The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Jim McClymer is an associate professor of physics at the University of Maine and president of the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine.
It has sadly become commonplace that management missteps in our university system continue to cost us all. The spate of bad decisions in the past few years demonstrate the need for meaningful change in the management of our University of Maine System. The seven public universities are a treasure for our state, but given a confluence of factors, now more than ever we need bold, collaborative leaders willing to work together to solve the problems we face rather than undermining their faculty and staff. Sadly, in the most recent past, system leaders demonstrated poor instincts and a lack of transparency. We all pay the price when our leaders make these ill-informed choices.
The recent news that the candidate selected to serve as the president of the University of Maine at Augusta will not be serving in that role was met with sighs of relief. In attempting to expensively fix their multiple errors and to accept responsibility, the board gratuitously took an unwarranted swipe at a search committee member, one repeated by a recent BDN editorial, in an apparent effort to dilute their responsibility for the search debacle.
I am sure that we share the same ire as when we learn that the system’s failure will cost it from $205,000 to more than $600,000 for a job he will never do.
Concurrently, the University of Maine at Farmington cut teaching positions and eliminated entire areas of study. The campus president is leaving in his second year on the job. I believe that administrative failure is responsible for the university’s financial struggles. Those who lost their jobs, the community who lost valuable members and students who have lost educational opportunities all pay the price while administrators remain entrenched or move on to the next gig. Adding further injury, an interim president is typically installed for two years, foisted upon the institution with no legitimate search process.
The instinct for administrators to withhold or distort information is one we have seen time and time again from our university administrators, only this time everyone can see the damage in public.
Apologies have been made, while attempting to spread blame to others. No one needs to hear another apology, for the point remains — bad instincts, lack of collaboration, and the minimal transparency causes harm to us all.
These recent debacles follow a pattern of mismanagement. Two years ago the board of trustees gave system leadership control over retiree health benefits, making medicines, doctors’ appointments and access unaffordable. Only after facts were presented, protests, and a class action lawsuit, which the system’s leadership chose to ignore for months, was disaster averted. This unnecessary betrayal of people with long-term commitments to the university system revealed how system leadership and the board chooses to lead.
Faculty and staff are the biggest cheerleaders and promoters for our schools and programs. Failure in leadership undermines our efforts.
The university system’s board of trustees have decisions to make about Chancellor Dannel Malloy. Whatever they decide, we hope all of our leaders will try a different path — collaborate with the faculty and staff in meaningful ways so we can help everyone make the best decisions they can for the future of our students and state.
