Panel OKs revised strategic UMS plan

BANGOR – Melding public suggestions with recommendations from the chancellor, a panel of trustees from the University of Maine System unanimously approved a revised reorganization plan Tuesday. The amended proposal, which is designed to save the system more than $12 million a year, will be presented to the full board of trustees later this month.

Among the most significant changes adopted Tuesday is Chancellor Joseph Westphal’s recommendation to create a “consortium” in which the Machias, Presque Isle and Fort Kent campuses would have separate administrations but would collaborate on academic programs and budgets with the help of an advisory committee.

Also according to the amended plan, only the flagship University of Maine campus would keep its current name. The remaining universities and the system itself will go through a market research and branding process to determine which new names will best suit their missions and the communities they serve, according to UMS spokesman John Diamond.

“We’ve done some research that shows there is considerable confusion about what is the University of Maine and the relationships among the seven campuses,” Diamond said Tuesday. For instance, one trustee suggested the University of Maine at Machias might be renamed, Maine State University at Machias.

But Diamond stressed that the research and name change process could take several years and that it would be coordinated with input from the universities and public.

The revised strategic plan approved Tuesday retains many key aspects of the original plan presented in March, such as merging the University of Maine at Augusta with the University of Southern Maine; gradually transferring associate’s degrees to the Maine Community College System; establishing clear roles and signature programs for each of the six universities; and allocating funds to each campus based on a set of performance measures.

But under the revised plan, the university system would retain a campus in Bangor; maintain the existing 11 University College outreach centers; and continue to provide distance education.

The revised draft also incorporates Westphal’s recommendation to develop two “higher education parks” in which the community colleges in Fairfield and Bangor collaborate with the university campuses in Augusta and Bangor to offer associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.

Also according to the revised plan, each university and the system office would work to broaden their sources of revenue by enhancing student recruitment, increasing advertising and public awareness, and pumping up fund-raising efforts.

In addition, the plan states that faculty salary would be increased to 90 percent of the national average instead of 85 percent as in the original draft.

The revised version will be posted Friday on the system’s Web site at www.maine.edu. It will be considered by the board of trustees at its Sept. 19-20 meeting at the University of Maine.

“I think we’ve come a long way since we first began talking,” Westphal said after Tuesday’s meeting at the system office in Bangor. “We’ve addressed so many tough issues for the system.”

But even though the revised plan may be more palatable to many, “it still will be hard” to put into place because so much of it “is about building and strengthening,” and thus, calls for more resources, he said.

He predicted that lawmakers would look favorably upon the plan and realize that “we’re trying to eliminate redundancy and duplication,” just like the state.

University of Maine professor James McClymer, president of that campus’ faculty union, said after the meeting Tuesday that “it seemed like [trustees] had done some listening and taken some faculty concerns into consideration.”

But he was skeptical that faculty salaries would be increased and added that if trustees “had faculty input in the beginning, they wouldn’t have come out with such a poor plan.”

He added, “If faculty had been able to speak today, they would have offered a different perspective.”

Although the savings projected from the revised plan is $12 million per year instead of $15.5 million as originally estimated, “we haven’t lost our original focus and goal which was to protect academic quality,” said Vice Chancellor Elsa Nunez.

Like the original plan, the savings will be achieved mostly through centralization and elimination of duplication; and collaboration on purchasing and other business practices.

An implementation plan will be developed by next March. The actual implementation will take three years, Nunez said.