Office of the President
Selma Botman
See President Botman's complete resume.
Download a high resolution image.
The University of Southern Maine's 10th president, Selma Botman, joined USM on July 1, 2008. She most recently served as executive vice chancellor and university provost for The City University of New York (CUNY), the nation's largest urban public university. Under her leadership, CUNY's academic reputation flourished, and the University has become a national model of excellence in contemporary urban public education.
Throughout her career as an administrator and professor, President Botman has supported faculty in their critical roles as teachers and researchers; demonstrated a commitment to ensuring student success; created academic programs that are innovative and relevant; and developed collaborative relationships with community partners.
One of the first projects she designed at CUNY was The Campaign for Student Success, a university-wide project whose purpose is to ensure that students excel in general education and in their majors. In addition to guiding the effort to create a School of Public Health and a new Teacher Academy, she helped develop a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies and CUNY's first-ever fully online degree. Working hard to make certain that students of all backgrounds have opportunities to benefit from CUNY's intellectual resources, she championed the importance of associate’s degree programs that remove barriers to college completion.
Prior to joining CUNY, President Botman served as special assistant to the chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She was also vice president for academic affairs at the statewide University of Massachusetts system for six years. At UMass, she led a five-campus environmental studies initiative that addressed community needs. She strengthened technology and engineering education throughout Massachusetts by bringing together K-12 teachers, university faculty, and retired engineers to design new programs that were introduced to secondary schools. President Botman also visited 60 high schools across the state to promote the University's academic, cultural and athletic strengths.
President Botman, who grew up outside of Boston, holds a B.A. in Psychology from Brandeis University, a B.Phil. in Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University, and an A.M. in Middle Eastern Studies and a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. She is a scholar of modern Middle Eastern politics and society who has taught and published extensively.
Shortly after her USM appointment, President Botman said, “Universities must serve as drivers of economic development, generators of new knowledge, centers of cultural and recreational opportunities and pathways to student success that culminate in thoughtful citizenship, satisfying careers and principled lives. The success of our students is, in fact, the most important indication that USM is doing the job entrusted to us by the State of Maine: providing the best education possible.”
