Pointed report, pointed refutation of its critics

David Flanagan has heard mostly praise for the report his task force published recommending major cultural changes at the University of Maine System. The system's trustees had their first official look at the document on Monday at a meeting in Bangor.

There's been a bevy of criticism, however, from one source, and Flanagan decided to address it point-by-point on Monday.

The faculty senate at the University of Maine in Orono recently weighed in with a critique of the report.

The senate said the report's recommendations would result in less subsidy money for Maine's flagship Orono campus, a shift of master's degree programs to the University of Southern Maine and more students spending their first two years at a community college before transferring to a University of Maine System campus. The faculty senate also objected to a common calendar at Maine's seven university campuses and a recommendation that the system chancellor's office move to Augusta.

Flanagan acknowledged it's possible that, by implementing the task force report's recommendations, the Orono campus would receive less in state subsidy, "but not automatically." The bigger issue, he said, is changing the 40-year-old internal funding formula for distributing state subsidy among Maine's seven university campuses.

It's also possible, he said, that Orono could lose some master's level programs. It's all in the spirit, though, of reducing expensive academic program duplication at Maine's universities. "If we can't accomplish this modest step, there's little hope for the future," Flanagan said in prepared remarks to the trustees.

And if the university system wants to make higher education accessible to more Maine students, the more affordable option might have them spend two years at a community college before they transfer to a university campus.

As for a common calendar, Flanagan said, "we never intimated that (Orono's) current calendar should not be the prevalent model." With respect to locating the system chancellor's office in Augusta, he said, "we fail to find any merit to their objections ... or even why it is of concern to them."