Principles for Institutional Academic Transformation
October 21, 2009
As USM considers how best to position itself for a sustainable future, we must keep in mind that our mission as a public comprehensive university lies in our distinctive approach to serving the needs of our community through the liberal arts and sciences and through professional education. As an engine of the local and regional economy, our programs must be relevant, nimble in pedagogy and connected to the needs of local employers. We pledge to launch and support fertile and productive academic conversations that result in the creation of fresh or redesigned degree programs and synergic research and scholarship, within exciting schools and colleges.
In order to guide the academic transformation process, USM’s academic community will operate in accordance with a common set of principles that are designed to be read in conjunction with the university’s new strategic plan, Preparing USM for the Future, 2009-2014. The strategic plan’s eight goals provide a roadmap for the work ahead. They are:
- Serving the needs and aspirations of 21st-century Maine.
- Making student success a core university priority.
- Providing distinctive graduate and professional education.
- Supporting faculty research, scholarship, and creative activity.
- Ensuring the university’s fiscal sustainability.
- Furthering the university’s commitment to diversity.
- Strengthening community.
- Deploying USM’s physical plant in support of the university’s mission.
These goals will guide our thinking about institutional reorganization. Although the White Paper outlines only five specific scenarios, the USM community will consider other arrangements that may better respond to the future needs of the university.
Our undertaking will strengthen the academic core of USM at the same time that it reduces costs and deploys the university’s resources more strategically. Most importantly, however, it will benefit our students, whose success depends upon it. As the provost, deans and faculty manage the hard work of rethinking the university’s structure, they will draw on the following principles:
- Academic transformation will include school/college reorganization and departmental restructuring.
- Proposals for new configurations must be designed to enhance the academic quality of USM’s schools, colleges, departments, degree programs, course offerings, research, and/or scholarship.
- Academic transformation will, in the aggregate, reduce costs and increase revenues.
- Academic change will involve renovation of existing degree programs and transformation of existing departments, the development of new departments and programs, or the strategic closing of some existing degree programs and departments.
- Proposals that demonstrate interdisciplinarity in design; that reflect substantial faculty collaboration across and within disciplines; and that deepen student engagement are desired outcomes for academic transformation.
- Proposals should be innovative, current, and cost-effective.
- Proposals must be informed by common data drawn from authoritative sources such as IPEDS, the Delaware Study, and University of Maine System data.
Examples of academic programs that capture student attention and respond to regional needs can be found in comprehensive universities across the country: criminal justice, forensic psychology, music or sound technology, sustainability studies. This list is almost infinitely extendable because the kinds of study involved reflect not only the needs of the marketplace but also the willingness of the academy to tackle some of the big problems and challenges facing us in the 21st century. Such programs are, by definition, interdisciplinary, and only institutions that are adept at fostering interdisciplinarity can successfully mount them. USM’s decision to develop programs such as these will be guided by the goals of the new strategic plan and will, of necessity, involve reallocation of the university’s resources.
Our work ahead is challenging and important. USM’s current organizational configuration has not fostered courses of study that attract students who seek the extraordinary programs that respond to the needs of our time.
In addition, the University of Maine System Board of Trustees has mandated rigorous limitations on programs graduating fewer than five students per year, requiring USM to evaluate the mission centrality of every undersubscribed program and close those not critical to USM’s mission or required for satisfying other majors.
As we consider what to teach, we should also consider how to teach, new pedagogies, and new approaches to engaged learning, making the delivery of instruction critical to our success. Good ideas come from everywhere, and the cross-pollination of discussions across schools and colleges, with students and alumni, with staff and faculty, with community members will move us forward during this period. As part of this process, we will also structure a variety of venues for the Office of the President to solicit input from the external communities that we serve: USM’s Board of Visitors, meetings with corporate leaders, as well as meetings with school or college advisory boards and councils. USM aspires to distinction and honest service to its community, this state, and our nation. Therefore, we must devote ourselves to bringing our structure and programs into line with the needs and aspirations of students in this new century.
At the close of the fall 2009 semester, I will take into account the counsel of the many constituencies who will participate in the discussions about USM’s institutional reorganization. Early in the spring 2010 semester, I will announce a plan for restructuring the university, solicit final community counsel through appropriate campus governance processes, secure any required approvals through the University of Maine System Board of Trustees, and then devote the remainder of the spring to planning the implementation at the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year.
