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The entire USM community was invited on March 15th to
attend the universityŐs first-ever USM Cafe, held at the Gorham
Field House. Nearly 300 faculty, staff, and administrators
showed up to discuss the draft plan, "Transforming USM." Their
major assignments lay in sealed envelopes on the table: Discuss
what excites you and what challenges you about the plan for
transforming USM, then identify the major themes that emerge
from your conversations.
Maintenance workers, deans, professionals, admins, and
faculty members alike engaged in sometimes heated dialogue
on the direction, failings, and promises of USM. At the end,
they posted their concerns on 300 post-it stickers that covered
a wall. Currents editor Selby Frame met with USM President
Rich Pattenaude shortly after the cafe to discuss the issues
raised there and during the smaller forums that subsequently
took place at each USM campus.
There was a message at the cafe that I found particularly
plaintive, but also indicative of a more widespread concern.
It read: How much of this has to do with anything? Is this
input going to be used or is this a done deal?
The overall need to move ahead, strengthen the institution,
bring in more upper division and master's students, reduce
costs and so on, those are givens. We didn't create those
pressures. How we respond to it -- the specific goals and
action steps -- those are very much open and many have already
changed or been added in the weeks that we've been having
conversations.
That particular exercise of getting multi-perspective conversations
going was hugely helpful. I've already begun to look at the
materials and there's enormously rich thinking to mine. Things
I don't think of; impacts that don't occur to me; subtleties
that are not available to me. There's been a lot of good feedback
that is both helping us to present it more clearly, and also
refine the thinking and some of the key points.
Can you give me some examples?
Certainly we have to bring more attention to general education.
General education revamping is already under way so we didn't
put it in, but somebody said that by its absence it raises
questions. So that will have to come in. We need more detail
on incentive budgeting, so that people understand that. More
narrative about how the whole thing fits together as a story
and what the logics are. We'll have to do more identification
of what short-term vs. long-term actions will be in terms
of buildings.
Well, since you brought it up, what exactly is incentive-based
budgeting?
Right now, if a department works really hard and increases
its enrollment 20 percent and is very creative about it, they
get no more money. What's the motivation? If a department
works hard to either cut costs or increase their income, in
incentive-based budgeting they get some share of that. They
have more travel and equipment money. The rest goes to help
fund general operating costs or areas that can't produce revenue.
The second part is that you put incentives where you want
behavior and action. If I want faculty to work on Web-based
courses, then I should have some Web-based course grants and
awards.
How did everyone involved come up with this proposal?
Does it build on the USM Plan or is it another approach?
It was clear from our preliminary conversations with the senates
that we needed to give people something to respond to that
had specificity. So we took the four major goals of the USM
Plan and moved them forward. We said we need to move the USM
Plan along with more speed and focus. The USM Plan is 23 pages
of wonderful stuff, but it's a five- or ten-year development
plan. We realized that, given the amount of change, we really
need to transform USM into a 21st Century university now,
even though we're not totally sure what that is.
The simplest thing would be to do nothing, to just manage
it, take the money out, cut this and that. We know how to
do that, but I think it does not do justice to the hard work
and commitment of people here. It doesn't do justice to what's
expected of us from our community and our region. So, in a
somewhat more authoritative way than in the past, we are putting
together a plan. Transforming USM is just a giant action plan,
a work plan.
Have you had any major surprises in the feedback you've
been getting?
I'm pleasantly surprised by the level of creative energy coming
from many parts of the organization about new degree programs
and about how to make things work a little better. I'm getting
a fair amount of push-back, not unexpectedly, on the idea
of Boyer's "Scholarship Reconsidered" as an umbrella definition.
It's very much a faculty issue about scholarship and the definition
of research. The traditional definition is somewhat narrow,
focusing on refereed journals in each discipline. The Boyer
model looks at the scholarship of integration, of application,
of teaching across this wider band of professional activity.
People should feel free to engage in a wider range of activities,
community involvement, experimental teaching, and expecting
that it will be credited toward promotion and tenure. Some
people feel it undermines the traditional nature of scholarship
and therefore weakens the institution's intellectual content.
I don't agree, because it's not about weakening the standards,
it's about broadening the definition of what is scholarly.
But that dialogue will continue.
There was a fair amount of concern at the Portland forum
about our relationship with Orono, particularly in the area
of research. You mentioned that the Chancellor is looking
at the positioning of each institution, really defining them
distinctly. How will that affect this process?
The Chancellor has had individual conversations with each
president about the general direction for that institution,
about where the system's strategic plan is headed. He's asking
us to continue to focus our work on responsiveness to the
region, professional programs, applied research, high quality,
and increased master's-level programs. So it's a space that's
pretty close to where we are now.
In talking about graduate programs, he wants to make sure
that we're not simply trying to reproduce Orono. Orono has
a special role as the land-grant institution, that is, advanced
basic research and advanced research-based Ph.Ds. There's
a tremendous amount of room for us to grow in masters-degree
programs, applied research, and even applied doctorates, like
an Ed.D. And continuing research and development in the two
niches we are aiming at: biosciences and information technology.
I also heard concern among faculty over program changes:
adding some, shrinking others, reviewing curriculum and possibly
reducing credit hours for some majors.
There are a couple of topics there. One is that there
are professional programs or, more accurately, programs of
great interest to our students and our community that are
strongly linked to the liberal arts. A B.F.A. in creative
writing, which was raised at Portland's forum, is an interesting
idea if there are an adequate number of people who might want
to pursue that. I'm open to hearing those conversations. I
think the administration is going to take a stronger and more
decisive voice in spurring development. Faculty will always
set the standards and design the curriculum. It doesn't mean
that the university administration can't be involved in helping
them look around, determine what people are interested in,
and doing environmental scans so we can be sure to use our
resources as wisely as possible.
We're going to be looking at some programs growing and some
programs shrinking; it depends upon the demand. But that's
the way universities have always worked. We're trying to grow
our nursing faculty right now because there is tremendous
pressure on them and they're working very, very hard. Other
parts of this institution, where student interest has waned,
as retirements and turnovers occur, it will give us opportunities
to redirect the resources. Again, we try to do this over a
couple of years; we try to be gentle.
Can you explain the process of meeting the mandated,
one-time cuts this year? What about next year?
This year is particularly difficult because we lost $1.2 million
in appropriations right off the bat. The increase of state
funding that came to us on July 1st was taken away right away.
January came and the governor had asked for more money from
the UMaine System, a total of $4.9 million. This is one-time
money, which means it's not ongoing. Our share of that is
$1.2 million and we are trying to find those monies in the
most efficient ways possible.
First of all is simple operational budgets: We're probably
going to get about $500,000 out of ongoing operations; that's
why we're holding positions vacant and minimizing equipment
purchases. Money not spent is money saved. Secondly, our income,
our student credit hours for the spring, are slightly above
that projected. Normally we spend it on projects or distribute
it; we're holding that back. Third is that we have been moving
ahead in grants and contracts so we have some indirect-cost
money available that we also would normally spend on infrastructure.
We also go into reserves. We have small reserves for very
specific things: roofs, copiers, cars. We're going to borrow
a little bit out of there. So by doing all of those one-time
things, we think we're within $240,000 of that $1.2 million.
The rest, we'll have to go around and ask people to cut out
of their budgets. The vice presidents are going to be working
on that in the next few weeks.
It's much different when you're doing a base budget, a permanent
cut. That's what happens next July 1st. Our health care benefits
compensation and costs are rising rapidly. These are costs
that are pretty substantial; they're good costs, things we
should do, but there will be no increase in the state budget.
Trustees are asking us to have minimal increases in tuition.
We're also establishing some reinvestment funds, which give
us a little wiggle room. These funds allow us to start new
programs, to strengthen current programs through inflation
cost-coverage, pay for raises, increase financial aid.
Is financial aid a big issue in the plan?
The financial aid piece is very important. We need to be more
competitive for students. We give very low financial-aid awards
relative even to Presque Isle. Only the University of Maine
at Augusta gives smaller average awards. It's because we have
not taken the university's money and put it into financial
aid; we tried to put it into salaries, technology, program
growth. But as demographics get tougher, the number of students
available shrinks, and as the competition gets greater for
the students we want to attract and keep, we need to put more
money into financial aid.
How will the proposed changes in student body affect curriculum?
Given the role of the community colleges, strategically we're
moving on the expectation that we'll have a lot more transfers
than we've had in the past. They're increasing in size and
people will come to us better prepared. We'll have fewer developmental
classes, and a greater load proportion at the upper-division
level. Our 100- and 200-level classes we can constrain a little
bit, which allows us to grow at the 300- and 400-level. There's
also the growth of curriculum at the master's level.
A lot of people at the cafe talked about a separatist
mentality that seems to exist among the many programs and
colleges at the university. How do you move beyond that to
a more shared work culture? Is this possible?
What's going to unite us all? I think one thing we learned
from the cafe is that spending some time and energy to bring
people together talking about common interests is very good.
I don't think I or the university itself have invested quite
enough time and energy in community building. If it's important,
we'll focus some time and thought on it. It's particularly
challenging in a university with three campuses, lots of commuters.
I don't know that you can achieve the level of community of
a place like Bowdoin, where there's a high residency rate
and a more narrow range of purposes.
LAC seems like the perfect model of a place that has that
sense of community built into it. Yes, it's physically
and programmatically built into it. They have no departments.
And thematically, it was important to them from day one. How
do we begin to build it in? That's part of the work we have
to do. It's obviously more important than we've given time
to in the past.
What were you thinking when you looked at that wall of
stickies with hundreds of ideas for improving USM on it?
I was thinking, oh boy, people took this seriously. I really,
really appreciated that. I think it's very important when
you're asking an organization to change and move forward at
a rapid pace to involve as many people in the conversation
as possible. At the end of the day, I recognize that the tough
decisions are mine and I don't mind doing that. But prior
to that I want to hear from as many voices as possible because
you learn and you do better work. We will be more decisive
than we have been in the past. Time frames are shorter, issues
are more focused, but we can't move away from the fundamental
culture and soul of the university, which really depends on
good conversation and dialogue.
You have participated in several national dialogues on
university budgeting strategies. Obviously, youŐre being tapped
as a good resource on this and coming in contact with a lot
of peers struggling with similar issues. Could you share a
little about that?
I was just selected for the National Commission on Higher
Education Accountability and the National Task Force on Place
Matters -- the latter concerns serving your region. This kind
of transformation is beginning to happen in lots of places.
I think we're ahead of the pack. I mentioned in one of my
presentations that we are building a race car while we're
racing it. It's a bit of a case of that when you're building
a university for the 21st Century; we're defining it as we
become it. It's going to be a little messier than we would
like things to be. People might have to have a little tolerance
for ambiguity. We're in pretty good shape in terms of thinking
ahead. What I'm finding across the country is that there are
lots of good practices that exist and one of our jobs is to
harvest the good ones. Universities are being greatly challenged.
Those which do not respond will be injured over the next few
years; they won't be places where people want to invest or
go to school. It's a very tenuous time.
Your presidency is changing.
Yes, this work is creating an agenda for the next five years
under which external pressures are more complex and pressing.
The need for change is more persistent. The tension is higher.
The easiest time to be president of anything -- a company,
a university, or a country -- is in a time of rising resources.
In a time of constraints, you have to make choices. The system
is changing. It's intruding more on campus life, so interfacing
and fitting with that will take some work. But also, in time
of tight budgets, there is this rising desire for community
within the institution that calls for some new strategies
and skill sets on my part and on the part of the senior staff.
Change always happens easiest in those domains where people
want it to happen. If the change is personally threatening
or it has resource implications for where you work, people
are very cautious. One of my favorite lines in all this is:
Change in inevitable. Making that change become progress is
entirely dependent on us.
Do you think you'll be president of USM in five years?
Oh my. Maybe. Who knows what I'll be doing? I've been here
12 and a half years. That's a long time to be president. One
of the things I do worry about is if I am president that long,
is it fair to the university? Will I continue to bring creative
energy? Do I continue to be in touch, to bring the ideas and
leadership the university needs? It's one of the reasons I
read so much and talk to so many people around the country.
I try to continually refresh my sense of what leadership at
a university is about.
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