PORTLAND, Maine — University of Southern Maine faculty members have Tuesday and Wednesday this week to weigh in on a referendum vote of “no confidence” in USM President Selma Botman.
Polls are reportedly open at the USM campuses for two days of voting after a petition circulated among full-tenured faculty last month gathered enough signatures to force the facultywide referendum on the subject.
If the measure passes, it would send a strong message to new University of Maine System Chancellor James Page and the board of trustees, who have the ultimate say on whether to retain or fire Botman. The referendum is nonbinding.
The petition was signed by 53 full-tenured faculty members, easily surpassing the 34 — equal to 10 percent of the overall faculty — needed to obligate the USM Faculty Senate to hold the larger vote.
Petition circulators included Faculty Senate executive committee member and physics professor Jerry LaSala, as well as former USM provost and current Muskie School of Public Service Executive Director Mark Lapping. The disgruntled faculty members accused Botman and her administration of creating a negative atmosphere at the school and managing with “vindictiveness” toward faculty who question the president’s initiatives.
Lapping told the BDN that many faculty members feel Botman’s high-profile reorganization plan for the school, which called for departments with fewer than 12 full-time faculty to consolidate, has left instructors overworked and has not freed up money for additional classroom spending as promised. In an announcement of the petition delivery last month, LaSala referenced a survey of USM faculty union members, which found 77 percent of the respondents “disagreed with the way the university is managed.”
Dissatisfaction among many faculty members was brewing long before news broke that USM controversially agreed to $242,000 in discretionary raises last year while facing budget cuts, LaSala wrote.
Botman has maintained throughout the process that she remains committed to moving the university forward and hopes to reconcile with the angry faculty members.
The topic of the no-confidence vote has been divisive on USM’s three campuses, with professors and students advocating strongly on both sides of the issue. Some faculty members, such as French professor Nancy Erickson, came to Botman’s defense, saying her initiatives were necessary in the face of longstanding problems at the school and her opponents are entrenched and resistant to change.
Chris Camire, then-president of the USM student body, delivered an emotional speech to the Faculty Senate in early April, saying he was “ashamed” by the petition effort and told circulators they’re “tearing this university apart.”
time for the faculty to get a grip on the real world..higher education is due for big changes and technology will allow students to shop around for courses on line…tenure is going away also…I have no idea if she is an effective CEO of the college but I do know that not everyone should get a 4 year degree and higher education is overpriced..
“First, let’s remember just how important education over the lifetime of a
person. An individual who does not graduate from high school earns on
average $23,452, less than the U.S. average wage of $41,444 per year. Further, 68% of the prison population is made up of non-high school graduates.”
If you think education is expensive you should try ignorance.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/03/24/college-costs-are-soaring/
I think the tide is turning the other way….the cost benefit factor is going away ..trades are still an option for some kids …when a vet tech owes 40k from going to school you have to wonder , a pharmacist has to now go 6 years and the list goes on, it appears higher ed is money grabbing by requiring the extra time to get an education that took less years not long ago..
“Lapping told the BDN that many faculty members feel Botman’s high-profile reorganization plan for the school, which called for departments with fewer than 12 full-time faculty to consolidate, has left instructors overworked and has not freed up money for additional classroom spending as promised”.
Gotta love academia. I wonder how many hours a year USM faculty members actually spend in the classroom teaching. I further wonder how many additional hours USM faculty are being asked to engage in productive activity (teaching) that now has them feeling “overworked”.
Kind of a scary thing when “tenured” folk only teach three (3) classes with full time salaires and benefits, and at that they are regurgitating the materials from all their prior years, tweaked slightly for current events. This is not a full time occupation and don’t “threaten” them with the specter of change and more of a class load, heaven forbid.
But my gripe as a non-teacher is the employment of a publicist, full time for a satellite campus, or even UMO if it has one. I know we are paying for one at Gorham.
Too many administrators…”Between 1993 and 2007, total university expenses rose 35%. But administration expenses rose a whopping 61% and instruction expenses rose 39%. In fact, as a 2010 Goldwater Institute study finds,
“universities have in recent years vastly expanded their administrative
bureaucracies, while in some cases actually shrinking the numbers of
professors.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/03/24/college-costs-are-soaring/
Although it is easy to attack “administration” the picture is a bit more complex. Depending on the type of research being done there is a myriad of requirements for funding from agencies such as NSF, DoD, etc. These local, state, and federal requirements many times necessitate staff for handling compliance, response, and documentation not to mention facility standards. This sometimes seems like a double whammy to the liberal arts folks who many times need just a computer and a desk to complete their research and many times take the brunt of downsizing due to bringing in limited outside funds. Additionally, with this increased level of personnel to handle compliance and support to ensure funds keep flowing then comes the piling on of managers, directors, and deans to manage the additional personnel. Institutions have a tough choice, say no to the outside funding and the associated demands or keep the money flowing and provide personnel to manage those demands.