AFUM unit overwhelmingly votes no confidence in UMS chancellor

The Orono unit of the faculty union on Thursday voiced its discontent with University of Maine System Chancellor J. Michael Orenduff.

Orono members of the Associated Faculty of the University of Maine voted 14-to-1 that they did not have confidence in Orenduff’s ability to lead the university system, which encompasses campuses from Fort Kent to Portland.

The Orono faculty senate, which represents all of the campus’ 736 professors, overwhelming supported a no-confidence vote in the chancellor at its Wednesday meeting. The student senate passed a similar resolution.

Also on Thursday, faculty at the University of Maine at Farmington followed a unanimous faculty senate recommendation and voted 56 to 8 in support of a vote of no confidence against the chancellor and the board of trustees.

The UMF faculty are not asking for the removal of Orenduff, but asking both him and the board to acknowledge the high level of concern and resentment on that campus, said faculty senate President Dan Gunn.

Orenduff was president of UMF for nearly five years.

Faculty on the Fort Kent campus also registered votes of no confidence in the chancellor and the board. The University of Southern Maine faculty senate will consider a similar vote today. Professors on the Presque Isle and Machias campuses have registered no-confidence votes in the chancellor.

Resolutions from all campuses will be presented to the board of trustees for their consideration at their March 27 meeting at the University of Maine at Machias.

The AFUM petition called for a vote of no confidence against the chancellor because he has “arrogantly disregarded the rights, interests and welfare of faculty and other university workers.”

The document went on to say that AFUM’s Orono members, which represent more than 80 percent of the campus’ faculty, view the chancellor “as an adversary rather than an advocate” because he has “refused to bargain in good faith” and “does not listen to legitimate concerns.”

University system faculty have worked without a contract for 21 months. Negotiations broke down after faculty members rejected the system’s contract offer in December. The union and UMS have selected a mediator and met with that person on March 13. If mediation fails, the contract dispute will then move to the fact-finding stage. If a solution is not found, arbitration is the final step.

Orenduff last week said he was not optimistic about any imminent breakthrough in the contract stalemate, although he did say he thought both sides viewed the first mediation session as “positive.”

“So maybe something will come of that,” Orenduff said. “If it doesn’t, we’ll go to the fact-finding step or maybe we’ll go back to the table if someone has an idea that could break the impasse. I’m confident in the long run we’ll have a contract and we’ll be able to give our employees the salary increases that they haven’t had for a long time.”

The system had offered faculty a 4 percent salary increase. That was not acceptable, said Earl Beard, president of Orono AFUM, because professors have not received raises in two years. In 1991, faculty agreed to defer their raises due to the university system’s financial problems. A 7 percent increase was spread over two years. Beard said faculty would like compensation for its willingness to defer raises to help the university system.

Health insurance is another contentious issue.