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The University of Maine System has selected Jennifer Cushman to be the next president of the University of Maine at Augusta after the system was forced to restart the search last year.
The selection of Cushman marks the end of a multi-year search for the institution’s next leader — a search that was mired in conflict and sowed distrust for system leadership among faculty, staff and students across the state’s public university system.
Cushman, who is the chancellor of Penn State Beaver, has been the director of international and off-campus study at the College of Wooster in Ohio; dean of international education at Juniata College in Pennsylvania; and the campus dean at Ohio University Zanesville.
Cushman was among four initial finalists named by the renewed search committee in March, including Roxanne Gonzales-Walker, provost and vice president for academic affairs of New Mexico Highlands University; Jason King, chief compliance and ethics officer of the University of Texas System; and Ray Rice, president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
Just a week after finalists were named, Rice withdrew his name from consideration.
The University of Maine System was forced to restart its search for the next president of UMA after the selected candidate, Michael Laliberte, withdrew from the job in May 2022.
Laliberte’s withdrawal followed revelations that he had been the subject of votes of no confidence at his previous institution in New York and that those votes were never disclosed to the search committee, even though the committee’s chair and Chancellor Dannel Malloy were aware of them.
In December, the system signed a deal with a new search firm, ZRG Partners LLC, and gave the company close control over how the search plays out and limits the role of the search committee made up of students, faculty members, trustees and community members.
