UMM cuts jobs to plug deficit President says eliminating 3 positions can help campus move forward

MACHIAS – The University of Maine at Machias has been carrying a $480,000 shortfall for two years and will eliminate three positions as part of a plan to address the problem and move forward, President John Joseph said Friday.

Joseph said that as of July 1, the college will no longer have a vice president for student affairs; a director of university and alumni relations, and a director of special programs.

Losing their jobs as a result of Joseph’s decision are Shirley Erickson, longtime vice president for student affairs; Lynn Bodman Hall, the director of special programs since 1997; and Wayne Lobley, who has been the director of university and alumni relations since the position was created two years ago.

“These are valuable people and valuable positions and I regret the impact on personnel,” Joseph said. “But this was an inevitable correction and I made the adjustments strategically so we’d be able to re-allocate funds to advance the university.”

The cuts will reduce the total number of UMM staff to 110 – 37 faculty, 35 professional and administrative positions and 38 clerical or technical personnel.

Joseph, who became president of UMM last summer, said the budget shortfall surfaced two years ago when UMM’s tuition and the enrollment-based appropriation from the University of Maine System fell short of UMM’s budget by approximately $480,000.

The University of Maine System bases its appropriations on the previous fall’s enrollment figures and, in the fall of 1997, there were only 864 students enrolled at UMM. That was a drop from 915 the previous year and a 1994 head count of 948.

The picture did not improve much in 1998, when only 899 students enrolled at UMM. In 1999, the school had 908 students and has 927 this year, Joseph said.

To address the budget shortfall in 1998, UMM held some positions open and cut program support services, Joseph said. The other half of the deficit was covered by a loan from the University of Maine System, he said.

“And what I’ve done by this action [cutting staff] is take care of that half,” the president said. “We didn’t want to be dependent on that loan and you can’t go on like that forever.”

Joseph said UMM is anticipating a 3.1 percent increase in enrollment this fall and the combination of that increase and the staff cuts should put the university back on an even keel.

The president said he believes UMM is in the beginning of a turn-around as a result of strategies that focus more sharply on the university’s competitive advantage.

Those strategies trade on UMM’s “incredible location,” which Joseph said is unparalleled by any other public institution of higher learning in Maine and few in New England.

Joseph’s plan is to capitalize on UMM’s location by developing a “brand name” for the university’s programs in environmental science, recreation management and marine biology.

To market those brand names, Joseph said UMM has purchased junior and senior high school test lists of students interested in those programs from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois.

‘We send out our letter and brochures and we do follow-up,” he said. “And we’ve got the Web, which is more cost-effective and where a potential student is more likely to find us.”

Marketing UMM outside New England and the use of technology will allow the university to take advantage of the “baby boom echo,” the children of baby boomers who are now entering college, he said.

There is a window of opportunity there and – if UMM can ride that wave – the university will be established when the wave passes, Joseph said.

“This is the last place on Earth like this,” he said of Washington County. “We don’t need everyone to come here, but we have an incredible opportunity.”

And as the university grows in both enrollment and reputation, all boats will rise, including other university programs and UMM’s ability to serve the nontraditional Washington County students that currently make up more than half its student body, he said.

“We have this mission of being a regional institution, but where are we going to get our real growth?” Joseph said, referring to the Census 2000 figures that show Washington County’s population of under 18-year-olds has dropped substantially in the last 10 years.

And, Joseph said, UMM will begin capitalizing on Washington County as a summer destination and use the university dormitories that stand vacant for that part of the year.

This summer, UMM will offer for-credit courses from July 23 to Aug. 10 in such areas as sailing and basic seamanship, sea and landscape painting, and local marine fauna and macroalgae, he said.

The courses in recreation, art, and the environment will be marketed throughout the country, he said.

“And we’re completely redoing our promotional materials,” he said. “Coca-Cola has given us a grant to redo our Web site. Because of our location, the Web site is our No. 1 way to recruit.”

Joseph said he is excited about the potential of the university, but knows that the staff cuts are hurting people and their careers.

“But I have to believe the courage of my conviction that we have to capitalize our primary programs,” he said.