Through a series of campus meetings and in dozens of exchanges, the University of Maine System’s strategic plan has become stronger and more sharply focused on quality, on the specific roles of each university and on aligning itself with the growing Community College System. The major remaining objection to the reorganization plan is its merger of the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine at Augusta. The concern that UMA’s programs will be overwhelmed by its larger partner is understandable, but UMS trustees should approve the plan based, in part, on the comments of two trusted presidents.

The plan would expand four-year and graduate-degree programs at UMA and add research to the Augusta campus. UMA President Charlie Lyons has been a supporter of the merger from the beginning. Commenting on the revised version, he said, “If UMA on its own were to try to build a really first-class baccalaureate and graduate institution, we would never see it in a lifetime given the economic realities we face. But to be able to become part of a university that already has all these things and that can transport them to central Maine – I don’t know how the 175,000 people in Greater Kennebec Valley can lose.”

It would be difficult to look at the work of USM President Richard Pattenaude in Portland and not be impressed. He has expanded the campus, provided more courses and majors for students, been flexible in scheduling classes for nontraditional students and been sensitive to his community’s desires for its state university. He is similarly aware of the opportunities as well as the challenges of merging the universities, and, in a recent news story, recognized that UMA does “important work and we will make sure we preserve all the good things they do as we work together to strengthen the university.”

Opponents of the merger are asking for a delay in the vote on the strategic plan, a move that is politically more likely than asking the trustees to reject the plan outright. A delay might provide for time for the Legislature to get involved, for pressure to be brought on individual trustees to rethink their leanings, for public sentiment to be swayed. But the plan already has been commented on extensively and publicly and Chancellor Westphal has been responsive to concerns. Unless the trustees, who have been partners since the start of this reorganization of the university system, find new information that warns them away from the plan, they should pass it unanimously Monday.

In doing so, trustees should make clear that they are not relinquishing the right to make changes as the plan is carried out. The chancellor is counting on $12 million in annual savings through the reform, savings that are necessary to keep tuition increases at a minimum. If that savings doesn’t appear, trustees should require the chancellor to find the savings elsewhere, including in his own office.

Faculty have been promised that their salaries will rise to 90 percent of the national average; trustees should assume they are responsible for seeing that this happens. Students have been told that a more coordinated system will result in less paperwork and easier transfer among universities – a survey now and, say, two years from now could suggest whether this happened as planned.

UMS needs reform, an idea that has been accepted and largely ignored for 20 years. The chancellor has offered a responsible way to begin this overdue process; trustees should support his efforts.