PORTLAND, Maine — University of Southern Maine President Selma Botman, who was the focus of a controversial facultywide “no-confidence” vote this spring, is leaving the school to take a post at the University of Maine System chancellor’s office.
“President Botman and I considered how we might best move the University of Southern Maine forward,” system Chancellor James Page said in a statement Thursday. “President Botman proposed to me that new leadership might be the best direction to go in and, in a characteristically selfless move, she requested reassignment. I agree with her appraisal of the situation, appreciate her dedication to USM, and support her request.”
According to an announcement by the chancellor’s office Thursday, Botman will lead an effort to expand the system’s international education programs, a job she said would involve recruitment of foreign students to the system’s campuses as well as the arrangement of overseas faculty exchanges, among other things.
Botman told reporters during a Thursday afternoon press conference her salary will remain $203,000 per year in her new position. While Page did not offer specifics, he said he anticipates being able to find money for Botman’s new job without adding to the overall system budget.
“The heartening thing about the investigation we carried out into this matter was the deep commitment and engagement on the parts of everybody involved — no matter how diverse their opinions on this subject were,” Page said Thursday. “It wasn’t a case of determining ‘right or wrong’ — I don’t think either side was wholly right or wrong — it was how to we capture that engagement and help the university move forward.”
Page is recommending Theo Kalikow, who recently retired from the presidency at the University of Maine at Farmington, to step into the USM position.
Botman said Thursday that system provisions allow hiring administrators for terms of as long as two years without posting the positions and turning to a search process. Near the end of each woman’s first two years in her new position, the system will be required to seek outside applications for those jobs. However, Botman said she has only committed to the chancellor’s office for one year.
Kalikow was the president at UMF for 18 years and was named to the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002. While the top administrator at the Farmington campus, Kalikow was credited with creating five new majors and adding 16 faculty members while keeping enrollment steady around 2,000 students.
Page, in an email to USM students and employees, said the system board of trustees will vote on the personnel moves Monday and, if the board approves, Kalikow will take over at the Portland campus the next day. Board Chairwoman Michelle Hood said in a Thursday statement she anticipates board support of the moves.
“Dr. Kalikow is an excellent choice to lead USM,” said Hood. “She is a strong, well-respected leader who is known across the state for her commitment to students and institutional success.”
On Thursday, Mark Lapping, executive director of USM’s Muskie School of Public Service, welcomed the news of Botman’s departure and Kalikow’s proposed arrival. Lapping was among the faculty supporting the “no-confidence” vote.
“I am grateful that President Botman understood what was best for the university and acted upon that knowledge, that Chancellor Page worked diligently and tirelessly to set things right here at USM, and that Theo Kalikow, who I have known and admired for years, is willing to step forward to help guide this wonderful and talented university community,” Lapping told the BDN in an email. “For nearly two decades I have had a chance to observe and work with President Kalikow and all of us know her to be a hard-working, creative and generous leader. I am personally grateful that she is willing to defer her retirement plans for the sake of the people of the state of Maine who want and need a first-rate University of Southern Maine.”
A vote of no-confidence in Botman was held in early May. Although an overwhelming number of votes cast registered no-confidence in the president, the tally did not meet the two-thirds requirement to be considered the “will of the faculty.”
The vote was 194-88 in favor of the ‘no-confidence’ motion. Of the ballots cast over two days in the first week of May, 68 percent voted ‘no confidence’ in Botman, but because only about 75 percent of the faculty voted, the total fell short of the two-thirds threshold overall.
The no-confidence referendum was triggered by a group of senior faculty who circulated a petition in early April calling for the vote, receiving 53 signatures, more than the 10 percent of all faculty required for a petition to mandate a referendum.
Petitioning faculty members accused Botman and her administration of creating a negative atmosphere at the school and managing with “vindictiveness” toward faculty who questioned the president’s initiatives.
Lapping told the Bangor Daily News at the time that many faculty members felt Botman’s high-profile reorganization plan for the school, which called for departments with fewer than 12 full-time faculty to consolidate, left instructors overworked and did not free up money for additional classroom spending as promised.
Physics Prof. Jerry LaSala, another petition organizer, at the time referenced a survey of USM faculty union members, which found 77 percent of the respondents “disagreed with the way the university is managed.”
But not everyone at the school came out against Botman during the circulation of the controversial petition and subsequent facultywide vote. Outgoing Student Body President Chris Camire told the Faculty Senate in April he was “ashamed” by the petition effort and told those behind it they were “tearing this university apart.”
Associate professor of history Eileen Eagan told the BDN at the time Botman should be credited with improving relations between the university and surrounding community, and for diversifying the campus and curriculum.
On Thursday, Botman talked about what she believed her administration’s victories were during her four years in the position.
“Over the last four years I have had the privilege of leading USM, and I’m so proud of the accomplishments that we have made in this university,” she told reporters during a news conference. “It’s fiscally sound, it’s student focused, it has deepened its ties to the community, and it’s poised to take its next step.”
This looks like the people at the top are taking care of their own, what it amounts to is nepotism, and more NO CONFIDENCE in the University System !
Huh?
Wait – this woman just got run out of USM and now we’re hiring in some other State University job? Why???
Read the story and you will know why, a bunch of educated idiots who are cry babies and did not get their way is why.
Probably to avoid litigation.
Well, there’s actual confidence in the University System if Theo Kalikow is taking the reins. I think you mean there’s no confidence in USM at the moment.
Baloney!
How easy it is for liberals to lie!
Confidence in what? Flag trampling? Allowing a student to parade naked through Farmington?
They hate us.
Dang, I think I see someone to the right of me. “bout time.
Why on earth would you choose to include the picture above this article when you have the picture right below it available? Are there any editors working today or are they all on holiday recovering from the 4th? Very poor choice indeed.
Guess someone is paying attention at the BDN as the lead picture got changed after my original post to the one you see now.
Very appropriate move and I’m wondering if she will take her press secretary and ease the overhead load a bit more.
a plum job in the Chancellor’s Office? is that position vacant at present ? The upper halls of academia are swelling with titles, fat salaries and do-nothing positions. I have no faith in the University system.
It’s a brand-new position, being created just for Botman. Isn’t that special?
I don’t agree that she should get a position, but this is how it works when contracts are involved. The University can litigate, or she can fulfill the term of her contract doing other work. Is it stupid? No question. Is it the right move for UMS? Yes.
No matter which route you take on the flowchart, Botman is getting paid. This route leaves the attorneys out of it.It’s often easier to be reactionary; you did have five posts on one article in less than an hour. Going for the low-hanging fruit doesn’t exactly speak to any expertise in arguing.
Please, though: Spare us your faux outrage. The corporate shills who give you your marching orders are far more egregious in their waste of taxpayer dollars.
Good solution…Promote her to a level that reflects her own level of incompetence, just like McCormick. My faith in Page’s competence just dropped three notches.
They are creating a position for her. Taxpayers take it up the proverbially whazoo again.
Unbelievable……In what part of the private sector could a person be asked to step aside for incompetence and have a $ 203,000 lateral job created for them? This goes beyond the whazoo. It is crap like this that tells me that the University does not need any more taxpayer increases. If they can “find” $ 203,000 (PLUS BENEFITS!!!!) they can surely cut $ 203,000. I hope the legislature is listening and remembers this the next time the Chancellor comes calling with open hands and sad eyes…….
In what part? Private corporations, politicians turned lobbyists, and so on.
Actually, tuition has been frozen across the system for this coming academic year. Not sure how long it will last, but still…
The letter from Page made me faintly nauseous.
Much like your posts to the rest of us. How’s it feel?
What is the total of salaries paid to people with titles who work in the Chancellor’s office? I’ll bet it’s a true nosebleed number. Maine does not need this expensive bureacracy–even if we could afford it.
Botman told reporters during a Thursday afternoon press conference her
salary will remain $203,000 per year in her new position. While Page did
not offer specifics, he said he anticipates being able to find money
for Botman’s new job without adding to the overall system budget.
In other words, they’re creating a new position for her, paying the same salary and benefits, and she gets rewarded for stepping aside. Somehow, Page can “find” $203K new dollars in the budget, no problem. Great oversight of public money – aren’t we glad tuition never goes up?
[/sarcasm]
Sorry job seekers. No job opening for me to announce here. Seems they’re filling the position with an insider.
The saddest part of all this is that Dr Botman has to leave in the first place. She was doing what a good administrator should do – paring down through consolidation those departments that were not carrying their load. Teaching 6-12 hours a week is a really tough job then the whiners want to run the University as well.
None of what you say has any basis in fact.
So say you. I say it is the truth!
None of what you say has any basis in fact.
She wasn’t concerned with “paring down” her own position!!! The new “leader” needs to pare down this new bogus position she has. How ridiculous. You don’t pare down everyone else, and save yourself! I wouldn’t want her to be the Captain of my ship!!!
If the new position is truly necessary, put it out for applications from the public. Why should Botman get a sweetheart deal?
How many kids could get an education for what they are paying her to grace the halls of U of M, this is a travesty, pure and simple, almost too much to read about, too much to think about, this chancellor, her, the whole chancellor’s office, and all of them need to be put out to the streets. Of all the gall!
Gordon, do not forget that her replacement, stood by and smirked while her students trampled the American flag as an art project.
They hate us, and they have overplayed their hand.
The Tea Party needs to travel to Portland to protest this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9bVRAe4NE
How many kids could get an education for what they are paying professors to grace the halls of U of M, they are the travesty, pure and simple, almost too much to bear, too much to think about, this chancellor should cut the extravagant salaries of all the professors and all of them need to be put out to the streets, of all the gall!
I think the days when the Chancellor’s office is held is some mystique, something like making people think it was so special and most needed,the something like that are over, it is nothing but a bloated deception of nothing, a terrible chewer of taxpayers hard earned money, but this is just too much, really, I could never hear of or think of the Chancellor’s office without being sick to my stomach, oh how we once looked up at our academic leaders, no more.
God Help Us, for we have allowed them to lose the way.
“… her salary will remain $203,000 per year in her new position. While Page did
not offer specifics, he said he anticipates being able to find money
for Botman’s new job without adding to the overall system budget.”
Any chance you can look under that same rock, Mr. Page, and find money for the staff who have gone without a contract for so long? Otherwise, please create “new positions” for all of them, too!
Fellow commenters who condemn this move – Please understand that this is a polite way of letting her fulfill her contract and get some work out of her for the year, not a promotion or anything of the sort. She needed to go from USM and this is the simplest way to make it happen. Maybe doesn’t look good to you but it serves a purpose and is a welcome move, showing system leadership and integrity.
If she had true integrity, she would quietly resign and go. None the less she should be fired, whatever the cost is to remove her. One can tell from studying her countenance she will resist removal, almost like a barnacle on a piece of driftwood, she needs to be put out, and not allowed to linger about, she does not seem to be that big of an asset.
kind ah like ah excluesieve club, make sure ya get your million, what ah lets see, ya, ya, gotta get ya another year on the ole uofm dole, by gum well take kare of ya, don cha fret little lady, sit ya right down into anothwer year of middling out ya terriiffic admin skillll, ya gotta have ya, why the ole uofm would flounder with out ya, wink wink, go ahead and buy that car made in Japan, ya in baby.
At the end of May the System supposedly saved some money by eliminating the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs post, which was paying a (base) salary of $180,000 a yr. to economist James Breece. Breece is currently enjoying a sabbatical at that same salary before returning to UMaine at an unannounced salary. One of his principal responsibilities in recent years was recruiting international students for the System’s seven campuses. Where modestly funded John Bapst High School managed to recruit 39 foreign students the first time around, the very well funded System has recruited perhaps 20 over the past two years. Now USM’s Pres. Botman is apparently going to specialize in the same activity, and at her current $203,000 presidential salary. So here alone the taxpayers are being burdened with tens of thousands more in unnecessary salaries/sabbaticals. Meanwhile recently retired UME Farmington’s Pres. Kalikow is to become USM’s interim Pres. at God knows what salary, but surely at least $100,000. The availability of endless funds by the same System that continues to refuse to offer its ordinary employees–its peasants–any pay increase for the fourth year in a row is at once disgraceful and routine. Too bad the Governor and the legislature don’t investigate. The taxpayers are, of course, the real losers, along with the students and their families.
Jim Breece was a lousy professor with a terrible personality. I am not surprised he could not recruit anyone.
4k a week isn’t what it used to be.
“I want to bring the world to Maine.”
“I want to bring the world to Portland Gorham and Lewiston.”
But the world is a troubled place.
Shouldn’t we be bringing the values of Maine to the world?
Wouldn’t an influx from around the world dilute or destroy the culture of Maine?
And rest assured, she does not mean to bring students from Norway, Sweden, or Iceland.
Why or why does she want to bring the world to Maine?
Why oh why do liberals take the side of “the world” against us?
And why is she being replaced by someone who encouraged the flag trampling incident at UM at Farmington?
Think, people.
Why do they hate us so?
And someone is paying them well to hate us.
Botman’s replacement, the former President of the University of Maine at Farmington smirks in this video as her students trample the flag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9bVRAe4NE
You pay taxes so these leftists can teach your people to hate you, your flag, your religion, and your country.
WAKE UP, AMERICA!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9bVRAe4NE
The President of the University of Maine at Farmington stands by and smirks as her students trample Old Glory as an art project.
And wake up America. If they do it to the flag, they will do it to you and the ones you love.
Just give them enough time.
When they say something, they mean the direct opposite of what is God’s truth.
It’s called “the Principle of the Mirror Image.”
Learn it well.
It’s an outrageous slap in the face to all of the classified employees who struggle to make ends meet with their meager salaries, no contract and the threat that their jobs will be cut at any time. If the governor really wants to make cuts to his budget he should close the Chancellor’s Office altogether. It is mostly a duplicate of what the campuses do. It has long been a big waste of money. Time to plug the hole through which all this money flows.
Peter Principle at work. Maybe even the Dilbert Principle.
Good for Selma, not being backed by a bunch of so-called professors, who work part-time and make more money than they are worth. Why work for them.
No wonder College Tuition is so high! And this is nonsense. If you are voted as No Confidence, you need to be OUT completely. It sounds like the Catholic Church…do something bad and we will put you somewhere else for the same money. NOW THAT”S punishment and making a point..NOT
Another overpaid useless suit in the Chancellor’s office….which is already over stocked with do-nothings.
Way to pad the bill UMaine.
Maine pension fund
I will be able to find money in the existing budget without adding to the budget. Translation: We are already overspending by at least $203,000 so slipping this in won’t be an issue. This was the standard answer that we heard every day when I served on the labor committee in the 122nd legislature. Every new proposal was met with the “how will you pay for this?” and the standard answer was “we will absorb this cost in the existing budget.” Every time you try to make a budget cut, they tell you that there is absolutely nowhere to cut, that the budget is already way too tight. Then when they want to do something, there is no problem absorbing hundreds of thousands of dollars within the existing budget. The budgets are exceedingly wasteful, and there is no problem with simply passing all of this waste on to the broken back workers and taxpayers in our State. THIS is exactly the kind of blatant waste of taxpayer dollars that the current administration is trying to eliminate, and, if I might add, facing tremendous opposition.
A better headline writer at the Rumford Meteor has summed this story up with ”
USM President Volunteers To Hunt Down, Tree, Capture, Rape, And Murder The Dictionary Definition Of “Selfless” For $203,000 A Year.
“
I don’t know the back story to all of this, but she is basically taking over an initiative started by Jim Breece, the former Vice President for Academic Affairs who was recently let go. He did some great work for the system in that capacity, and she’s been given an assignment that he did all the hard work to put into place. Nice, that.
The “System” is the perfect example of organizational failure. Always has been and always will be. Originally created to provide administrative services to the Colleges. Today it is nothing more than an administration of top-heavy salaried people. It contribute nothing. Any ideas on how to dismantle it??
Chancellors “resign” and get a “teaching” job. Presidents esign and get another “administrative”job.
Professors and instructors get paid peanuts—but thosde with tenure keep getting paid after being terminated. As an alumnus (Class of ’59) I am fed up with the University of Maine System and its complete disregard for financial priorities. The bogus positions at 6-figure salaries over the last 10 years (or more) are a disgrace and an insult to Maine taxpayers, and especially to alumni who are now living on Social Security. I wish i could use the language that is most appropriate—but it would be “inappropriate”. This woman’s self-praise turns my stomach.
I hope the trustees have common sense and not let this happen.No wonder it cost so much to go to umo and usm,