers are increasing regularly.
These efforts to be as inclusive and accessible as we can as the state’s public higher education system, to as wide a range of learners as we can seem to be dominating the discussion at the system level. As the flagship, there’s a fair bit of pressure upon us to be in the lead when we can in these areas. We have some good opportunities.
Amanda: Thank you. There is online a follow up to Eric’s question, just for some more clarification.
Joan: Can we make somebody else stand up here? No. I will till it’s not me.
Amanda: How exactly? Because we are moving forward with the academic portfolio review and those metrics, whether qualitative or quantitative, but they do not include research metrics for those academic units.
Joan: I’ll leave that to the provost.
Gabe:
Thanks very much. It’s a good point that’s been raised. There have been efforts to create what we’ve called a holistic contribution margin or holistic set of metrics that would incorporate research into them. That’s certainly a long‑term goal. It’s obviously complicated to do technically.
In addition to that, my feeling is that the qualitative rubric that we have can, at least in a somewhat crude way, try to combine or at least take into account contributions to research which are not captured in many of the quantitative metrics that tend to be focused on things that can be easily counted.
This is something that we’re aware of, something that we’re actively working to address, but, certainly, at least in my view, not something that should impede the progress we’re already making. We’re not ignoring it, it’s being taken into account, but perhaps not as perfectly as we’d like it to be.
Joan: Perhaps we could put Deb Allen a little bit on the spot to, just off the top of her head, tell us how you might think that challenge going forward and how we might actually try to incorporate some sort of a research measure? It is not a straightforward question.
Debra Allen:
One of the challenges we ran into last fall was we don’t have as much research data available to us. There’s a lot of data, but it’s not compiled in the same way that the academic data are. I’m looking at the research data people here, too. It’s more complicated.
One of the things that we talked about last fall and I think we talked about a little bit, too, in our last meeting of the Academic and the Research Portfolio groups was to create a team that would come together, to work together to develop these metrics. I think the goal is we have this goal, and we just need to take action on that.
I’m hoping we can just move ahead and start doing that as part of that collaboration of the two groups. I don’t know if you want anything more specific, but that’s…
[crosstalk]
Joan: …get your insights.
Debra: Yeah. That’s what I’m hoping. It definitely was one of the things we talked about last fall in the SRE.
Amanda:
Thank you, Deb. Any questions from the room?
[pause]
Audience Member:
Thank you, Deb. I just have a follow up, being a bit of a data geek myself. Can you give an example of ‑‑ you don’t have to say how you’re going to calculate ‑‑ what metrics are you thinking of on the research side?
I’m thinking like we collect all this information for everyone who goes up for promotion or tenure or review, if they have a research appointment, they spit out lots of stuff. I know that’s not consistent, but is that the type of stuff? Or things like publications, grants, applied for, that type of stuff?
Debra: Yes.
Joan: Can I interrupt?
Debra: I just wanted to mention. Gabe, do you want to start?
Amanda: One second. One second. One second. One second. One second.
Debra: Should we talk about the [inaudible 52:14] that you mentioned at the Faculty Center?
Gabe: Sure.
Debra:
Yes, that is exactly what we’re thinking about. One of the challenges we’ve run into is the faculty activity reporting database. That is very challenging. It’s really hard to get data out. We’ve been trying to solve that issue. There’s been challenges with it more recently where there’s components that are starting to break.
There is an RFP out right now, and that was mentioned at Faculty Senate last week. We’re hoping, too, that that will also give us additional data.
What we’re seeking is more having APIs get the data in. That will put us in a much better position because the data will be all in one place. That is exactly the kind of data that we’ve talked about, as well as research expenditure and other data that we currently have.
Joan: I’ll just add that, what I like about the discussion, particularly the suggestions that you made, Adam, are we can be careful to recognize that we say research and we have a broad meaning of research. It includes scholarly work, it includes creative production. All of that needs to get picked up.
Amanda:
Thank you. Any questions from the room before I move to some of the online questions?
[pause]
Amanda: OK. This is a hard question for you to answer, Joan, and I acknowledge that, but I think it’s on everyone’s mind right now. That is around Anthem Healthcare and the extreme difficulty that’s going to pose to most employees on this campus.
Joan:
Yes, I anticipated this question. Although, I’m not at all expert in this process. This is a system‑level process. I do know that the system has been pretty forthcoming in holding town halls and Q&As. I don’t know if they have anything upcoming and scheduled, but I certainly have been a part of conversations where I’ve carried forward this concern that we’re hearing here.
I will speak to a related concern, too. As we see in the shutdown of the federal government, as we see SNAP benefits ending, that’s a concern for our community as well. I might call on Andrea to speak to that. I don’t have much that I can say on the Anthem. I really am not expert, but it is a system move.
We need to be sure to get our questions, your questions to Amie Parker, the CHRO, and to look at their Q&A materials and see what we’re able to learn and to watch what unfolds over the coming weeks.
I know the timing is also getting to be pretty challenging, so understand the concerns. Don’t have much that I can say to that, unless we’d like to hear from Andrea about a separate, but also critical, well‑being matters. Just briefly on SNAP.
Andrea:
Thank you. Actually, this whole semester, I’ve a seen a large increase in financial concerns for a lot of students for a variety of reasons. The SNAP benefits, we’re anticipating within the next week we’ll start seeing a barrage of students and staff who are going to be impacted by this.
The SNAP benefits are usually distributed on the 11th of each month. Starting with November 11th, those will be terminated at the moment until the government can open back up again.
We are prepared. From a student perspective, we have a couple of options. Sodexo is very, very kind and generous in giving us an allotment of meal swipes that we can award to students who don’t have meal plans. We do have an emergency fund that has donated dollars from very kind people off campus.
We’re working with the foundation to make sure that those give annual dollars to the Black Bear Exchange, which is our food pantry, are lined up to make their annual commitments so we can continue to keep the exchange stocked for those people who will have that need.
Then we have, obviously, in Student Life, if you have students who are approaching you individually, we are happy to meet with them and have some creative mechanisms depending on what the situation is.
In addition to that, which is not getting as much publicity, but it is a true fact, there’s been some glitches in our GI Bill recipients and they have not received their living stipends. Some of them, some chapters have been impacted for, actually, the month of October. They are without support as well.
Amanda:
I just wanted to say, at Machias, that we did have a food pantry that closed actually three years ago, and we are restarting that now. That’s made possible through a donation from an external entity. We’re excited to see that and are putting that in the Student Success Center.
[pause]
Amanda:
This is a long question, so I have to read the paragraph. Recognizing that this is an easy question to raise and a harder one to answer, is there a thread through the SRE process that emphasizes a willingness to be different and resist isomorphic pressures, whether from a PLU or higher ed more broadly?
The concern is that if we do what everyone does, we aren’t in a resource or demographic position to compete effectively. Are there Maine‑specific educational pathways, research areas, and program offerings that maintain a future distinctive character for the university in a world where state flagship R1 isn’t a guaranteed‑to‑survive?
Joan:
I’d like to propose that I’ll just start it and I’m going to call on two people, Gabe and Jake, to hear responses so Amanda can re‑read the question as needed.
That’s a very wise and interesting question. The board of trustees held a retreat recently, and I was in discussions there where I raised our uniqueness. I said, even among systems, most don’t have a single R1 research university.
I mean, the big systems that often become popular in the press SUNY or UC system, any number of places, where we stand out in a very different way. With that comes a lot of responsibility and, I think, opportunity to be very clear about our value in the state of Maine.
I think there were some metrics that I saw a little bit that could get closer to helping us think about uniqueness and ways that we can market to the state of Maine. At the same time, we face so many of the same kinds of problems that many other institutions face that I’m not sure uniqueness alone will solve our problems, but it could be a major factor. It really could.
I don’t know if Jake or Gabe wishes to, I can’t really make you do this, but you’re welcome to. Yeah. Show them the question if you want.
Gabe:
Thanks so much. Really good question.
One of the things that would have been easy at the beginning of the SRE process ‑‑ thanks, President Ferrini‑Mundy, for giving us the time to actually engage in a longer‑term deliberative process ‑‑ is to take ways of evaluating programs that were developed without any of sort of institutional specificity, without any knowledge of the state, our own history as an institution, and to apply those and to then make decisions whether or not those are investments or eliminations.
I think we’ve actually resisted that and, quite importantly, tried to develop, according to our own lights, ways of understanding, assessing our program so that we can make appropriate decisions.
I think that we face, as the president said, challenges that all other institutions face. The answers that we can arrive at are probably going to be ones, hopefully, that are better informed by our own circumstances and history than they would have been otherwise.
That’s one thing really in favor of the way we’ve approached SRE. It hasn’t been to simply think about cookie cutter forms of valuation and then answers that would have been easy, but certainly would have missed many of the specific strengths that we have as an institution.
Jake:
I might take it from just a little different angle, which is a little bit more about the uniqueness of Maine relative to our size of our state, our connectivity, the type of industry, the type of K‑12 education systems that we have, and be aware that with so many direct connections we have, we always talk about being one or two steps away from any one person.
Many other states, many other systems may not have that same type of thing. Are there ways to think about how we market and develop and attract students that could be really unique to Maine and small rural states, our pathways to engage kids and families and companies from K‑12 levels on and things like that?
I think we have great pilots where we’ve done this. How do we turn those into scalable opportunities for the institution in ways that the national organizations and things aren’t just paying attention to?
I really don’t believe we should be following the top 10 institutions in the country. I think that is much the value proposition of what higher ed is to any individual and to this state different than what has been for the last 30 or 40 years. I mean, I think we went back to 1865. We were in great shape.
Amanda:
The cows in the picture?
[off‑mic speech]
Amanda:
Any questions from the room?
[pause]
Amanda: There is a question online because you made the amazing announcement today that Giovanna and Scott are going to be taking over the Vice President of Research and Dean of Graduate School roles. There was a question just clarifying more about the splitting of those positions and how it will fit into our future direction as a university and the SRE work.
Joan:
Sure. Much of this has happened, and the decisions and the conversations have happened in really just the last couple of weeks. At this point, we’ve announced exactly what we have to announce at this point, that Giovanna will serve as the Vice President for Research, Scott will serve as the Dean of the Graduate School.
Both are in short‑term appointments of slightly different types due to their own personnel and personal circumstances. I hope you’ve seen, though, that you’ve had presentations by two interim leaders here. People in interim jobs are in this job full force. I don’t want there to be any misgivings about people’s commitments to the work.
We will be having the dean of the Graduate School in this period report to the provost, which has been a part of some of the organizational changes that have been proposed in SRE. We are in a period of time where we have a little bit of an opportunity to step back and continue to look at organizational possibilities with this arrangement.
We’re very grateful to Giovanna and to Scott for being willing to jump in at this moment in a process that I’m confident will continue to build on and further the strength of both our research mission and our graduate mission.
Again, the collaborations right now between the OVPRDGS and the EVPAAA offices are extremely strong. The expectation is that that all continues, that there’s appropriate integration and consultation as we go forward. We’re in a short‑term moment where we also can step back and take a look at how things are going.
Amanda: We have about four minutes left. Are there any last questions from the room?
Joan:
Can I ask one?
[crosstalk]
Joan:
It’s not really a question, it’s just a comment. I want to be sure that we acknowledge the outstanding job that Jenny did on…Everybody was fine, but Jenny did a great job really laying out, and I hope you all appreciate the clarity of that budget presentation and the challenges that we face.
I would underscore her point that that big scary number for 2027 is what we’re diving into right now to take a look at how we can use our strategic re‑envisioning ideas, both for revenue generation and for other kinds of rearrangements to solve that problem.
I don’t want people to go away from here at all with any sort of hopelessness. We can address this and we have year after year we managed to figure this all out, but we’ll need everybody’s engagement and we’ll need everybody’s best ideas.
Over the next few weeks, you will see opportunities to work at the college level, of course, with your deans and leaders and more university‑wide also. Really want to tell you that that’s our next big work is to get the ’27 budget in order. Thank you all for that. It’s not a question, I guess. I asked and answered my own question. Sorry.
Amanda: I don’t know if you want to wrap up. It’s about that time.
Joan:
Sure. I just thank you everybody. These sessions are very, very important for our campus. I believe we could do them perhaps with more frequency. At the same time, there’s a fair bit of preparation to them. I appreciate that you all took an hour and a half out of very busy days with a lot going on here to come together and show your commitment to this university.
I appreciate directly hearing from people and want to know what you think, want to hear ideas, want to hear your worries. Let’s continue to be the connected community that we are and move forward into fiscal ’26 and ’27. Thank you.
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