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The recording of the Town Hall meeting began late, the video commences with interim executive vice president for academic affairs and provost Gabriel Paquette’s presentation on the Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) initiative.

Transcript

Gabe Paquette:

…fellows got together to address a number of areas that were understood to be of absolute critical importance. Those working groups have now given way to four smaller implementation groups that have taken this earlier work. That is the town halls, the various work products developed by the working groups led by the provost fellows, and tried to take those to the next level.

I just wanted to say parenthetically that I’ve been really honored to work very closely with many of the leaders of the working groups, as well as obviously serve on the implementation group.

I can say that all employees and students associated with this university will be very pleased, I think, by the creativity, the esprit de corps, and the absence of cynicism that all of the individuals involved in these processes have demonstrated. It’s made me very proud to work at this university as we drive things forward.

This slide shows the challenges as well as the opportunities and the ways in which the SRE is beginning to address those. I do want to emphasize that the SRE is not only about teaching and learning and research, but actually about other parts of the university as well.

Every part of the institution must be examined, since the solutions that we’re going to develop, the responses to problems and challenges, are, of necessity, integrated ones. I would just mention here two of the implementation groups, let’s say, and the challenges they face.

The Workforce Alignment Group, for example, we’re trying to strive to ensure that the University of Maine, the offerings that we have, are aligned with workforce needs. We’re trying to ensure that our graduates are prepared for the future job market through strong industry connections. Fortunately, the manufacturing, materials, and workforce acceleration is doing precisely that.

Similarly, we’re trying to ensure, given our scarce resources, that we are efficient, especially as we allocate resources. Here, the Administrative Business Services Group has evolved to now becoming a President’s Advisory Committee on Administrative Excellence that was just launched recently. This is, I think, very exciting.

I’ll spend a little bit of time now, though, talking about the Academic Portfolio Review and then the Research Portfolio Review. I think that we are now very well poised to take advantage of the fruitful and insightful contributions and data collection analysis that have occurred since May 2024 and begin to move towards action.

On this slide, you will see the current state of play for two of the implementation groups, the Academic Program Portfolio as well as the Research Portfolio Review Group. I’d just like to, here, thank Deb Allen and her team in OIRA because the APR data in particular has been very difficult to compile and analyze, and her group has led the way there and deserves great appreciation and recognition for that.

We’re finally in a place where we’re actually able to ask the question, where do the various academic programs at the University of Maine stack up against important metrics as well, as how do they stack up relative to each other in this particular moment in time? We’re using both quantitative measures as well as qualitative ones.

I just want to emphasize here that we’ve been incredibly transparent, especially of late, in sharing the data that has been developed by the groups. Various composite metrics were shared with the Faculty Senate executive committee in early September.

Then, more recently, we shared a data workbook as well as a methodological appendix document with both the Senate and also with the deans to share with their faculty. I encourage those of you who have not yet seen those documents, to reach out either to your faculty senators from your college or to your dean or, indeed, write directly to me. I’d be happy to share those documents with you.

Something very similar is happening with the Research Portfolio Review Group. There, an assessment framework for centers and institutes has been developed, as well as a tool for strategic action planning.

I won’t say very much about that, except for that the APR Group and the Research Portfolio Review Group have been working in concert very closely. I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Jason Charland and Sandra De Urioste‑Stone in that work and also being such great collaborators with us.

I mentioned data collection and analysis. I now want to dive into that just a little bit more. First, thanks to Deb and her team, we were able to collect data related to quantitative metrics. Those are listed on the slide. I’ll just mention a few of them just to give you a flavor.

We’re looking at enrollment in major, student credit hours generated, job growth capability, doctoral degrees awarded, and others. Those important quantitative metrics are displayed here on this slide.

We then sorted programs into three categories. The first were programs of distinction, that is, those programs that are doing extraordinarily well according to various metrics.

Programs that are in a steady state, that is, they’re making good contributions, credit hours are being generated, graduates are succeeding, but perhaps haven’t quite risen to that level of excellence. Then programs in need of review, which, according to a range of quantitative metrics are not performing as well vis‑‡‑vis other programs at the university.

After those categorizations were made, deans were then asked to either confirm or recategorize programs based on their detailed local knowledge. Detailed local knowledge, of course, is not just their own experience, but also working with their chairs and directors to find out whether or not, essentially, the metrics were misleading in some way.

Give you one example. If, for example, a particular program had two faculty retire very recently, they might be generating fewer credit hours, because we’re only looking at a snapshot, particular moment in time, as opposed to looking across a longer period of time.

Deans will be aware of that program, department chairs and school directors will be aware of that, and their local information helped to inform that either confirmation or recategorization.

Now, I’m happy to say that deans are in the midst of college‑wide discussion. Not only with their chairs and directors, but actually with their entire faculty and staff.

In discussing programs of distinction and programs in need of review, how can we potentially build on areas of excellence and distinction? How should we approach programs in need of review? How can we position them from positions of weakness to positions of strength?

It’s in that context that we’re applying a qualitative rubric. I’ve just spoken before about the data that had been collected and then analyzed, and the metrics that were created, including the composite metric. Now what we’re doing is we’re applying a qualitative rubric.

That is essentially a way of assessing whether or not programs are truly those of distinction or in need of review. That work is taking place right now, led by the deans in conjunction with their faculty. Of course Faculty Senate is involved in that at every step along the way.

Now, as a result of that work, as a result of the application of that qualitative rubric ‑‑ here, I’ve provided an example of several of the rubric criteria ‑‑ we’re going to be in a much better position to determine whether or not a program that we offer at the university should be grown or maintained, or perhaps modified significantly, and, in extreme cases, closed or eliminated altogether.

I realize that this particular slide has small type. I should say also that, renew my invitation to write to me and I’ll provide you with the workbook as well as the methodological appendix document that I referred to before.

Essentially, you can look at a number of the different criteria. One, for example, would be reputational risk.

Of course, there’s a certain degree of subjectivity here, but I think that when you look at programs holistically, using a range of quantitative as well as qualitative data, it’s possible to reach conclusions, to guide action, to determine whether or not investments should be made, programs should expand, or whether or not they should be reconfigured and, in some cases, eliminated.

As I’ve said, deans are now working very closely with faculty and staff in their colleges to apply this qualitative rubric to the programs that have been identified, either as those of distinction and perhaps worthy of further expansion, new investments, or those programs that have been determined to be, according to quantitative as well as qualitative data, ripe for reconsideration, if not, elimination.

Here on this slide, we see, essentially, some of the potential outcomes of this work, the work that’s taking place right now, and some of the recommendations that will be made by December 15th by deans, obviously in close collaboration with their colleagues, with their faculty colleagues.

There are a whole range of different actions that are possible in the short, medium, and long term. Some of these are listed here.

I do want to emphasize, however, that program closure is a last resort. At the same time, our analysis as a result of collaboration shows that the status quo is not viable for reasons that I think you’ll understand even better after my colleague Jenny Boyden speaks and tells us about the current budget situation.

We need to align our resources with our priorities, and that is an imperative that we must follow at the university now. This slide, as I’ve said, suggests several of the possibilities, several of the recommendations that might come out of this phase of the SRE process by the middle of December.

I mentioned earlier that the Research Portfolio Review Group has also been engaged in a parallel and comparable effort. Perhaps I shouldn’t say parallel, because, as I mentioned before, Jason and Sandra have made sure that they’ve been working very closely with the Academic Portfolio Review group.

Under their leadership, they’ve developed a framework for the RPR, and they’re asking, “How do research centers and institutes contribute to and advance our university’s mission?” Here, I can draw your attention to the various dimensions on this slide.

They’re looking at the contribution to learner‑focus research activities, research expenditure and funding productivity, the level of internal collaboration at the university, as well as the level of external collaboration and engagement.

I’ve already spoiled the ending, which is to say that what happens next. The steps that the deans are currently undertaking will be completed by December 15th, and that’s very exciting, as I anticipate receiving those recommendations.

The RPR’s analysis and planning continues apace. The Administrative Business Services Group’s work will inform the newly formed presidential advisory committee that I have mentioned before. The manufacturing materials and workforce accelerator group will establish stronger coordination across colleges and research centers as well as public‑private partnerships.

Here we stand at a exciting, if somewhat daunting, juncture. If we work collectively and do this right, as I expect we will, based on what I’ve seen since May 2024, I believe that the University of Maine will be set up for success in both the short and the long term.

That success means that our learners will be better taken care of, that students will be able to succeed, not just at the university but as they leave the university to pursue professional opportunities, and that our university as a whole is making contributions that the state and, indeed, the nation expect of us.

I look forward to fielding questions later on after all the presentations are finished, but I appreciate your time now.

[pause]

Gabe: Sorry, Jenny. I should have introduced you. Jenny Boyden.

Jenny Boyden:

Thank you. Thank you, President Ferrini‑Mundy and Provost Paquette for the opportunity to talk a bit about budget today. I’ll probably start with, I’m a budget nerd, so I apologize in advance, and somebody can give me the honk if I go on too long. Let’s start with just some basic information about what we mean when we talk about our budget.

Each year, each campus within the system presents a balanced budget to the board of trustees. When we talk about that, we’re talking about our education in general funding and our auxiliary funding. Those are the two funds that we present to the board. We also budget for certain designated operations, including MAFES, Cooperative Extension, and MEIF.

What really drives the budget? It’s the revenue and expenses, obviously. Revenue is enrollment in student credit hours, tuition and fees, the state appropriation, financial aid, the percentage of our residential students versus our out‑of‑state students, research revenue, F&A cost recovery.

Our expenses, as you’ll see when we get to some later slides, are really driven by our compensation and benefit costs. We try to encompass some inflationary increases in our budgets when that’s possible, investments in strategic priorities, capital expenditures, including debt service, and contractual commitments.

Our role is unlike any other in the state. We are Maine’s R1 research university with a D1 athletics program, and it’s land, sea, and space grant flagship. This is a profound, multifaceted responsibility that includes our vital coastal regional campus in Machias.

We are, as stated here, a cornerstone of Maine’s heritage and its future, driving cultural enrichment, leading academic advancement, and ensuring community impact from every corner of Maine. Our budget is a blueprint of how we do that.

Let’s start by looking back at fiscal ’25. We did better than budget. We had budgeted to use just over four million dollars’ worth of reserves to balance our budget, and we did not use any. We actually ended up transferring over a million dollars into reserves at the end of the fiscal year.

Some things that contributed to that were higher‑than‑anticipated F&A recoveries and the efforts of everyone here and all of our financial managers to control costs. We implemented some things last year that are continuing. The critical hire review process, I feel, was very successful for this university to be able to evaluate which positions are hired and when.

We’re using that even more now as we evaluate the grant funding and whether or not that grant funding is dependable at this point on if we should fill a position.

Our approved FY ’26 budget also includes the planned use of reserves. Let me take a second to walk you through ‑‑ Oh, one of my numbers slid over ‑‑ to walk you through a little bit about the FY ’26 budget.

If we start with the revenue pie chart, net tuition and fees are budgeted at $129.7 million. That’s about 47 percent of our revenue. We receive $109 million in state appropriation. Indirect cost recoveries, we have budgeted at 24 million, and sales, services, and other is 15 million.

This is really the mix of our revenue picture. Again, about 47 percent from tuition, 39 percent from state appropriation, 8.5 from indirect cost, and 5 from other sales and services.

If we look at our expense side, that’s what the $279.9 is, supposed to be over there on the right, 67 percent of our costs are compensation and benefits. 33 percent is operating, so that’s everything else. I can say 10 to 11 of that is fuel and utilities. I’m looking back for a head nod. I’m close on that number.

Once we start to peel out some of those facilities costs that are more difficult to manage, that are driven by weather, the amount of funding that is operating, that is not discretionary but is changeable, it starts to diminish.

Let’s talk a little bit about where we are right now. We just had census, and we’ve probably all been hearing since the start of the semester that enrollment and credit hours have come in below what we budgeted.

Our student credit hours at fall census are 3,199 under budget on the undergraduate side, and 216 below budget on the graduate side. The estimated net fiscal impact of this is six million dollars. This is just on the revenue side.

We’re going to assume everyone stays on budget on their expenses. That’s part of our strategy. We have to address a six‑million‑dollar revenue shortfall in the next eight months. We’ll talk a little bit more as we go forward. We will have to adjust our spending to reflect this decrease.

We’re actively working with the provost and the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school to strengthen our spring ’26 enrollment and to maximize fall‑to‑spring retention. The FY ’27 budget process is going to be based on some of this information.

I’ll say thank you to Deb Allen also for providing me with some nice enrollment slides. This is a bit of an enrollment history for undergraduate enrollment at 91¸ŁŔű. Our in‑state enrollment is at the highest level since the fall of 2020. We have seen a bit of a decline in out‑of‑state enrollment, and that includes international students.

Machias has leveled up. There was quite a sharp decline for a while, but their enrollment from ’24 to ’25 is leveling. What stands out to me about the Machias enrollment is the percentage of out‑of‑state students. They have 64 percent of their degree‑seeking enrollees are from out of state.

[pause]

Jenny:

This slide offers some different comparisons based on where we were in fall of 2024 and what we projected for fall of ’25. If we start at the top, fall of ’24 for 91¸ŁŔű in‑state undergrads, we were at 5,333. At that time, we were projecting for our budget to be at 5,525.

What we’ve actually come in at in the fall of ’25 is 5,433. From our projected number, we are 92 students below budget. It’s a little more stark on the out‑of‑state side, and that really is why the financial impact is so large, because of the mix of students.

[pause]

Jenny:

On graduate, we are pretty steady. There is an increase in in‑state graduate enrollment and a slight decrease in out‑of‑state. Again, another look at graduate comparisons. What I will highlight here is the record‑breaking number of doctoral‑seeking enrollees.

[pause]

Jenny:

We talked about enrollment and the student credit hour changes that are driving the six‑million‑dollar shortfall. Let’s talk about some strategies on how we can close that, or at least hope to mitigate as much as we can.

We need to maintain our sales and services revenue. That is certainly helped by our strong athletics that are happening right now. We appreciate that, as well as other sales…Lost my place. Apologies.

Reducing our compensation costs, this is through the critical hire review process as we look at what positions are being filled, what needs to be filled, and when. We are evaluating that twice a week. We meet to review hiring requests.

Also, the provost’s office will be looking at low‑enrolled courses, managing part‑time overload, and we’ll all be managing additional compensation costs. As I started with, we really need all of you to help us keep this at a six‑million‑dollar shortfall by staying within your budgets.

If that means things may have to go to gift funds or some things may not be able to happen, reach out to finance. Talk to us. If you need help brainstorming how to manage something, we are here to help you however we can.

My team in the back, they will do whatever they can to be helpful and assist as we work through this, but it really will come down to managing the expenses so that we only have to deal with the six‑million‑dollar revenue shortfall.

The last point isn’t a way to close the gap, but it’s almost a bit of one more risk. President Ferrini‑Mundy mentioned the F&A revenues. We’re obviously continuing to watch the grant receipts that we come in, changes that are made to terms and conditions, what’s going on with the different models that are being proposed.

We’re also watching what’s happening at the state level with our state appropriations. There is an approved budget for fiscal year ’26 and fiscal year ’27, but I also know that the state will face other challenges as they work to present their fiscal ’27 budget and decide what portions of the federal budget reconciliation bill they will comply with on the tax changes.

The last projection I had seen was that full conformity could be $400 million a year. That will be something that the state has to wrestle with this winter, and how that is implemented could impact us. I just think it’s important for us to be aware that that’s a risk out in the future.

As we begin the FY ’27 budget build, here are some more risks and challenges and some revenue potential. Our student credit hours are currently declining, especially in non‑state residents.

Our state appropriation and F&A recoveries, as I just mentioned, those are affected by government decisions. We don’t have a lot of say. We do what we can to influence and provide as much information as possible to the decision‑makers, but some of that is a bit out of our control.

Our residence hall capacity is at a maximum, limiting our ability to attract more non‑resident students. One of the things that we did this fall that I think was very successful was we held an enrollment summit.

We had a meeting with finance, enrollment management, academic affairs, auxiliary services. How many people were there? Probably, 30 people? 30 people. We all met together in a way that I don’t think has happened before to talk about some of the opportunities to increase enrollment and some of the constraints that we face.

One of our constraints is our ability to house students. If we only have the capacity for 1,950 freshmen, we are going to be challenged if we try to recruit 2,100, and then not be able to provide them housing. We need to talk together about what our strategies are and how we adapt to make sure we’re making the best choices for the university.

We also have capacity challenges in sales and services. If we’re selling out the Alfond for hockey, we are not going to be able to sell more than capacity.

Compensation and benefit costs continue to rise in a highly competitive talent market. Absolutely. We, I think, have current contracts for all of our bargaining units, and that’s helpful for this point in time because we know what the increases will be for next year. We’ve been told by the system to budget four percent for compensation increases.

For next year, our fringe benefit rate at this point is staying the same, 48.6 percent for full‑time employees, 8.2, part‑time. Those percentages are staying the same. The compensation number is budgeted to increase by four percent.

We have inflationary pressures that are driving cost increases. I know the inclination is, we just need to increase our budget by that percent or by CPI. That’s not often what’s happening at this university or any place, because there’s just not the capacity for that.

When that doesn’t happen, but your costs continue to increase, you have a service contract for a piece of IT software that increases by five percent a year, and your budget’s not increasing, we have to make some choices.

I’ve already said we have to stay on budget. What’s not going to happen in order for you to fund that additional five percent cost on the technology increase, or are we not going to do that? We’re going to have to make those choices.

We have an aging infrastructure that drives additional maintenance, capital expenditures, and debt and interest payments. The sign, the sign is great. I should put up that sign.

[laughter]

Jenny:

I appreciate everyone’s patience. We’re doing great work in facilities. We’re getting a lot of things done. We’re fixing the steam traps that have failed. We’re putting up barriers where we think there could be a problem. We’re building new buildings.

We also have some, like the steam pits, some things that are less exciting and visible. A lot of the road work that’s been disrupted this year is because we’ve been doing electrical infrastructure underground. That’s not an exciting…Nobody’s going to go to a ribbon cutting because we put in a new underground electrical conduit.

[laughter]

Jenny:

That’s just not going to be a fun thing to have, but they’re things we have to do. The other big, not fun thing will be when we figure out what we do with UMEC and how we make sure our steam plant is sustainable going forward to provide heat for the campus. Those all relate to our additional maintenance, capital, and debt and interest payments.

Where we have opportunities. From our summit that we had, definitely people thought we could build more online offerings and programs. We should encourage the marketing and promotion of programs with growth potential.

That’s things like criminal justice program, the survey engineering and technology program, the MBA. Those are areas that are growing and have high demand. How can we market and promote those programs with growth potential?

We should expand programs for learning in the workplace and meeting the needs of Maine employers. Three years ago, we committed to the board that we would balance the FY ’27 budget without using reserves.

I’m going to go to the next slide and I’m going to show you where we’re starting from to get to that commitment. These are just initial numbers. This is like status quo.

Based on enrollment and student credit hours this year, we would project initial revenues of $274 million. Based on current staffing and current operating costs, expenses would be $294 million.

At this very early stage, and I can’t stress that enough, we haven’t even sent out expense templates to all of the departments yet, this is our very early analysis, we would have a gap of $19.8 million. That’s what we have to address. Over the next few months, that’s what we’ll be working to close to zero. It’s pretty stark.

Let me walk through the timeline a little bit. In November, we’ll hope to finalize some strategic plans for our FY ’27 budget templates to be sent out to all of the departments.

December and January, we’ll work with the unit and department levels to identify any opportunities for revenue generations and savings, as well as departments ‑‑ I probably should have flipped those ‑‑ departments and units will be submitting budget templates. The finance office will review those submissions and ensure all targets are met.

Starting in February is where we start to engage with FFT and the Board about our budgets. In February, we have a preliminary presentation to the system leadership. In March, our full budget is due and we do our first presentation to FFT. In April, we do our second public reading. In May, the board takes up the budget and approves it.

That’s where we are. I’ll just flip back to this one for a second. This is where we’re starting. This is a path forward. We have lots of ways that we’re going to engage.

We have a meeting tomorrow with [indecipherable 33:20] . We have the President’s Advisory Committee on budget. We will have regular conversation with all of our departments and our partners in the academic affairs and research as we move forward and develop a plan on how to close that gap. That is it for my slides.

[pause]

Amanda Klemmer:

Thank you, Jenny. Now we’ve move to the Q&A portion of the town hall. We do have a question online to begin. Can I ask for a volunteer to help with the microphone, if that’s at all possible? Thank you, Daisy.

I’ll start with an online question just to get them rolling, but then we can go back and forth between questions online and questions in the room. Just a reminder to all 176 folks online, please submit questions as you think of them. The first question is, what are the primary causes behind the recent decline in out‑of‑state student enrollment? Kevin.

Kevin Coughlin:

We have several hypotheses and there are several factors that we’re looking at. One, we did very well in fall 2024 at the expense of many competing institutions that have more levers that they can push.

For example, some of the flagships in and around the Northeast are able to push well into their wait lists to go get students that normally they wouldn’t enroll at those institutions to make up for some of the pressures that they’re facing. That has a negative impact on the students.

Where our natural draw is, we placed a lot of negative pressure on our discount rates. Perhaps, we were thinking we put in one or two more controls on our discount rate than we actually needed to, thereby making it slightly more expensive for out‑of‑state students to join us than it had been in the previous year.

In February and March of 2025, things were looking very positive. I was asked, is there any reason that we wouldn’t adjust what we were looking for as far as our base budget number in headcount and student credit hour?

I didn’t have the evidence to tell someone ‑‑ who is in a position to fire me, actually ‑‑ and say, “Don’t do that,” when all the evidence would suggest that I would be being disingenuous for me to say that, so we adjusted upward expectations.

Those three things combined to have an impact on our comparison with the budget projections.

To be fair, given some of the constraints that we had run into, the fall 2024 performance was always going to be a difficult hurdle to get over, and we are still trying. In spite of what the budget thresholds are going to be, there’s going to be the starting point for where we have aspirational goals. Did that address the question?

Amanda: Thank you, Kevin. Any questions from the room? Joan, you have a question?

Joan Ferrini‑Mundy: [inaudible 37:11] Thank you [inaudible 37:14] Kevin, or perhaps Provost Paquette. It would be good at this moment to say a little bit about what we’re doing to mitigate this, what we can say in this kind of a setting at least.

Kevin: Can I take a crack at it?

Gabe: Sure.

Amanda:

Yeah.

[off‑mic speech]

Kevin:

Based on our discussion in October, the summit that Jenny had highlighted, we have begun all sorts of non‑traditional and traditional ways of pushing the enrollment machine.

Some of the traditional ways ‑‑ we are reexamining the way we manage our discount rate to moderate some of the controls that we put in place. We’ve opened up a lot of new avenues where we do full‑on national searches across multiple programs that historically we might not have.

We are putting counselors into places where we have not been able to in the past. For example, Florida. We will be doing a critical hire search for an admission recruiter in Florida, where we had one for a good chunk of fall 2024, we did not have any out‑of‑state. We, in fact, used those as when they became open, we cut them as budget control measures for the entirety of the fall 2025 cycle.

We will be putting a person in Massachusetts. Here’s where the biggest loss was in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is facing some of the same type of demographic pressures that we are facing. They will be getting very aggressive, though. There are a lot of institutions there, as I said, with many more levers to push than we have.

They are still our largest source of out‑of‑state first year students by far outside of Maine. We cannot afford to give up on Massachusetts, so we are committing an entire staff member to go pursue first year and undergraduate transferring students in Massachusetts exclusively.

We will be working with Scott Marzilli and the rest of the provost team to build a proposal for a re‑up program to go get stop‑outs that have been stopped out for more than two or three years. We’ll be working to push Finish Strong and Black Bear Advantage programs to bring in students that aren’t necessarily traditional but are undergraduate transferring students.

The president has had, what, one or two pretty fantastic ideas. I have to admit that we’re going to be pushing some of those programs where we think about high value majors in survey engineering, technology, and industrial partners that we perhaps not have optimized to the greatest extent we conceivably could.

These are just some of those things. We will be pushing more and new things.

I think at this point the marketplace is so unstable because, as I highlighted, February, March of last year looked like we were going to beat the daylights out of fall 2024, and we did not. Some of our statistical models will be failing. The idea is fail, fail quickly and cheaply, learn, and start something else. Thank you.

Amanda: Thank you, Kevin, any questions from the room, besides the president?

Joan: Sorry.

Daisy: None.

Amanda:

OK. I’ll go to another online.

The question is, with the SRE review of academic programs and overall assessment process, has the potential growth of academic programs by either moving to a fully online modality or adding more flexible modalities online been factored into the rubric? Will a change of delivery modality be considered in determining overall program growth and new revenue potential?

Gabe:

Thank you. That’s a great question. I think that that’s exactly where we are. Those are the questions that should be asked. That’s happening as part of the application of the qualitative rubric.

Where are there potential for growth? Would a modality change be important? Are there certain unexplored avenues in terms of areas of strength that would be responsive to student demand? Yes, yes, and yes. That’s a great question. That’s exactly the point we are in the process.

[pause]

Amanda: Eric.

Eric: That’s…

Amanda: Microphone.

Eric: One of the things that struck me, and again today with the presentation of the SRE metrics, is the partitioning of academics and research, but under the umbrella of promoting a learner‑centered R1, where those two areas necessarily need to be integrated. I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit towards the vision for integration of those two areas under the SRE?

Joan:

I’ll start that one and then others may wish to…

If there were two or three key messages that I took from the work that we did over the last year around SRE, one would be the one you’ve just expressed, Eric, that we can never be a learner‑centered R1 unless we have deep integration and, I would call it, conceptual and programmatic integration between the academic work of the university and the research and graduate school work of the university.

There have been a lot of very concrete operational suggestions coming through SRE, as you’re well aware, about organizational structures and so forth. I’m very, very heartened now by what I’m hearing about the collaborations between the two groups that the provost mentioned, the APR group and the Research Portfolio Review Group. They’re meeting together, as I understand it.

They are looking at solutions that would cross so that, although, the original data for each was within the specific domain over which they sit, the solutions that are possible now can cut across, can involve work that centers and institutes might be engaged with, that would bear upon the academic program decisions that get made, and vice versa.

We already have some very nice examples. I would point to ASCC and commend Habib and Giovanna and others who’ve thought hard about how we build up academic opportunities in the context of R&D situations with the kinds of credentials and potential new majors and things that are being discussed there.

It’s a work in progress, for sure, but it’s happening in a new way, I would say, over the last several months. I would ask that Gabe or whoever worked on…Jason add more if you wish, or if Sandra’s here.

More to say, or is that enough?

[crosstalk]

Joan: Yeah. It’s very high on the surface here.

Amanda: Stay there for a second, might have a question.

Joan: Sure.

Amanda: The question is, can you give us…I need a microphone. Can you give us a very high‑level overview of what the 91¸ŁŔű system is looking at in the future and how we can expect that change?

Joan:

I can do my version of that, for sure.

I can also tell you that there are a lot of good opportunities to learn about what the system is doing by watching the public portions of board meetings of FFT, the Finance, Facilities, and Technology Committee. Those meetings, as well as Academic and Student Affairs are very, very instructive to get a feel for how the system is moving and what’s being prioritized.

I’ll mention a few things. AI is front and center in a very, very big way. As you may know. Vice Chancellor Low had additional responsibility added to his title. I believe he’s called the Chief AI Officer for the system now.

If you’re not aware, he is offering a variety of courses and professional development options. Has anybody here done one of the $25 lunch hour things? I took his course, so Jason and I get to raise our hands for that.

He has decided to just make himself a national expert because he finds it interesting, I believe. Some groups on campus have had him in to visit to help them think about how AI plays a role. It’s clearly a system priority. There’s a new AI Task Force report that has been released, I believe, to the board. I served on that group. It’s all about getting out a bit ahead.

One of the most interesting parts of working on the report was that I made a call to a number of you for examples from research that are AI dependent, and they’re making their way into the report now because that’s a piece that sometimes gets left out of the discussion and all the very complex issues around instructional uses with AI. Peter is here and he’s very much out in the front on that.

AI is one. Alternative…How to think about it? Alternative audiences beyond our traditional audiences of learners for higher ed are very central for this system leadership right now.

You see their foray into 90‑credit degree programs, and we’re still awaiting final NECHE approval. 91¸ŁŔű at Machias stepped up, and Megan and team have put forward a 90‑credit degree offering.

These are very particular. They need to be aimed at returning adult audiences, and so there are some fairly high bars to cross. I think we need to do more of that. We’ll see how it goes with Machias.

The concept of direct admissions is something that this kind of inclusion and making sure that people really do know that this system is a resource to everybody. That’s very, very high on the list. Are we able to get students in earlier because we can make it easy for them to apply?

Related to that would be what we have in the form of Finish Strong, a program that is meant to help people who have some college but who haven’t finished to enable them to finish conveniently and easily. The online is going to be very central, and it’s coming through in almost every discussion.

Finally, if you take a look at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, their work in CBE and their YourPace programs are doing extraordinarily well internationally. These are programs attracting students in large numbers, and their numbers are increasing regularly.

These efforts to be as inclusive and accessible as we can as the state’s public higher education system, to as wide a range of learners as we can seem to be dominating the discussion at the system level. As the flagship, there’s a fair bit of pressure upon us to be in the lead when we can in these areas. We have some good opportunities.

Amanda: Thank you. There is online a follow up to Eric’s question, just for some more clarification.

Joan: Can we make somebody else stand up here? No. I will till it’s not me.

Amanda: How exactly? Because we are moving forward with the academic portfolio review and those metrics, whether qualitative or quantitative, but they do not include research metrics for those academic units.

Joan: I’ll leave that to the provost.

Gabe:

Thanks very much. It’s a good point that’s been raised. There have been efforts to create what we’ve called a holistic contribution margin or holistic set of metrics that would incorporate research into them. That’s certainly a long‑term goal. It’s obviously complicated to do technically.

In addition to that, my feeling is that the qualitative rubric that we have can, at least in a somewhat crude way, try to combine or at least take into account contributions to research which are not captured in many of the quantitative metrics that tend to be focused on things that can be easily counted.

This is something that we’re aware of, something that we’re actively working to address, but, certainly, at least in my view, not something that should impede the progress we’re already making. We’re not ignoring it, it’s being taken into account, but perhaps not as perfectly as we’d like it to be.

Joan: Perhaps we could put Deb Allen a little bit on the spot to, just off the top of her head, tell us how you might think that challenge going forward and how we might actually try to incorporate some sort of a research measure? It is not a straightforward question.

Debra Allen:

One of the challenges we ran into last fall was we don’t have as much research data available to us. There’s a lot of data, but it’s not compiled in the same way that the academic data are. I’m looking at the research data people here, too. It’s more complicated.

One of the things that we talked about last fall and I think we talked about a little bit, too, in our last meeting of the Academic and the Research Portfolio groups was to create a team that would come together, to work together to develop these metrics. I think the goal is we have this goal, and we just need to take action on that.

I’m hoping we can just move ahead and start doing that as part of that collaboration of the two groups. I don’t know if you want anything more specific, but that’s…

[crosstalk]

Joan: …get your insights.

Debra: Yeah. That’s what I’m hoping. It definitely was one of the things we talked about last fall in the SRE.

Amanda:

Thank you, Deb. Any questions from the room?

[pause]

Audience Member:

Thank you, Deb. I just have a follow up, being a bit of a data geek myself. Can you give an example of ‑‑ you don’t have to say how you’re going to calculate ‑‑ what metrics are you thinking of on the research side?

I’m thinking like we collect all this information for everyone who goes up for promotion or tenure or review, if they have a research appointment, they spit out lots of stuff. I know that’s not consistent, but is that the type of stuff? Or things like publications, grants, applied for, that type of stuff?

Debra: Yes.

Joan: Can I interrupt?

Debra: I just wanted to mention. Gabe, do you want to start?

Amanda: One second. One second. One second. One second. One second.

Debra: Should we talk about the [inaudible 52:14] that you mentioned at the Faculty Center?

Gabe: Sure.

Debra:

Yes, that is exactly what we’re thinking about. One of the challenges we’ve run into is the faculty activity reporting database. That is very challenging. It’s really hard to get data out. We’ve been trying to solve that issue. There’s been challenges with it more recently where there’s components that are starting to break.

There is an RFP out right now, and that was mentioned at Faculty Senate last week. We’re hoping, too, that that will also give us additional data.

What we’re seeking is more having APIs get the data in. That will put us in a much better position because the data will be all in one place. That is exactly the kind of data that we’ve talked about, as well as research expenditure and other data that we currently have.

Joan: I’ll just add that, what I like about the discussion, particularly the suggestions that you made, Adam, are we can be careful to recognize that we say research and we have a broad meaning of research. It includes scholarly work, it includes creative production. All of that needs to get picked up.

Amanda:

Thank you. Any questions from the room before I move to some of the online questions?

[pause]

Amanda: OK. This is a hard question for you to answer, Joan, and I acknowledge that, but I think it’s on everyone’s mind right now. That is around Anthem Healthcare and the extreme difficulty that’s going to pose to most employees on this campus.

Joan:

Yes, I anticipated this question. Although, I’m not at all expert in this process. This is a system‑level process. I do know that the system has been pretty forthcoming in holding town halls and Q&As. I don’t know if they have anything upcoming and scheduled, but I certainly have been a part of conversations where I’ve carried forward this concern that we’re hearing here.

I will speak to a related concern, too. As we see in the shutdown of the federal government, as we see SNAP benefits ending, that’s a concern for our community as well. I might call on Andrea to speak to that. I don’t have much that I can say on the Anthem. I really am not expert, but it is a system move.

We need to be sure to get our questions, your questions to Amie Parker, the CHRO, and to look at their Q&A materials and see what we’re able to learn and to watch what unfolds over the coming weeks.

I know the timing is also getting to be pretty challenging, so understand the concerns. Don’t have much that I can say to that, unless we’d like to hear from Andrea about a separate, but also critical, well‑being matters. Just briefly on SNAP.

Andrea:

Thank you. Actually, this whole semester, I’ve a seen a large increase in financial concerns for a lot of students for a variety of reasons. The SNAP benefits, we’re anticipating within the next week we’ll start seeing a barrage of students and staff who are going to be impacted by this.

The SNAP benefits are usually distributed on the 11th of each month. Starting with November 11th, those will be terminated at the moment until the government can open back up again.

We are prepared. From a student perspective, we have a couple of options. Sodexo is very, very kind and generous in giving us an allotment of meal swipes that we can award to students who don’t have meal plans. We do have an emergency fund that has donated dollars from very kind people off campus.

We’re working with the foundation to make sure that those give annual dollars to the Black Bear Exchange, which is our food pantry, are lined up to make their annual commitments so we can continue to keep the exchange stocked for those people who will have that need.

Then we have, obviously, in Student Life, if you have students who are approaching you individually, we are happy to meet with them and have some creative mechanisms depending on what the situation is.

In addition to that, which is not getting as much publicity, but it is a true fact, there’s been some glitches in our GI Bill recipients and they have not received their living stipends. Some of them, some chapters have been impacted for, actually, the month of October. They are without support as well.

Amanda:

I just wanted to say, at Machias, that we did have a food pantry that closed actually three years ago, and we are restarting that now. That’s made possible through a donation from an external entity. We’re excited to see that and are putting that in the Student Success Center.

[pause]

Amanda:

This is a long question, so I have to read the paragraph. Recognizing that this is an easy question to raise and a harder one to answer, is there a thread through the SRE process that emphasizes a willingness to be different and resist isomorphic pressures, whether from a PLU or higher ed more broadly?

The concern is that if we do what everyone does, we aren’t in a resource or demographic position to compete effectively. Are there Maine‑specific educational pathways, research areas, and program offerings that maintain a future distinctive character for the university in a world where state flagship R1 isn’t a guaranteed‑to‑survive?

Joan:

I’d like to propose that I’ll just start it and I’m going to call on two people, Gabe and Jake, to hear responses so Amanda can re‑read the question as needed.

That’s a very wise and interesting question. The board of trustees held a retreat recently, and I was in discussions there where I raised our uniqueness. I said, even among systems, most don’t have a single R1 research university.

I mean, the big systems that often become popular in the press SUNY or UC system, any number of places, where we stand out in a very different way. With that comes a lot of responsibility and, I think, opportunity to be very clear about our value in the state of Maine.

I think there were some metrics that I saw a little bit that could get closer to helping us think about uniqueness and ways that we can market to the state of Maine. At the same time, we face so many of the same kinds of problems that many other institutions face that I’m not sure uniqueness alone will solve our problems, but it could be a major factor. It really could.

I don’t know if Jake or Gabe wishes to, I can’t really make you do this, but you’re welcome to. Yeah. Show them the question if you want.

Gabe:

Thanks so much. Really good question.

One of the things that would have been easy at the beginning of the SRE process ‑‑ thanks, President Ferrini‑Mundy, for giving us the time to actually engage in a longer‑term deliberative process ‑‑ is to take ways of evaluating programs that were developed without any of sort of institutional specificity, without any knowledge of the state, our own history as an institution, and to apply those and to then make decisions whether or not those are investments or eliminations.

I think we’ve actually resisted that and, quite importantly, tried to develop, according to our own lights, ways of understanding, assessing our program so that we can make appropriate decisions.

I think that we face, as the president said, challenges that all other institutions face. The answers that we can arrive at are probably going to be ones, hopefully, that are better informed by our own circumstances and history than they would have been otherwise.

That’s one thing really in favor of the way we’ve approached SRE. It hasn’t been to simply think about cookie cutter forms of valuation and then answers that would have been easy, but certainly would have missed many of the specific strengths that we have as an institution.

Jake:

I might take it from just a little different angle, which is a little bit more about the uniqueness of Maine relative to our size of our state, our connectivity, the type of industry, the type of K‑12 education systems that we have, and be aware that with so many direct connections we have, we always talk about being one or two steps away from any one person.

Many other states, many other systems may not have that same type of thing. Are there ways to think about how we market and develop and attract students that could be really unique to Maine and small rural states, our pathways to engage kids and families and companies from K‑12 levels on and things like that?

I think we have great pilots where we’ve done this. How do we turn those into scalable opportunities for the institution in ways that the national organizations and things aren’t just paying attention to?

I really don’t believe we should be following the top 10 institutions in the country. I think that is much the value proposition of what higher ed is to any individual and to this state different than what has been for the last 30 or 40 years. I mean, I think we went back to 1865. We were in great shape.

Amanda:

The cows in the picture?

[off‑mic speech]

Amanda:

Any questions from the room?

[pause]

Amanda: There is a question online because you made the amazing announcement today that Giovanna and Scott are going to be taking over the Vice President of Research and Dean of Graduate School roles. There was a question just clarifying more about the splitting of those positions and how it will fit into our future direction as a university and the SRE work.

Joan:

Sure. Much of this has happened, and the decisions and the conversations have happened in really just the last couple of weeks. At this point, we’ve announced exactly what we have to announce at this point, that Giovanna will serve as the Vice President for Research, Scott will serve as the Dean of the Graduate School.

Both are in short‑term appointments of slightly different types due to their own personnel and personal circumstances. I hope you’ve seen, though, that you’ve had presentations by two interim leaders here. People in interim jobs are in this job full force. I don’t want there to be any misgivings about people’s commitments to the work.

We will be having the dean of the Graduate School in this period report to the provost, which has been a part of some of the organizational changes that have been proposed in SRE. We are in a period of time where we have a little bit of an opportunity to step back and continue to look at organizational possibilities with this arrangement.

We’re very grateful to Giovanna and to Scott for being willing to jump in at this moment in a process that I’m confident will continue to build on and further the strength of both our research mission and our graduate mission.

Again, the collaborations right now between the OVPRDGS and the EVPAAA offices are extremely strong. The expectation is that that all continues, that there’s appropriate integration and consultation as we go forward. We’re in a short‑term moment where we also can step back and take a look at how things are going.

Amanda: We have about four minutes left. Are there any last questions from the room?

Joan:

Can I ask one?

[crosstalk]

Joan:

It’s not really a question, it’s just a comment. I want to be sure that we acknowledge the outstanding job that Jenny did on…Everybody was fine, but Jenny did a great job really laying out, and I hope you all appreciate the clarity of that budget presentation and the challenges that we face.

I would underscore her point that that big scary number for 2027 is what we’re diving into right now to take a look at how we can use our strategic re‑envisioning ideas, both for revenue generation and for other kinds of rearrangements to solve that problem.

I don’t want people to go away from here at all with any sort of hopelessness. We can address this and we have year after year we managed to figure this all out, but we’ll need everybody’s engagement and we’ll need everybody’s best ideas.

Over the next few weeks, you will see opportunities to work at the college level, of course, with your deans and leaders and more university‑wide also. Really want to tell you that that’s our next big work is to get the ’27 budget in order. Thank you all for that. It’s not a question, I guess. I asked and answered my own question. Sorry.

Amanda: I don’t know if you want to wrap up. It’s about that time.

Joan:

Sure. I just thank you everybody. These sessions are very, very important for our campus. I believe we could do them perhaps with more frequency. At the same time, there’s a fair bit of preparation to them. I appreciate that you all took an hour and a half out of very busy days with a lot going on here to come together and show your commitment to this university.

I appreciate directly hearing from people and want to know what you think, want to hear ideas, want to hear your worries. Let’s continue to be the connected community that we are and move forward into fiscal ’26 and ’27. Thank you.

(background sounds only)

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Transcript

Yeah, go ahead. 

Excellent! 

Everyone hear me?

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the SRE Town Hall. I’m Amanda Klemmer, the Faculty Senate President, and I’m going to start us off with our Land Acknowledgment. 

We recognize that the University of Maine is located on Marsh Island, in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation and the University of Maine at Machias is sited in the homeland of the Passamaquoddy Nation. Both of our universities recognize that these homelands, issues of water and territorial rights and encroachment upon sacred sites are ongoing. Penobscot and Passamaquoddy homelands are connected to the other Wabanaki tribal nations, the Maliseet Mi’kmaq, through kinship, alliances and diplomacy. 91¸ŁŔű and its regional campus also recognize that the Penobscot, Pasamaquoddy, and other tribal Wabanaki tribal nations, are distinct sovereign legal and political entities with their own powers of self-governance and self-determination. 

So welcome everyone.

We’re going to have a bunch of the folks from the SRE team up here to give a short presentation. And then there’s going to be plenty of time at the end for feedback from the in-person group and the online group. So if you’ll notice on the slides, there’s a QR code, and if you attended our Town Hall a few months ago, it’s very similar. You can scan that QR code to submit anonymous feedback, which I will be monitoring if you’re on Zoom. You could also submit feedback and questions via the Zoom chat, and then we’ll be going back and forth with questions from the audience in person. 

So first up we have President Ferrini-Mundy. 

Morning, everybody. A little more liveliness. You were just fine when you came in. So that’s good. Listen. Thanks to everyone for coming. And I’m assuming we have a group online, too, about how many to check? So 200. Okay, so a lot of interest, a lot of interest today. And that’s fantastic. And I’m so pleased that we’re able to to come together and talk about an extraordinary amount of work and quality of work that’s gone on in the last eight months.

And so I’m going to start with that before I go anyplace else with a thank you to the names that you see on this slide, to Amanda Klemmer, to John Mullen, Kelly Sparks, Sabrina DeTurk and James BeauprĂ©, and dozens of other people, the folks who have been serving as the provost fellows. If you could raise your hands if you’re in the room or on Zoom. I guess there’s a way to do that, too. Thank you. And let’s just applaud this group of people who have been doing, excuse me, incredible work over the last several months.

Just to also add a couple of other reminders. We set out a process in May of 2024. We are now in December. We have essentially done the process that we laid out, even though we admitted all along that there would need to be mid-course corrections, and that we would need to see how it went and adjust. We have gotten to the place where now, what you’re going to hear today will be the results. Some of the results, the high level results of the great work that has gone on, not only with the people we’ve just recognized, but with hundreds across the campus, as well as with tens of ideas that have been coming into this process through a variety of avenues. So this is our university, taking our future into its own hands by saying, we’re going to figure this out as we go ahead.

The goals for today are fairly straightforward. We’re going to review the work that’s been done at a high level. These are opportunities for strategic restructuring, for reinvestment and new investment that will strengthen our position as 91¸ŁŔű’s flagship learning-centered research university while addressing our budget challenges which are significant. This is not a budget meeting per se, but we’re not going to shy away from the fact that our budget challenges are structural gaps. 

All of those continue for us, and we’re making great progress. But there’s much more to be done. So welcome to this. This is what our focus is for today.

Just very quickly a reminder of the question that has been driving the work all the way from the beginning. What would the University of Maine look like if we were designing it today? What would we change? What would we focus on? How do we ensure a sustainable, inclusive, and dynamic future for this university? For a university that is this state’s land grant university needs to be emphasized regularly. A majority of our funding does come from the State of Maine, and so our our obligations to our State need to be foremost as well. But I remind you that we embarked on the process for a lot of reasons. I’ve written about those and spoken about those, and you can see that in other places the world around us is changing rapidly. We’re approaching our 160th anniversary as a university. We need to watch what the world is doing around us. And maybe most importantly, think about what the students of today and tomorrow want and need from this university and from universities like this one. Because that’s our focus, always is, what we are doing for the learners of today and tomorrow.

In a world where the technology changes have had some stepwise changes in recent years with AI and all of everything else. We discussed repeatedly, world changing around us, higher ed facing enormous challenges. And we can see those headlines every single day. But I’m so proud that we together as a community are doing this work, this hard work together.

I want to acknowledge the anxiety that this work is causing. I’m well aware, and I hear from folks, and I see people, and I know that this is unsettling because it’s changed. It could be big change for some of us it could be change that will be smaller for others. It’s all going to be. Now in what happens with all these ideas that have been generated and where we go next. So I want to thank people for tolerating this kind of difficult tension, and at the same time for really checking those anxieties largely at the door. In these discussions people have been able to set aside their own territorial inclinations, and I have had to work at that, and I know that others have, too, and we all find ourselves saying, well, no, we can’t do that. And then saying, no, it’s an idea it’s going to get its look. We’re going to try to think about what’s best and how we do that. So thank you all for  that.

But in eight months we’ve accomplished a lot. We already have a number of activities and discussions well underway, and I will point to the work of the Space Committee, the Budget Committee in particular, doing very good work as we start to prepare for Fiscal ’26. Clearly it would be ideal if we could kind of have all this work tidily wrapped up and then say, okay, now we’ll start our ’26 budget, or even continue the execution of our ’25 budget. The world is never like that. So as we go into ’26, and there will be town halls coming to look at the ’26 work we will need to do the best we can to keep the basic tenets and whatever we are moving on for SRE at the beginning in light, as we think about the ’26 budget. 

So as a part of this work, we’ve come to what we’re calling a working version of a charter, and that means there’s still plenty of room and space. It hasn’t been been officially locked into anything, but it draws on your conversations over the last many months, as well as some of our starting places. So a learner-centered research one university that is, that phrase by itself has been given much more definition through the work that you’ve been doing in the last several months, committed to sustaining the health of our planet, very broad and very clear about a set of goals, a set of areas that are critical for us, growing inclusive communities. 

We are Maine’s Land, Sea and Space Grant University. And we’re dedicated to defining tomorrow. So there’s a lot there. No short statement can get all the words we’d like to have in it. And so we need to continue to work with this, interpret it and grow it. I’ll just take you back a little bit to where we started different words, but words that are still reflected, and the meaning still reflected, including the guiding principles that we have there on the right, that have guided the discussions very, very consistently, I believe, across this work. 

One more reminder that budgets in ideal settings follow strategy. You have an idea of where you’re headed. You have an idea of what you prioritize, and to the extent possible. Budgets are built with those priorities in mind. So that’s always a principle that is good to strive for. And I think we’re in a great position to continue to move in that direction. With that, I will turn this over to the Provost. And remember, questions and comments can be coming in at any time. 

And that’s why maybe that number includes some people in the room. Is that right? Possibly, anyways, John? 

Good morning, everyone. Great that so many are here in the room and online. This this slide that you see behind me is you’ve all seen it before, and we’ve been talking, you know, in the beginning of the funnel, and how we’re moving down. Well, we have gone through since May, as you know, we started with our Phase 1 over the summer. We hired 13 provost fellows, and then, as work and feedback was coming throughout the summer from the whole campus community, we added a Theme 14 that really looked deeply at administrative roles as well, and they built off the Administrative Barriers Task Force Report.

That was so well done last year that came out, and Kelly will be talking about that shortly.

And so, and the Provost all worked throughout the summer, and, as everyone knows, really in prep for that big campus engagement. As everyone came back to start the fall semester around the beginning of November, we went into this Phase 3, where we’re really starting to distill all those different topics that have come through. And and if we go to the next slide. And so we’re really, this is really finishing Phase 3. And as we move into the next semester, etc, implementation and other aspects will start to come. These are some of the concepts that came through.

And, for instance, this first one, the President has talked throughout this process because a lot of feedback that we’ve had from the not only from the Task Force, but you know, from online comments, etc. There are a lot of SRE adjacent projects, if you will. And one of those was focus on the learner-centered R1, and we’ll get a little bit more specific to that in a little bit. But even that generated its own committee from the innovation, research, academic sides of the house coming together and looking at student success and research learning group was developed. And this really builds off. If you think about. We are. I say this all the time. We’re amazingly unique as an institution where any student in their 1st year can actually get into an authentic research experience. And that’s research with large right creative activities, you know, performing arts, etc. And right now, we have 40% of our incoming class, if we include this coming semester will be participating in a Research Learning Experience, and that continues to grow throughout. But that’s not all we do. I mean, we have capstone projects. We have internships that get really into research and development, etc. And so we’re really looking at, how can we make pathways for students across the 4 years, and then they can plug in at any time. 

So if they didn’t have a chance to do it in the first year or the second year. How can they do it? Moving on? And so out of this group, this task, this committee will be getting a final report, I think, in the next week or so. And part of that work that came through. This is the Vice President for Research, and I, Kody and I will be working. We’re working with the President, and we will be announcing an RFP that is expanding research and learning experiences across the undergraduate curriculum. And it’s taking all those things I just talked about and seeing how we can work together and really advance research learning experiences. 

Really, in the first two years, we’re going to expand those across the four, and we’ll have this RFP. That’ll go out to faculty and appropriate staff that you know. Also do teaching, and that will come. And like, I said shortly and hopefully, by the end of January we’ll have a deadline on those expansion of advancing research learning experiences.

You can see many more examples that came out, you can see, like the provost fellow. Well, not from Athletics. Actually, I mean, originally affiliate with Athletics. But it’s actually the Maine Business School, but the Maine Business School, DLL, others. So Dean Hannah Carter, Dean, executive dean, Jason Harkins, etc, are all working together on collaboratively expanding our summer camp proposal in in collaboration with athletics and others and Maine Bound, and others throughout University. This, you know, the post fell from meta major theme continues to convene this working group considered a climate change. Meta Major, that’s an example. 

I will say. You know, if you haven’t had a chance recently at all to look at the various themes that were, you know, the results of the 14 working groups I highly encourage you to. And so for the Meta Majors. That’s Theme 3. Wonderful, wonderful ideas. I think you should own this. The faculty owns the curriculum you should be diving into that, and you should be connecting with colleagues across the university to actually think about proposing potential Meta majors. There’s a lot of benchmarking data in there. There are a lot of things that could be unique to the University of Maine. So I really encourage all of you to really dive in and own that. 

And I think I’m gonna turn this over. Is that right? Yes, I’m gonna turn it over to you, Kelly. Next slide. Please give me this. 

So, as John mentioned, we had 14 working groups. We have 13 working groups that all launched at the same time, and we had a 14th working group based on the good feedback that came through the process for an administrative efficiencies to oversimplify what the title of that was working group. They’ve recently submitted their report. We will get that information published shortly on the SRE website, but they established really four big themes from the group. 

The group was led by Corey Watson. It was faculty and staff integrated into a team to make some recommendations. So to, I don’t want to oversimplify, we have a lot of things to get through today, so we will publish this, but some really good working concepts that came out of it.

The first was creating a university-wide knowledge management system for administrative and operational functions. The next was creating a robust internal communication function within the Division of Marketing and Communications. So really thinking about how we can maximize the resources. We have to tell our messages externally and internally, was a part of that was a part of that concept as well. Restructuring finance, accounting, purchasing travel. How can we think about some shared services, pools of resources? So that we’re maximizing the people that are doing this? We’re training people. We’re providing them the opportunities to learn. We’re providing access to the information. So how can we look at that across the institution, restructuring, admin-related into pools? 

So I think we all know that we have over the years have fewer administrative support roles across the institution, and they are dispersed across the university, maybe disproportionately, to where we feel some of the workload is happening. So how can we share and leverage those really important resources in potentially different ways? 

And the last is creating a Learner Success Hub. I think this really plays onto what John was talking about with the the learner-centered R1 research. So really, some support or some administrative concepts that may align with the work that he’s doing with the other. Again, we’ll publish this. We’ll get more information out there. I’m not going to go into a lot of the other details today if we can go to the next slide, please. 

So we are in a really big change process here. So this is more. This is kind of your footnote, before we get into the rest of the materials today. I just want to acknowledge that what we’re going to talk about today is going to make all of us a little bit uncomfortable. Not everyone in this room and everyone online is going to hear something today in these presentations that’s going to make us a little bit uncomfortable. It’s going to be changed, maybe to us personally, it could be perceived that way, or to an area that we’re working closely with. So as we go through here, you’re going to see concepts not approved, plans not agreed upon, not finalized. They’re concepts that have been generated again through that funnel. There’s still a decision making process that needs to happen. And you’ll see in some cases there’s two distinctly different concepts around the same area that could have very, very different outcomes. So as we as we receive this information, we want to be, our goal has always been to be very transparent, and bring all of those ideas forth to you. So as we go through it, I just want to acknowledge the unease that we’re going to feel as we go through the information today. 

It’s all potential reminding us. It’s all potential change. We can go to the next slide. So just a quick tying it back to, as the President said, strategy leads, budget follows strategy. So as we start to think through how we could implement some of these ideas. You all know that we have implemented a hiring pause. That’s also uncomfortable. There’s a lot of really important roles that are currently either being recruited for have recently been vacated, that we would like to fill the reason for the hiring pauses. It’s giving us a moment. It truly is a pause, but it gives us a moment, so I’ll just play off of what they said in Theme 14. Perhaps we should have a centralized admin. I’ll speak to finance, because that’s something I can talk to most comfortably. Perhaps we should have some shared support pools for for finance. We have about 15 roles currently posted that are in finance operational functions. Perhaps those are the most important 15 roles that we have in finance across the organization. But if we fill those roles and we decide we need to do some sort of consolidation or restructuring. That’s 15 more roles that we’re talking about changing with. So if we pause, we decide what that long term structure is. We can then build that long term structure without those 15 roles being being filled, and then decide what that long term structure looks like for the institution. What’s the staffing plan that each of our colleges, each of our centers, each of our administrative units need to have. So it really is a pause between now and March to continue the really important work, to build the implementation plan for some of these ideas. So that that’s just just a little, my little caveat. We will try and lift that pause in March, and that’s the time when we really will start doing preliminary budget approvals for FY 26. So that’s how we’re going to link strategy to the budget process for the next year. 

Alright, I am going to turn this over to James now.

Thank you. 

Morning, everybody. Want to quickly note that we’ve had a very busy month in the world of SRE, as we’ve been taking in all the information that have been generated coming out of the Phase 2 working groups. As we began evaluating that work, some of you may have heard there’s been additional sessions, additional work going on. A quick overview of what those have looked like on the 20th of November, brought together about 30 people, split everybody up in about groups of five, and started looking at four of these themes that were moving around our learning and our research aspects for student experiences around a learner-centered R1 institution. Those groups spend about three hours busting through a lot of information, reading a lot of background information for getting to that room and then seeing where these pieces of information, these pieces of data could move forward. There were data sets that were then further pulled together to help inform that team looking to quantify RI and then a contribution margin around the credit hours that are contributed by every department that is teaching in this space. 

We had really good diversity, for across all units of the institution. Represented in that room, which was, I think, the term of the news is a lot of people exhibited bravery in that space, being able to set aside their hats of their homes and being able to put a 91¸ŁŔű hat on. To start looking at this information in new lights, we took that data and then moved it further. On the 3rd of December we had a 5 hour workshop. Actually it was between this room and a couple of breakout rooms across species where we had another 30 people come together, some of the same, some new folks bringing in for additional perspectives.  And we broke out into three teams and move the work that had been accomplished around, restructuring, eliminating, and reinvesting across a variety of opportunities that we had to see.

How do we further develop these concepts? How do we further develop these ideas, to put them in a place where you can begin considering again a great diversity from all units across campus into that space? And I want to acknowledge these are your colleagues that took part, and yes, there’s more than 30. There’s overlap, but there’s not full overlap, but these are the colleagues across the institution that showed up. That gave up 8 hours during a very busy time of the year, right before Thanksgiving. Always great time to get folks together a couple weeks before finals, getting folks together after Thanksgiving. But we came together, set our hats aside, and put on a human hat to start looking at the data and the outputs that we’ve had to this point in time to see what a re-envisioned institution could look like. 

And I want to note. The output of that work is what we’re going to be diving into next on the next few slides shared by Sabrina. We’re going to share concepts of restructuring, of investment, of growth, opportunities that were proposed on the workshop that happened the 3rd  And this is the fair warning that Kelly noted. These are ideas, these aren’t decisions, these are concepts. They’re areas for us to explore and understand what it means for us as an institution to re-envision ourselves in this light. There’s going to be QR code. It’s covered by the Zoom screen, which is not helpful.  But there’s a QR code. As you see, these opportunities for comments come up. There’s an idea, a concept that comes across. Please share with us your comments, your ideas, your contributions to make that idea better. The concerns and anxieties you have around that idea. That’s how we’re going to be able to build a pathway, to be able to evaluate and understand what these ideas could mean for the institution. And again, remember, they’re for consideration. Again, they’re not decisions  we’re learning. And we’re moving forward into this space. So with that I’ll hand off to Sabrina to walk us through those outputs. 

Okay, so good morning, everybody. I want to acknowledge again that what you’re seeing here is a consolidation of three sets of recommendations or ideas and concepts that came forward. And there are many slides here. So it’s not all on this first one, and I also take ownership for being the person who consolidated these. So to any folks who are in the groups, and may feel that  something wasn’t represented exactly right. Please feel free during the Q&A period, if you want to elaborate on or bring up points that were talked about in your particular group. So I wanted to start with some of the things that were brought forward in terms of potential opportunities for revenue growth within 91¸ŁŔű.

So a number of folks in groups talked about the need. Really, as we are now, R1  renegotiate; our indirect cost rate; to think about ensuring that it really is in line with our R1 status; looking at opportunities for public private partnerships. The idea that, you know we’re thinking about our space. And we’re trying to figure out what to do with perhaps consolidating space? Are there opportunities for leasing land, leasing buildings, things that might be revenue generating, but also might help with some of our need to to rethink our space use. 

There was a lot of conversation across different groups around, looking at athletics offerings. Not, I want to be be careful to say the conversation wasn’t, “Oh, what can we get rid of?” It was really about what can we continue to do to maximize the revenue potential of of those offerings, and really to think about things like in-state and out-of-state participants, those sorts of things.  This concept has come up in a number of places throughout the SRE process. The idea of instituting differentiated parking rates in some way, shape or form we recognize there’s some collective bargaining issues there that would have to be negotiated. But it has come up more than once. There’s also been a lot of conversation around a need for investment in ORA in order to then  hopefully see revenue growth from that investment. So that came up in terms of process improvement potentially staff technology. There’s a lot of ways that that might take place or move forward. 

You’ve heard data mentioned already, and you’re going to hear it a couple more times. One of the things that we all recognized, I think, as we went through the SRE process, Is that just trying to get data to be able to inform decision making is a little bit more complicated on this campus than it probably needs to be. And so that, brought forward from some of the groups the idea that we might actually be able to increase efficiencies, find new revenue opportunities if we had a better handle on a kind of centralized data set that we could actually all work with in relation to research, innovation, HR, academics, etc.  And then you again heard this earlier, when the Provost was mentioning the potential for maybe a climate change meta major. But just over and over again, throughout this process there has been such enthusiasm about the idea of creating more interdisciplinary options for our students at both undergraduate and graduate levels. And we really do see that as something that has  potential revenue opportunities. 

We also talked, as James mentioned about potential restructurings. And I want to echo Kelly. This is probably the part where we all start to squirm in our seats a little bit and feel a little bit more uncomfortable. Everything I’m putting out here is a concept, not a  done deal. So in terms of administrative restructuring. Some of the things that came up was the concept of looking at marketing and communication functions across the institution, and seeing whether a more centralized approach to at least some of those might yield efficiencies might make them more strategically oriented and frankly effective in terms of the way we’re handling our marketing and communication.  The idea of, and this may be in some ways links back to the public private partnerships, thinking about our externally usable facilities, and how those are managed, and whether it would make sense to have a single unit that is thinking about things like Wells or the CCA. Or other places where external groups have the option to to, you know, rent and be able to use those units. 

The concept of merging, housing operations and residential life. Again, a place where is there opportunity to both improve services for our students, and again, perhaps gain some efficiencies in looking at those two areas that obviously have tremendous synergy actually combined rather than in their current separated format. Again, the concept of moving the registrar under the VP for Enrollment Management.  Similar issues there around, you know, do we have two things that have a lot of need to work together that are currently not co-located. And same issue around sustainability. Should that be located under facilities as a way again, of really leveraging the synergies there.  Academic and research, restructuring ideas across all groups, there was some level of discussion around. Perhaps this is a longer term goal. But thinking about whether there should be a different organization around the Vice President for Research, Vice President for SPIRE, and as the second or, sorry, third bullet point suggests the Dean of the Graduate School so potential. Again, these are concepts of moving the Dean of the Graduate School separate from the VPR. To report to the provost the middle of those two.

The second bullet point is a little bit of thinking about could there be a way of sort of thinking about internal services, and that oversight being located under a VPR role and external services and oversight being located under the VP of SPIRE. So a lot of conversation around there. 

There was conversation around Arts programming, and whether the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences would be an appropriate home to try to again, better consolidate some of that. Some of that links to that previous concept about whether externally usable facilities should be managed slightly differently. And do we separate programming from use of facilities by outside groups, that kind of thing. 

These last two. Again, we know that there are collective bargaining issues here, but there was really a strong sense that it is time to take a look at faculty time, workloads, overloads, online delivery, adjustments, those sorts of things, and that it is, it is at least worth considering. Whether aligning to a single learning management system would again both serve our students better and perhaps provide some efficiencies there.  This one is  a single slide that is meant to cover a really huge concept that was brought up in so many different ways across this process, which is this idea that we could be stronger if we were able to de-silo the university in all kinds of ways. This has administrative impacts. This has impacts across academics, research and innovation. This is just really, again, concepts ideas. These are not out there. As you know, these, whatever it is, three bullets are the only ways that we could thematically organize or de-silo ourselves. But these are some of the possible  sort of organizational structures that that folks have thought about.

There was also some conversation about better integrating research centers within colleges which would be also another version of this kind of thematic, restructuring de-siloing. And I think this is one that really does need further conversation and and vetting, and so on.  This slide is the one that I feel like, maybe I should have asked our folks in Marcom to put an elephant on it, because it really is the elephant in the room slide right? I know we heard at Faculty Senate that there were, you know, folks who were convinced that we were going to come here today and say, these are the programs that we will be closing, you know. Effective X.  We’re not there. That is not what this presentation is about in any way, shape or form. But I think it would be disingenuous to say that there wasn’t conversation about the need to look at our programs, research academic across the board  and think about how effectively are they performing?  We have to think about what performing means for us. It is not just about enrollment. Necessarily, it’s about things like alignment with mission. It’s about things like, can we really still deliver a curriculum that was maybe designed many years ago, and doesn’t necessarily work in the way that we thought it should or wanted it to when it was initially created.  This is something that obviously has to be undertaken in close collaboration with the Deans, with research center directors.  And we really want to emphasize that again across the board, in all of these conversations the overwhelming desire is to avoid retrenchments and to see faculty, redeployed, if necessary. Again, perhaps in more thematically or organized units, that sort of thing, rather than having to eliminate positions.  We talked about the need to look at growth potential before proposing this came up, particularly in relation to graduate programs, but it would certainly apply to undergraduate as well. And then again, thinking about ROI on research centers and initiatives.  And this is one that really probably could start very soon, really asking each major to think about whether  there are redundancies, do a curriculum audit, you know. Are there things that could be done differently to achieve efficiencies and and use our limited resources more effectively?  Again this came up a bit when the provost was speaking as well. But this is another one that was just universal.

Every single group talked about the need to continue to improve on the good work that is already being done around student support and success. This idea of the one stop shop came up over and over again.  The idea of better supporting professional advising within the colleges is something that seems to have a lot of traction.  The two on the bottom are intentionally paired because they represent rather different visions of how this might happen. So obviously many of us were celebrating Robert Dana last night at his retirement celebration that offers perhaps an opportunity to rethink where that position goes. Whether it remains as a VP. You know, kind of a VP for student belonging is something that was suggested through one of the groups.  Or whether it might more appropriately function as a Dean of Students reporting to the Provost, which is another very common model for institutions of our type.  Again, ideas, not decisions. 

Lots of conversation around online programs. And a recognition, I think that this represents a really still  not fully tapped opportunity for 91¸ŁŔű, in terms of revenue growth and potential. And so there was a lot of conversation around what ways could we modify the administrative structure of our online programs to better capitalize on that potential for growth and to make the course delivery more efficient and seamless. And so on.

There was an interest in looking at cross-campus offerings. There was an interest  interest in revisiting a proposal that came out a year or two ago about potentially trying to to make 91¸ŁŔű Online the hub for UMS online offerings.  And then a number of other ideas that are currently under evaluation. Some of these we would would maybe tag a sort of SRE adjacent. I’m going to ask Kelly if you would like to speak to, or you want John to speak to some of these, because I think these are some that have come up in different cabinet level areas. 

Thank you, Sabrina.

And you heard a lot about the student success. One stop shop or student success hub. I do want to acknowledge last year that there was an amazing group that came together, a task force that came out of my office a Student Success Hub, very collaborative with student life, etc, and that this is building off of that work. That didn’t just go in the dumpster somewhere and start over. So it’s building off of that. And I just want to make sure that we acknowledge that these are again building off what Sabrina said.

These are ideas that have come forward and that are, you know, being further evaluated, like the PFAS Center of Excellence. You may or may not know. We’ve received quite a bit of funding, both competitively and through congressionally directed spending that’s come in to the university, and it’s across the university from research to extension to ELH to MCEC. And people are really coming together. And there’s all these, I wouldn’t say they’re disparate groups, but we have lots of different things going on. And now it’s like, and we’re getting nationally recognized for this work. And so now it’s like, well, maybe we need to be a little bit more cohesive in this and develop the center of excellence. And so that’s like one of the things that is going on  a lot of data was done throughout this whole process for many, many people.

And I want to recognize, you see, the market scan for academic programs. This is something that we always do, anyway. And anytime, by the way, we do a new propose a new program. We always use the light cast data right, which used to be called burning glass to see what is the potential need down the road, both at the State level, regional, nationally, whenever we do you know, propose a new program as an example.  The market scan academic analysis here. I want to acknowledge Amanda Klemmer, you know. In fact, president, she did a lot of wonderful works, and the record was also part of that. And it’s just very informative, deep a look at a traditional, I’d say, even goes beyond traditional ways of really looking at your overall academic programs, putting them in context, also with research programs, innovation  and bringing all that work together. And so I just want to acknowledge that that’s that’s the kind of work that has been done, and that will help inform as as we move forward on a lot of this work in the coming semester. 

But I also want to recognize that this is at this town hall. You know, this is finishing SRE, right. We’re finishing. We’ve gone through 1, 2, 3. We’ve kept to the calendar that we that we said so. The provost fellows, you know they were compensated, and the SRE leadership with Spring and James through December, and I know we’ve already thanked them, but I really can’t thank them enough.  The nights, the weekends that they really put into this was extraordinary. So we are beginning also the regular fiscal year 26 Budget Bill. Now, you know those that typically will have, you know, do their budget hearings? They will get information of how to develop their budgets. And and we’ll do budget hearings in late January, like we always do  because we we have to follow the Board of Trustees process in that. So that will be going on at the same time. We’ll also be doing SRE. And so some of the information that we have through SRE will help with fiscal year 26 budget. But there’s a lot of things here that, as we all know, are very long term, and so we’ll continue to work on that. And so so there’s, you know, the fiscal year 26 budget will be informed, but it certainly won’t, you know, that won’t wrap SRE up in the sense of having the long term projects that that will continue to be worked on. So while we’re ending SRE today, essentially, you know, as as we move forward, there will be this vetting, decision-making implementation plan and concepts that have come through SRE and will continue to come. I mean the, you know, the comment section is still open. We still look at that continually, and and as we move forward there will be continued communication. 

I’m sure many of you are are tired of hearing you know how anxiety’s grown. This whole process is, and I fully fully appreciate that. I do want to say, you know, through this, because I still hear people saying, “oh, there’s some secret plan.” There’s already a plan. It’s a fate of complete. It’s well, if it is, I have not seen that plan, and I’m sure the you know the president is the same. The thing is, we could have done what West Virginia did. We could have done what what New Hampshire did right, and you know, and and take take a look, see what they did.  But I would say, what we’re doing is much harder, right? It’s it’s much harder, because, you know, some people are feeling like, oh, this is what’s going to happen. We don’t know what’s going to happen right? We’re working together to develop. We can’t be the same university 10 years from now.  Higher Ed is completely changing, right? And we have to do this together. And so I’m not trying to talk down. And please, please don’t take it that way, I just think.

And but I also want to recognize that because we’re going through this really hard work together that you know. In some ways it’s hard right for for many people.  and but I truly believe at the end of the day we will be much stronger. I was talking to the former President of West Virginia University, a provost. Sorry, former provost she was. What?  What’s that? I thought you were announcing that the President she was on faculty at West Virginia for 31 years. I saw her like 3 weeks ago, and you know she she’s very committed to that university. That was her life.  And she’s really incredibly sad because the culture of the university has changed. Right? So I know we’re going through this hard work. But the culture of the University of Maine is strong and something that we all care about. And so I just want to share that, and I’ll turn the next. I’m not sure who I’m turning over to next.  Let’s see if we can.  There we go.  All right. Everyone.

We now have lots of time for discussion, and we’re going to be going back and forth between discussion in the room, some anonymous questions and comments that were submitted online and any that were submitted in the Zoom.

Joe, could you pull up the slide that had the QR code?  Oh, there might be one. The next slide, I think, also has the. There you go. There we go. People can, so we will start with any questions in the room.  It will. 

Hello! This is Justin. I’m the associate Dean from the College of Education and Development. I want to get back to Slide 17 where we’re talking about the de-siloing and looking at the 3 to 6 thematic areas. I’m just curious. What are the specific mechanisms for cost savings that would present themselves in that scenario?

Got it.  So can I say a general? I’m following a question. So thank you. A general comment is this, you know, these are groups that worked right up until earlier this week. The first versions of some of these ideas coming in have what we were calling fast math. You know, some very quick ideas about what kinds of savings there would be. But that wasn’t the charge we don’t know. So I think this question and many, many of the questions that I’m seeing coming through are exactly about. Well, wouldn’t we need to know more to even figure out whether we would want to do this? And I just acknowledge that the answer to that is, yes, these are not fully vetted is some of the language you’ve been seeing. They’re not fully developed.  These are ideas to get us started. And I think, Justin, I don’t know if this is a part of your intention. So if I’m putting words in your mouth. Just tell me I shouldn’t. But there’s a little bit of  a lot of ideas here.  I think the question overarching question has always got to be at some level? Does this move us toward our charter? And what kinds of budget implications would it have? And we have? We just didn’t charge everybody to have the full amount of time to do that. The questions are also giving me a lot of ideas. By the way, about how this next steps piece will be implemented. But I’ll turn back to Amanda and go to what’s next. 

Okay, I’m gonna go to one of the questions from the Zoom  as this hiring freeze goes into effect.  How have you considered employee retainment in your work? We are operating with increasingly less staff and being burdened?  That is the other question  being burdened with other duties as assigned through the reality of our situation and or the local abuse of HR policies. It is difficult for many of us to put what we want into this community and bind to the SRE. Given this environment. That’s the cool one, though.  Let’s let the promo start. But Nicole may be able to speak.  It’s a long let me trick it.  I was reading glasses as this hiring freeze goes into effect. How have you considered employee retainment in your work.  And this is always a consideration. It’s been a consideration, at least in the 4 1/2 year that I’ve been here. And I would, you know, if you look at a lot, you know., look at the faculty development stuff that that’s been done, you know I will say that we have really, really, really tried, under tight resource constraints, understanding that the market of what other universities may be able to pay their faculty and staff  you know, to be able to, you know. Hold on to our faculty and staff. The reality is you know how right now we have 8.9 million dollars in positions out there? And I think, Kelly, what are the number right now? 90. Some positions that are that are 94 positions that come in the last few weeks, you know, requests right? That’s we’ve had to put a pause on right now because of you know, you understand the budget situation.  So we’re doing everything we can behind the scenes and in front and in front as well to be able to retain faculty and staff as well, and part of that is, is looking creatively. And you saw some of this on the slides here. How we can, you know, look at, look at the resources that we have, and there may be, you know, and you can look at yourself. Look at where, where possible, areas that we can actually consolidate? Where are services that we can actually, you know, make more central in certain areas  and so beyond that. And you know it’s interesting.  If we look at some of the faculty retention elements that are done, take a look at empower over 30% of the faculty that have actually participated in power. If you look at the National Center for Faculty Development Diversity Faculty success program, we’re close to 40 faculty members now that have participated in that our North Star Collective has started. And so there’s a lot of work that’s been done in this space. And  you know. So we on, partner hires. We’ve done over 50 partner hires in the last 4 1/2 years, and just as an example. Last year UNC Chapel Hill, with funding from NSF. Did the 1st ever a partner? Scorecard for the 146 R1 Universities, University of Maine ranked number 2. All right, I mean, I’m proud of it. We are right. After University of Delaware has been incredibly strong in this space for about 15-20 years. So you know, we’re doing, we’re doing what we can in this resource, constrained environment to make sure that we retain all of our faculty and staff. So thanks. 

Okay, let’s go to a question in the room. Any other questions in the room.  Thank you. I think this may. Actually, this is Megan Walsh from UMM. I think this may actually be a question as a follow up to the previous question. And  the Provost.

Yes, I’m really excited about all the things that you just said. Great, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about, or someone could talk a little bit more about staff duties, because I know that affects a lot of people’s units, even though I am myself a faculty member. Thank you. 

Thank you for that question, Megan. So, staff duties, I’m going to say something that’s probably unpopular. But we have to stop thinking about, what can we not do? So when we think about not being able to replace every role that’s out there, as we think about restructuring, we have to think about different processes, process improvement. There were some really great recommendations that came this last year for academic administrative efficiencies.  We need to think about some of those things, and implementing tools and solutions to support underwriting it and underwriting the work in a different way. I know that’s hard to say, and individually, no one of us individually can make those changes. So we need to work across silos and across groups to talk about how we do work differently, how we share information differently, and that’s going to take.  That’s going to take some some months here and some some process improvement that we do together. We, if I mean, if we continue to try and do exactly the same work with fewer resources, it’s a burden on every every staff member across the organization. We can’t do it. We can’t ask our people to do more with less. That’s not going to get us to the future vision. So it means we need to do different work and do with different outcomes.  And so, you know I can, I can talk to the work that I’ve been doing with my team. Happy to to share some of those experiences. But it really is about change. 

Oh, yeah.

So my name is Laurie. I work for student life. I just personally want to say that I do, I am in full agreement that we need to revamp and reorganize and do some things differently here, and grow a few times. My concern is that I we haven’t talked a lot about students in this that just hasn’t been something, and I know that students are on the mind of everyone, and that there is care and concern. But in order for us to have belonging and engagement and retention, our students need to be happy.  And we have growing mental health concerns.  And our students. And I think about, for example, the res life and housing that makes a lot of sense to merge those. A lot of campuses do that. However, the biggest part of that merger that concerns me is that we need to go and check on our campus on our students every day. They’re sometimes not doing. Some of them are thriving and amazing and doing really well. But some are just not  so I know that the care and concern students is being, you know, thought of in this process, but in terms of the staff who go out in the middle of the night and go and check on those students that you know. I think that that just needs to kind of also be in the forefront of our minds.

I absolutely agree. And it’s beyond, I’m just going to expand upon that. It’s beyond the student life that are going. It’s also the our plumbing team. Who’s going in to make sure that the bathrooms are working in the middle of the night. It’s our electrical team that’s going out there and  getting the power back on, so that our residence halls have lights. So there, there are many, many staff and employees across the organization that are making sure that the campus is operating 24 hours day for our students, and I also want to acknowledge that it’s staff and faculty well-being as well. It’s if our, if we’re not in a good  place emotionally to support our students, we can’t be there in the way that they need us to be there. So I think it’s about well-being for all of our employees, which means we got to change and do less work. 

I saw another hand of the room go up the same time as Megan’s.  So we’ll do that. And then I have a theme of online questions, I think can be addressed.

So so I guess one of the things I hear we hear a lot is this concept of ROI? And the question I have is, What is  the return? I guess? What is the quantifiable thing we hear our I often think of money right? But I guess as a university I think we’re not only interested in money, and so the question is, is, what are the other things that are trying to be, I guess, somehow quantified. I guess if you’re going to use this terminology that are the returns they’re looking for as a university. 

Great question. And that was actually the theme of a bunch of the online questions that I’m seeing is talking more about the data, the return on investment in the monetary versus other values that we have as a university.  Yeah. So I just told her. I’m going to call on her because in the very 1st of the various group meetings that we held following the work of the summer, there was a big discussion about how to talk about, not necessarily, ROI, but I think that’s really what it was about in more qualitative ways, which was the 1st way that I was seeing out of this process a very, very important idea that we lose sight of.  Which is, there’s a whole lot more to ROI than are our books balancing? Or are we generating enough student credit hours? Even if we’re are we retaining enough students? Are we admitting enough students? All of those are a part of ROI. But there’s a huge qualitative, and possibly quite subjective component to ROI that has to do with  morale on campus that has to do with interest in coming up with new ideas, ability to conduct one’s research, and one’s teaching with all of the tools that are needed to do that. Well, those things are much harder to quantify. But I would like to turn to Amanda to ask her how there’s been a little bit of an effort to do that, but also to hear more directly from people working in the groups about how important it was to talk about this.

So not probably the clean answer you would like, because this is not all going to be quantifiable.  But I’m certainly persuaded that we better have a way to think about how it works.  I’m sorry I wouldn’t expect it to be quantifiable. I think it’s a very challenging thing to do is to actually sit there and think about it as a university, and how you affect people, how you affect society, and how you affect essentially the future.  I will also just want to underscore. Lori’s comment at the center are our students. And so how we affect them and their futures is pretty central to Amanda. Anything you want to add. 

Yeah, I will just add. So I was in charge of Theme 2, which was the Academic Portfolio Review metrics. And I see a lot of people from that theme in this room.  And so I’ve been a part of the data for a long time, and from the beginning our group always discussed, not only using numbers, but using our core values as a university. But, like you said, it is really hard to quantify. So the way we’ve moved forward so far with the data, and Sydney Record helped me with this over the last month is for both.  I would say, our teaching spaces. So colleges, units, programs, etc. And then also our research and innovation spaces. We have been looking at a whole bunch of metrics altogether, holistically, to really see which units are.  you know which units are  being successful in some of the metrics are in our less successful in other metrics, consistently, and a word that a lot of the group members have been using is directional data. So we’re not trying to call out a particular program saying, you have low enrollment. You’re on the chopping block. It’s more. Let’s look at all these programs holistically, using the data we have and then have that discussion about our ideals and what it means in terms of moving forward with those programs.  So that is the steps that we’ve taken so far. And I think that’s why you don’t see any programs listed on the slides today, even though I think everyone is ready for that. What I’ve heard from being faculty Senate President is, everyone just wants to see the data and wants to know if their program is towards the bottom of that list.  And hopefully, we’ll be able to get that data out soon to those who need it to help make decisions. But really, it’s now using that data to inform how we make those decisions as a campus, including the faculty and department chairs. 

I forgot that I’m moderated. While I look through the online questions, is there another question from the room?  This is a packed room. There are people on the floor.  I know you’re all interested.  Okay.  So a few. I saw a few comments. In the chat, both on the QR code form. And then also in the Zoom about how maintaining R1 status and focusing on Ph.D. production is being thought of in as a part of this SRE and how it’s gonna affect our campus. 

So, in my view, this concept of a learner-focused R1 which has come up through these discussions is maybe one of the most important ideas we’ve got to flesh out and give meaning to. It’s easy to say it right. It sounds good.  but we do not have anywhere close to the depth of conversation yet done here, that it would take to actually make that a reality. I think we have huge progress through the work with RLEs and other related kinds of research experience programs for undergraduates. I’ve been having conversations with the Deans. I’ve been having conversations with the research and center directors, the university level groups.  I do think there’s commitment to the general concept of using the fact that we are a strong research university and the fact that we are a strong teaching university, and we’re the only university in the State that has both of those characteristics in place at the same time that has to be built into mechanisms really, that are for the advantage of our students, because we’re the only place that can offer that? Have we figured out how to do that? Do we have the right number of research centers? Are people’s teaching loads too high? Do we have so many programs that the teaching loads have gotten to a point where we’re not able to to conduct the research and scholarly work across the whole university, that people would like to be doing or coming here to do our facilities. There is a very long list of problems around  research and around teaching, including what would it look like to put them together? So for me if I had to say today what I think is maybe going to need the most work and the most immediate work it would be that idea giving shape to that idea, coming up with ideas to help advance it without continuing to make.

I’m seeing the comments people concerned about heavy workloads, I agree. But if there’s a way to integrate for some people, and this won’t be for everybody.  Integrate one’s research with one’s teaching, and we have a number of faculty on this campus who do that extraordinarily well. If there’s a way to do more of that the hope would be that we can be more effective and more productive in both areas.  I don’t have more to say on it. I’m seeing the questions, too, about well, what about the centers? There hasn’t been much talk about the centers. There’s quite a lot of talk about the centers I know in some of the more extensive notes, and that has to be on the table as a discussion item, too. So I think what I’m asking for is if people are interested in trying to give more shape to this concept of a learner-focused R1. It will be very helpful if you can let us know, because there will need to be just more concrete work on what that takes.  So I have seen a few comments online  about how we have mentioned that we were going to be talking about specifics in this presentation to a few groups, and that they don’t feel like the specifics that they wanted or considered or communicated to the campus.  So I don’t know if anyone wants to comment on that. 

Sure, folks, we’ve been on an incredibly fast train to get to here. And John was, John was pretty direct. Right? He said, SRE is done.  I haven’t thought about that quite that way, but thank you for a concept. You know it is the re-envisioning which, by the way, at least for many of us, is part of our part job all the time looking toward, how are we doing? Where are we going? But this campus-wide, inclusive effort, I think what I would say is this. This particular part of the work  is largely in a place where we’re going to pause with that work and move to a different version. And maybe it’s SRE implementation. Or maybe it’s  SRE continued, evaluation and enactment. To be completely honest with you.  There isn’t a real plan for what that looks like. We’re just seeing, I’m just seeing this material this week in the last couple of days, and needed to get a feel for how deep and how broad and all of the questions. Many of the questions coming in are exactly the next questions like, Well, wait a minute. Would this really save money? Wait a minute. Is this going to be workable? Given everybody’s heavy workload already? How would we even go about doing that? So I’m eager to sift through these questions with my colleagues in the Cabinet, and others who are interested in helping putting in place some kind of an implementation  structure  which will have a coordinator which will have representatives who might be interested in helping to think. And it’s going to involve a lot of different pieces, right? We’ve got standing committees on this campus that can take up some of this work. We don’t need to make a new group to take a look at the many space related suggestions coming in. So some of this will just go right back out to committees that we already have to ask them very specific questions. What could you do in 26.  What do you really think is a long term? What kinds of savings would this give us? Or how is this going to be a real gem in advancing what we claim to be our charter. Those questions will all have to get written down, invented, shipped off to the groups that are ready to take them up. New groups will need to be made if somehow we don’t have in place the correct group to do it. And that’s about as far as I am with this envisioning, I am hearing enough concern about communication. That and the people. Michelle will be nervous with this. I think a quick weekly update from me is something we’re going to have to try  right? And it may not have a lot every week. But I will try to commit to that. So that you’re aware of what’s happening. You know. Cabinet discussed this one this week, or to the extent possible, I think, to keep people aware of where we’re going. I will say that in Senate yesterday we had questions about this sort of academic program, review and consideration. That’s an ongoing process, anyway, that the Provost office leads.  And interest in having the data that we have which is going to be a great directional starting point. I would imagine that there would be conversations among deans and department chairs and heads of schools to start to talk about that, because it’s just coming up from every direction. The trick, I think with that is, how do we do that? And at the same time have an eye on the meta majors and new ideas and new programs that might cut across. And frankly, what we may want to collectively decide. We need to stop doing to make room for something new. But that’s work that is faculty work. So we’ll have to figure out a way to build that into ongoing process, I guess. Issue no, yes, in the room. Sorry.  But  understanding that the directional data will be flowing probably to the Deans, and the directional data will find its way to the department chairs and directors and heads of units.  I

guess I mentioned this at Senate yesterday meeting. I’m still interested in what the consistent process  for that review of looking at that data. So it’s not each unit doing their own independent review of it. But is there a process that will guide us? And I’m not talking about the restructuring process that we know as part of the sentence. I’m talking about the process that leads to that.  And I just I look forward to seeing. Or if there’s a committee kind of developing those guidelines, I think that’s really important. And can I take that question a step further? I think that we need to ensure that there is that process so that it is happening equitably across all units across the university, because, you know, there is the instinct of some people to be guarded and be like, okay. Well, even though my data may not look good, I’m not going to make any changes. And so it needs to be equitable and make sure everyone is actually really going through that process  would be part of that process. So it’s a great question. And the President touched on it. And you did as well. The data that has been gathered is directional data, right? It’s not something that you’re going to put in a peer reviewed manuscript, and you know, etc. People are going to look at the data, and they’re going to quibble at this quibble about that.  Absolutely. It’s directional data, right? And it gives an idea and part of the process of how we, you know, move forward with that is exactly meeting with the Senate, Zack, yesterday, you know, continuing to have these conversations, and you know that will become flushed out more, as you know, in the coming weeks, you know. Maybe some people might not be here for the next few weeks, perhaps after finals. But but you know, in the next month or 2, you know, that process will become more clarified  as we work together. You know there’s again, there’s not a like, this is what we’re doing.  You know, there’s a lot of data there, and many people in this room have looked at it, and many people have worked and analyzed it. And but that’s going to continue to be refined. 

Good afternoon. This is Adam Nagar from the sole force resources and also the ecology environmental sciences program.  I have a question a little bit about. There’s a hiring pause. There’s some other things, or you know, we’re obviously saying, try not to do more with less or whatever, but from a sort of short term strategy, it sounds like we’re still in a wait and see perspective. So as we as administrators in our own units and programs are trying to think about how to keep the lights on. Have staff morale still, you know, as high as it possibly can be.  What should we be thinking in terms of short term strategy. I’ve worked a lot with colleagues across the college on trying to come up with  sort of resourceful ways to, you know, fit slots that now maybe are on pause or come up with different ways, that we could have teaching across units. And all these things that we’re trying to get really creative. But it sounds like we’re in a kind of a still waiting hold.  The economist had me. It says there’s opportunity costs. And all this effort that we’re putting into thinking about stuff that might be creative. But maybe in 4 months might not fall within whatever emerges. So I’m just curious on insight on what we should be thinking about strategically short term, as we’re really just trying to focus on keeping things moving. Thank you.  Sorry. 

So the Provost may want to say more, Adam. But thank you. The list you gave is the 1st list. It’s the right list. I think that’s happening in many, many places, maybe not every place. So that’s the place to begin, I think, to recognize that  that department department chairs, chairs of schools, and so forth, are going to need to be collectively talking, not only within their college, but across colleges, increasingly and to some extent, and with centers as well, and some of that already happens.  I think it might be important to really take up this question of looking at your programs. And that’s not a fix it for tomorrow question, but I could anticipate that. There’s enough interest and momentum in that, that we’re going to see some need to do that and think about what possible savings there may be the other thing. And I’m hesitant to say this when I’m reading all these comments and being mindful of what I’m saying. But  in our own office 1-1 thing that I need us to do, and probably everybody does, is to just look at what we’re doing right now, right now, today, with the staff that we’ve got or the staff that we  used to have, and we don’t now have and say, what can we actually stop? Are there things we can stop doing? I’m not talking about  at this moment, because our schedule is set for courses for the next. But are there things that are just really nice to do that we just can’t do right now? And that’s painful and difficult and hard for so many of us to imagine. I think we want to be mindful of not choosing to stop things that directly benefit and are important for students. But there are some other things we do. And we might have to just collectively agree that that’s  part of what we’re doing.  And that started from the College of Education and Human development.  What you just said? Maybe think about like, what constraints are we bumping up against in this SRE process and in our budget process that is connected to how the system is managed.  And you know, like what? I guess it’s a two great questions like, what what are those constraints and like, how do like? How might we need those constraints a little bit better? And then how might we better advocate for ourselves? In in the in this system. Ecology? I think that’s a great question Esther and there are. There are  friends of that through much of the material that I’ve been looking at in the last few weeks. I think we need to, and some of it, by the way, I think, is in the administrative barriers report as well. I think we need to do exactly what you said. We’ve got to name what that is, and be very concrete about how, whatever that it is, is affecting us  always with an eye on students. I think that piece is most critical. But then, and I’m perfectly positioned to actually and do believe it or not, actually advocate for things that need to be different for the University of Maine, just because of who we are, what we are.  I think we need help in actually putting forward the proposals, the solutions, as everybody knows, it doesn’t work well to go to your higher ups and say, here’s here’s a problem. It goes really better when you say I’ve got a solution. It might not be great. But here’s a proposal.  So I’m very ready and interested in that. And I’ve said that to Cabinet, and we can make that a wider conversation as possible to identify the areas where we just need. We need help. We also can go back. And this is never entirely satisfying to people. But there have been changes that have been made because we’ve done exactly that. And so we can do more of it. And you know it’s it’s a reality. We are in a system, and we all knew that. But there’s a lot that’s possible  giving this back to Amanda.

So I actually might call Kelly up here.  And I’m sure this is a question. A lot of people in the room. And I’m summarizing again a bunch of questions. We have literally hundreds of comments that are coming online. So I’m trying to summarize some of them into broader themes, so we can address them in front of the room, and I think one of the themes that I’m seeing is.  how are some of the restructurings that we’ve seen today on these slides actually going to affect the budget and save us money.  So I’m going to take that sort of an FY 26, and sort of over the next, the next 3 to 5 years. So I think any the bigger decisions, the big strategic reimagining of the university is likely not going to show up in FY 26. So I just want us to to take a step back and acknowledge that if we decide that I don’t know, I can’t think of a good example.  because there were so many. But we decide that VP of Spire and VP of Research should be consolidated with some sort of restructuring of internal and external support.  It’s not going to happen overnight. That’d be something we would work towards, potentially. It’s working towards changes in the underlying support work that they do, and then moving towards that. That might be something that happens in FY 27 FY 28. So we need to think multiple years in terms of kind of our structure or the structural financial situation. Now, there are ones that I think can happen in FY, so the space, the space recommendations around, can we take buildings offline, use less energy, use less maintenance? Absolutely. There’s more of that. We can build into the FY 26 budget. So we’re looking at some targeting. We’re doing some analysis that  facilities team has done some great work around specific buildings around specific costs for those buildings. And how can we take those out of the overall budget going into FY 26. To free up dollars to be allocated to more important activities.  I think I’ll go back to the hiring pause. I think that is going to enable us to consider some of the staff restructuring potentially, that will enable us to consider some changes in the facilities, auxiliaries, other areas that are already underway. So I think the answer is, some of it will come in FY 26.  Some of it will come in FY 27. As plans begin to be further developed in the implementation and conceptualization stage. And some of these ideas aren’t ever going to make it to a budget because they may get ruled out because we decide they don’t make sense for some of those. There isn’t a financial ROI, or there isn’t a qualitative improvement for the institution that takes us back to our mission.  So the answer is, the budget is a slightly parallel process, and we have a number of ideas that are going to take us to. I want to go back to what we agreed with the Board of Trustees 2 years ago now is that it was a 3 year plan to get us to a balanced budget. So this year we do not plan to balance the budget. We plan to use strategic reserves in the amount of about 4.8 million in FY 25.  Next year, we continue. We will continue to use some of our reserves, and we’re not planning towards balance either. So we’re planning to use 2.1 million in FY 26 of our reserves with a plan to be balanced in FY 27. So we’ve laid this out. The financial plan to support the enabling work to happen for that strategic vision to be put in place before we build it all into the financials.  So I’m happy to answer more specific. If there’s a specific question that you had around that.

But I think that leaves out. Kelly was about how things like interdisciplinary majors and Meta Majors would actually save the university money.  There’s 30 different ways that that could be conceptualized. Right? So I will. Yesterday, with Faculty Senate Executive Committee, I used an example that from my past life. So in a previous institution there was a reconceptualization of the art programs and it was taking a look. There was a BFA in Fine Arts. There was a BA in Arts, and I think it was in painting and drawing. And then there was a graphic design program. The faculty came together, and through a curriculum review said, Gosh, our enrollment’s not super strong. Across these 3 areas they elected to move out of the BA in arts to move out of the graphic design and to move into keeping the BFA in Fine Arts and doing an arts, media and technology total enrollment in the 3 programs when they started was 8.  It had declined significantly over time. The 1st year after implementation they had 24 students enrolled in the arts media technology in the BFA program. So it was a very intentionally looking at what student interest was.  And it was looking at what faculty, what core competencies, what teaching, what facilities they had on the campus and doing that. So that was one where it really was actually around enrollment growth. So it was a growth opportunity, and they did it around the retirement of one faculty and changing the discipline from a painting faculty member into rehiring a faculty member, but who had more of a digital arts background.  So that that’s 1 example.  I’ve also seen it. Where you teach out a program. We decide, you know what we’re going to teach out that program at the time of a series of retirements. So you, laying out that plan in collaboration with faculty through a faculty retirement incentive. So there’s multiple ways. I don’t think there’s any one answer. I think the 1st question is, what’s the right academic portfolio as the Provost the Deans and Academic leaders look at. And  then we talk about how might we get towards an implementation plan that supports the right academic portfolio vision? It can’t start with we’re looking to achieve this dollar amount, and we’re going to force force it to that. It’s what’s the portfolio we want to offer to drive, to meet our student demand to meet the needs for employment in the State of Maine, to prepare our students to go on to graduate school. Whatever  future opportunity is. But it needs to start with that portfolio question and not with what’s what’s the financial answer?  Thank you, Kelly.

Any questions in the room  I was counting in my head.  So another theme that’s come up in a few questions. Online is including other groups other than faculty in these decisions and implementation. And so there were quite a few comments about students and student groups which we also had one in the room. And then there were also comments about Staff and the staff unions being involved. So I don’t know if someone wants to address this.  I also want to go back just a little bit to that last question.  And this is a time to be thinking about. You know the siloing right? We need to be thinking about, Kelly addressed the academic side. But we have to be looking at the research, innovation, academics all coming together instead of looking at just our unit.  I encourage everyone to look beyond your unit. And so, Adam, I don’t know where you are if you’re somewhere, there’s Adam. Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly right. But things that you talked about are spot on of how you have to address that. There’s universities. When I was the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the early nineties, they went on a hiring freeze for a number of years.  They didn’t stop being an amazing university, right? And so. But they’re doing a little bit what you kind of referred to Adam. Really kind of thinking outside the box, I’ve had someone say to me, I can’t think outside the box. Well, this is the time, you know, to think about it beyond, you know, the silos. So I really encourage you to do that. What was the last question? Now that  that you just asked it was about students and staff, and how they will be involved in the process from here for yeah, I think we were admittedly a little slow on getting the students involved. Students are involved now, and they have been involved. Staff have been with faculty the whole time, you know, since these themes began working.  and this has open process as possible, because not only do you have the 14 themes, and then the two big groups that you just saw lately, you know, in phase 3. But there’s all these adjacent groups, and so faculty and Staff will, you know, have been very much engaged throughout this process  just on on themes themselves. There was over 175 and staff that were, you know, you know, directly involved in those and many many more sense.  We will continue that kind of work. It’s not going to go into this little cloister and figure this out. No, we’ll continue to try to get as involved as possible. And for the most part, when that list of names that you saw up there that included students that James put up earlier, only one person didn’t accept that invitation, and that was a student who had classes  and couldn’t make it so. All I can say is, we are going to continue to commit to this being an open process and trying to involve, and it’ll grow. Now, I mean the Board of Visitors have been brought in. Certainly the board of trustees know what’s going on, and other external stakeholders. Advisory groups have been discussed throughout this process at college level and larger levels.  etc. And so that that is something that will continue to be part of the whole process.

Can I just add one thing, yeah, please.  So I want to acknowledge Amanda’s comment around the bargaining units as well. I want to give just a quick example, so I’ll use campus beautification. That was one of the themes that came out. There were some really great concepts. So yesterday we had the opportunity to meet with the Teensters and have a very early started off on one topic, but ended off on the beautification concept  and part of it may be changing some of our position descriptions so that we can do different types of work as it relates to grounds and the labor associated with that to be more effective in the allocation of that. And that’s starting to change some of the position descriptions in collaboration with the teamsters. So we talked about a number of different new positions that might be specific to allow us for  a facilities restructuring to do different types of work around electrical high voltage. We talked about grounds, Cdl drivers and  and laborers for summer related landscaping work. So I think that’s a really good example of the type of work. Absolutely. Our bargaining units are essential. Our employees and all of our labor unions are essential to the operations of the university. So as we start to get through and start to think through some of the specific examples, we need to work in collaboration with our labor relations, teams, human resources.  and our bargaining teams to help us. You’re a part of the solution in coming up with how we improve or implement these. So a lot more will be coming in the in the coming months related to that. 

Coming back to the room, we have approximately 2 min left.  Okay?  So I just got a few questions towards the very end. And I think it’s a great way to wrap up this town hall.  So. And I really like this one question. So I’m gonna read it specifically. But then the others are kind of around the same theme says, the SRE is over. But this presentation makes it clear. The need for diverse and creative ideas is still urgent. How can we continue to provide these bottom up ideas?  And then there were a few other comments about how we remain. Keep this open process going forward is the SRE over? Is it ongoing? So basically, what are the next steps. And how can we continue to provide those good ideas?  So first, I want to say, I’m appreciative of the questions, particularly that last set, because I take it as a signal of continued interest  in some level of engagement, and so we will keep that open. I think what I’d like to do, based on this event, which has been extraordinarily helpful in not only generating questions, but demonstrating clearly where there are concerns, and with a number of suggestions, so all of that will get evaluated and looked at by me personally as well as anybody else who wants to help. I think what we need to have is some sort of maybe.  really, I am making this up on the spot. So if you have a better plan, tell me what it is. I don’t like to be in the position of making things up on the spot, but maybe a sort of SRE implementation or next steps council small group it feels to me like one piece will be keeping the idea generation part going.  But maybe expanding that a little to say, Okay, here’s your idea. Generation place. You can go do that and keep bringing ideas, because there are probably a dozen ideas today that I think we need to pay serious attention to that aren’t exactly on the table yet. So we have to go back and look at those. Keep the ideas coming. But maybe that gets expanded out, and I’m looking to  James a little bit and others to be a website on progress. Okay, so here are some ideas that we’re actually really grappling with right now, to the extent we can talk about that in that kind of a public forum.  What do you think? Here are some more questions that we have. Do you have more questions some way to keep people engaged if they wish to be, and we have to balance how much of that is done by a group, and how much of that is open to the world. And I’m eager for your input on that question, which is.  how can we? Your ideas about how we can keep it open. But I’m inclined to say we need a group, and I think it needs to be small with something like a strategic re-envisioning coordinator, together with a couple of representatives from each of the many, many areas that are critical to this students, staff  faculty administrators, some external supporters and constituents. Possibly system people I don’t know to be figured out, but I think a group like that will need to meet right around the beginning of the semester  to say, Okay, here’s where we are. Here’s what’s been processed between today and then. And here’s how we would advise going forward. So if we are able to name a group like that fairly soon. Perhaps, if you have interest in being considered to be in such a group, it feels to me like. That’s the next level of group. And that might be a group that largely is  working mainly in their meetings. I don’t know that there’s going to be a lot of in between work for that group, because I do envision us being able to say in a budget committee, this goes to use Senate. This idea goes to you. It’s more like an orchestration of that. That’s the best I’ve got folks for right now, open to your ideas, open to more suggestion. But I would like to conclude by thanking you, as always, appreciate everybody’s directness  and everybody’s good ideas, and this is a work in progress, so it will continue. Thank you very much.

I write to provide an update on our Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) initiative and to invite you to a hybrid town meeting focused on hearing your feedback. The SRE process has generated numerous innovative ideas through the dedicated work of over 180 community members across 14 theme committees. We are now entering a crucial phase where these concepts will be prioritized and staged for timing, and for those that will begin immediately, translated into specific actions to position 91¸ŁŔű for a mission-focused, sustainable future.

Below is the working version of our charter, which along with the SRE guiding principles will serve as key frameworks for this process:

91¸ŁŔű is a learner-centered Research 1 university committed to sustaining the health of our planet and growing inclusive communities. We are Maine’s land, sea and space grant university dedicated to defining tomorrow.

Three cross-functional working groups featuring representation across academic, research, administrative, student life units and student leadership have been analyzing the Phase II outcomes alongside data and background on our academic, innovation, and research programs. They have identified opportunities for strategic restructuring and investment that will strengthen our position as Maine’s flagship, learner-centered, research university while addressing our budget challenges.

The working groups have developed specific recommendations that offer possibilities and options for how to:

• Maintain our commitment to learner success
• Preserve our research excellence
• Realign the university’s organizational structures to strengthen our ability to advance
• our charter going forward
• Ensure long-term financial sustainability
• Enhance operational efficiency

We will present these options for your feedback at the town hall meeting scheduled for Friday, December 13 from 9-10:30 a.m. in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union. The session will be offered in hybrid format to maximize participation (Zoom link: ).

The presentation materials and a recording will be made available on the SRE website for those unable to attend. Following this conversation, the President’s Cabinet will review and consider your input and advise me on the next steps.

Your engagement remains vital as we prepare to make important decisions that will shape 91¸ŁŔű’s future. Please continue to share your thoughts during the upcoming town hall or through our online feedback form, which will be made available with the recorded presentation.

Thank you for your continued dedication to our university.

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy
President

I write to provide an update on the Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) initiative, including the next steps, and to announce a strategic partial hiring pause as an interim measure. 

SRE Update

In May 2024 we launched the SRE initiative as a strategic planning initiative framed by the question, “What would 91¸ŁŔű look like if we were designing it today?” The objective of SRE was – and remains – to develop recommendations for a re-envisioned university through an inclusive process, relying on the creativity and strategic thinking of its participants, the majority of whom volunteered to take part. 

So far more than 180 members of the university community from 91¸ŁŔű and 91¸ŁŔű at Machias have served on one or more of the 14 theme committees. I am grateful for their participation and perspectives.

The SRE initiative is advancing well, with over 100 ideas compiled so far. The leadership team is synthesizing and prioritizing these insights to inform decisions that will shape 91¸ŁŔű’s future. 

Throughout November, two working groups have been meeting to consider new approaches to our activities and structure. One group has been focused on a review of the university’s current portfolio across academics, research, and innovation functions. The second has continued the discussion of what it means, and how it looks, for 91¸ŁŔű to be a learner-centered R1 university.

Both groups came together this week for a collaborative working session that resulted in initial proposals for initiatives, changes, and restructuring across the institution. After the Thanksgiving break, another group of faculty, staff, and students will continue to refine those initial ideas in order to present a set of approaches and options that will be shared with the campus community on the SRE web page and in a hybrid community “town hall” to be held at Memorial Union’s Bangor Room and virtually on December 13 at 9 a.m. 

Here is a working vision of our “charter” as it is emerging from efforts in the past months:

91¸ŁŔű is a learner-centered Research 1 university committed to sustaining the health of our planet and growing inclusive communities. We are Maine’s land, sea and space grant university dedicated to defining tomorrow.

Together, we are working toward this vision for a “Learner-Focused R1” institution as we approach our 160th anniversary in 2025. 

The Current Context and Interim Measure

Thanks to university-wide efforts, many undertaken in partnership with the University of Maine System, we have realized several positive achievements in enrollment and retention in recent months and have also benefited from increased funding from State, federal and philanthropic partners in recent years. However, these positive developments must be tempered by financial and demographic realities, including increased costs in many areas, and our long-standing deferred maintenance issues. The efforts that all have undertaken in the past two years to find efficiencies and consider new revenues have led to great progress. To continue to reduce our structural budget gap will mean initiating some changes in FY25. Therefore, we must use the SRE process to both align and integrate our foci and operations while crafting a sustainable and balanced budget for the upcoming fiscal year. 

One short-term step we will take to provide flexibility for SRE implementation is a partial hiring pause. This will allow our SRE work and recommendations to continue and will give us time to address longer-term changes thoughtfully. The Office of Human Resources will share the guidelines for this hiring pause, including details about start and end dates and criteria for exceptions, with department heads early next week, via email. 

Exciting and challenging work continues to lie ahead of us as we give definition to our charter and pursue SRE’s guiding principles. Please share your questions and feedback by visiting this web form; doing so will help us both refine our efforts and develop a FAQ page for the university community.  

Thank you for your service to and support for our students, our colleagues, and the people of Maine, and for shaping the future of the University of Maine. 

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy, President
University of Maine and the University of Maine at Machias

I am pleased to share that we have completed Phase 2 of our Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) process. This phase was a critical part of our journey, involving the efforts of dedicated working groups that focused on analyzing key aspects of our university’s mission, operations, and aspirations.

To provide transparency and keep everyone informed, we have created a webpage summarizing the outcomes from each SRE working group. More complete descriptions will be added as work progresses. I encourage you to review these findings, which reflect the diverse perspectives and innovative ideas of more than 175 faculty and staff members who participated in the SRE working groups.

On October 10, members of the administration and several SRE Provost’s Fellows participated in a retreat to identify our next steps as we continue with Phase 3 of the SRE process. We are now focusing on developing actionable items linked to our strategic vision of the future and our budget planning processes around four key themes, with related ideas from other themes woven in as appropriate.

• Theme 2: Enhance academic programs through consolidation, elimination, or restructuring to enhance educational outcomes, boost career readiness, and increase the university’s research impact.
• Theme 3: Develop meta-majors and other inter- and post-disciplinary undergraduate degree programs to provide students with flexible pathways, increase enrollment, generate intellectual excitement, capitalize on our array of academic strengths, and better prepare graduates for the demands of the workforce.
• Theme 5: Strengthen research centers by recommending consolidation, elimination, or restructuring to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, resource efficiency, and impactful research outcomes.
• Theme 10: Integrate teaching and research more effectively (“Learner-Focused R1”) to positively influence student experience and success.
• Theme 14: Enhance organizational effectiveness through consolidation, elimination or restructuring recommendations in administrative units and or functions to improve institutional agility, support research and academic enrollment growth in areas of strategic importance to maintain and fortify existing high-demand areas, improve service delivery and optimize resource management.

We will also be moving forward on project ideas that have been nominated and that can be readily implemented across all themes; more information on these steps will be shared in the coming weeks. Please provide any project ideas here.

I am grateful to everyone who contributed to the working groups and who proposed ideas during Phase 2. Your input and insights have been invaluable. In Phase 3, we will narrow our focus to ensure that the recommendations in these key themes are translated into strategic actions that will strengthen the University of Maine’s role as a student-centered, land-grant, research-driven institution.

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy
President
University of Maine and the University of Maine at Machias

October 1 marked the start of Phase 3 of the Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) process: Refining and Executing. I was pleased to receive the thoughtful and comprehensive feedback from our initial working groups, which offer potential pathways for action and potential criteria for considering ideas. As other 91¸ŁŔű leaders and I review this material, it is important that we continue to receive input and ideas from the community. You can do that here.

To encourage feedback, we have another flash survey which asks about faculty and staff use of generative AI. This brief survey will inform the ongoing activities of the working group looking at the theme of leveraging generative AI. You can answer these questions . 

In my last update, I announced the addition of a new SRE theme that emerged from campus input. Theme 14 will focus on enhancing organizational effectiveness and will be led by Corey Watson. The working group members for Theme 14 have already started their assessment. 

On Thursday, October 10, the SRE project leadership, some of the provost’s fellows, cabinet members, academic deans, and center and institute directors met to look at the work that has come in from phases 1 and 2 and to consider next steps and priorities. Watch for more in future updates. 

To gain a deeper understanding of the drivers and long-term goals of the strategic re-envisioning process, I invite you to explore a concept paper I authored, titled Challenges, Responsibility, and Opportunity: The Case for the Strategic Re-Envisioning of the University of Maine. I look forward to the community’s feedback on the ideas presented. 

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy

President

Thank you to the 186 in-person and online participants who attended the town hall meeting on September 12. I am deeply appreciative of our SRE leadership team and project leaders for their insightful and informative presentations. The questions and comments raised indicate a strong engagement with the work of the strategic re-envisioning process (SRE), and engaging with the question “What would 91¸ŁŔű look like if we were designing it today?” For those who could not attend, the presentation and a recording of the event are available through the SRE website. 

The next opportunity for community engagement will be on October 2, from 2 – 3 p.m., when EVPAA and Provost John Volin, VPFA Kelly Sparks, SRE Project Director Sabrina DeTurk and Associate Project Director James Beaupré will host office hours in 112 Alumni conference room in Alumni Hall and by . I encourage community members to bring their questions and ideas for informal conversations with this group. Additional office hours will be scheduled later in October and in November.

As we approach the end of September, we are also approaching the end of Phase 2 of the SRE process: Prioritizing and Assessing. The working groups are finalizing their feedback around evaluation criteria and the positive and negative impacts of ideas related to their themes. October marks the beginning of Phase 3: Refining and Executing, where our working groups will connect SRE themes to align with visions of the future university, determine near-term and longer-term emphases, and the university’s multi-year financial strategy. Priority proposals for new initiatives and structural changes will likely begin to emerge from this work within the next months as we develop the FY26 budget. We will also continue to seek ideas and proposals for ongoing stages of SRE; please engage by submitting your ideas.

Drawing on feedback from members of the community, we have decided to add an additional SRE theme focused on enhancing organizational effectiveness through consolidation, elimination, or restructuring recommendations in administrative units and or functions. A Provost’s Fellow and working group will be identified to lead the work in this area; if you are interested in participating, please email Sabrina DeTurk (sabrina.deturk@maine.edu).

Thank you all for engaging in this process – I look forward to continued community discussions as we move into Phase 3.  

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy
President

Transcript:

Alright everyone. I think we’re gonna get started.

Yeah, can everyone hear me in the back? We have a tight agenda. We want to get lots of opinions and feedback. So we wanna kick this off welcome to today’s humane and humane Matthias Town Hall on the strategic re envisioning. I’m Amanda Klemmer, the faculty Senate President. And today I’m going to start with our land acknowledgement.

We recognize that the University of Maine recognizes that it is located on Marsh Island in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation, where issues of water and territorial rights, and encroachment upon sacred sites, are ongoing. Penobscot homeland is connected to the other Wabanaki Tribal Nations — the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq — through kinship, alliances and diplomacy. The university also recognizes that the Penobscot Nation and the other Wabanaki Tribal Nations are distinct, sovereign, legal and political entities with their own powers of self-governance and self-determination.

So today’s Town Hall will provide updates on the strategic re envisioning initiative and lead into a Q. And a session throughout the presentation. You’ll see on all the slides a. QR. Code to collect your questions, and I’m going to be sitting up here monitoring those questions. I believe Michelle, and maybe a few others are going to be doing the same. We will be answering your questions during the Q. And a session at the end of the presentation, and you will also have an opportunity to scan the QR code at the end and continue to add questions and thoughts.

Now, I’m pleased to introduce Joan Ferrini-Mundy, President of the same of the University of Maine and the University of Maine, Machias and Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation for the University of Maine System.

I really think about it.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. It’s not getting any better. I keep trying this. Good morning. Lukewarm responses. But anyway, let me start by just saying, Hello, many of you I’ve not seen in the last several weeks, and I’m glad that we’re all back. What a vibrant beginning to the academic year with good enrollment numbers, with all kinds of building and activity on campus, with

new venues coming into online, and lots of tremendous work, particularly by our faculty and staff, who have this semester up and running.

And I appreciate that the work that that takes is significant. And so I just want to thank everybody for all that you do. I don’t know about you, but walking around the campus there’s a different feel a little bit different of a feel. I don’t think I don’t know what that is. Robert. Dana has his thoughts about it. What do you say? We’re sort of post Covid. The students aren’t coveted his language, you know. I think         there’s a vibrancy that’s really quite exciting. I also want to particularly focus on the faculty a bit. I know that many of you have been very busy in the summer with a variety of pursuits. Your research, your creative work, your rethinking of courses and your interactions with students. And that work is greatly appreciated, too, for all who are a part of it. So here we are back again to talk about the strategic re-envisioning initiative and to get into some detail. And you are going to be, I hope, very, very pleased with the amount of activity and inclusion that we’ve been able to achieve even across the summer, where folks are very busy with many things, and that’s due to an outstanding team of leaders who are doing the day-to-day driving of the SRE effort. So Vice President for finance and administration, Kelly Sparks, executive Vice Provost for academic executive

Vice President for academic affairs, and Provost John Colin, and then Sabrina Duterte and James au Pray, who have been leading the groups as we move forward, so that that crowd has been fantastic, and then the faculty members who are the provost, faculty and staff, who are the provost fellows. So we have a number of colleagues who’ve just been fully immersed in this work over the past several weeks, and I want to thank them for that.

So.

Oops?

Oh, I’m sure I’ve gone forward, too.

Okay? So why strategic re envision? We’ve talked about this a number of times. We’ve written about it more documents coming out shortly, a sort of a more comprehensive discussion, but just as a bit of a grounding and a reminder for everybody in talks that I’ve given. Previously I’ve been trying to frame this activity, this strategic re envisioning as exactly that. It’s a re envisioning of our university as we approach 160 years of being the University of Maine, and we look forward confidently to 160 more. borrowing from my friend Nabib, who talks about his own term here in those kinds of terms. So I think it’s important to take stock every now and then of why, we are a university where we are going as a university, what we want to be in the future, and that needs to drive a wide range of activity in what we do all kinds of planning, all kinds of thinking about programmatic emphasis, all kinds of efforts in terms of where we put dollars in, where we don’t. And it needs to drive budgeting. A budget is always, in my view, a planning exercise.

So my way of thinking about this activity is it’s a collective effort to come together and decide what might be some priorities. How do we envision ourselves? 5 years from now, 10 years from now? Because moves that we make today will set the groundwork for that going forward. So you’ve heard me talk before about how dynamic higher education is as an enterprise, and there’s a lot to say about that.

It is also a sector that is relatively slow to change over time and over the scope of the endeavor. And yet the world around us changes constantly, of course, and in other talks I’ve highlighted 1st of all, the role of higher Ed in the future of society. We are the place that educates those who will follow us, those who will be the leaders of tomorrow, those who will be the problem solvers of tomorrow, and the community members and the family members and the people of tomorrow.

We are the institution that has perhaps the biggest influence on how that goes. And we need to be intentional about how we want to do that, and who we want to be going forward as we think about our responsibilities towards social mobility, our responsibilities toward shaping a world that can engage in civic discourse and social justice. So we think about all of this, I think, from time to time. But right now, I think, is a good moment for us to just take stock would point to a few areas where the world is changing very rapidly around us, and these are not surprises to us at the University of Maine. These are things we all think about.

The climate is changing, and that is making a difference in every aspect of life across this planet, and in particular regions of the world, especially challenging right here in the State of Maine, with our coastline, for example, and our fisheries, and our forestry and our agriculture. So the role of the changing climate, and how a university like this, which has leading research and instruction going on across the domains of climate, science, and climate change needs to, I believe, consider whether a part of our re-envisioning is to bring to the foreground much more fully our commitment to understanding and making a difference in the climate domain. At the same time across the world widespread wars and violence, social unrest and injustice.

Those factors just continue to grow. Are we preparing our learners to play the roles that they may be needing to play in that world. And how does that happen in our education experience with them? And so and so, as we think about change, we need to consider the world around us. And I urge you to be doing that this year the University of Maine enrolls students from 91 countries outside of the United States.

We are a global university. And so we need to think of ourselves that way. And I know that we do at the same time programmatically, research, wise vision wise are we making that clear?

And we have our land grant roots that we need to stay. True to. We were founded as a part of the Land Grant movement through the Moral act.

Land-grant universities are meant to be problem focused, regionally oriented, and maybe most significantly to democratize education. So we are a place that needs to, I believe, adhere to our land-grant roots, and imagine and enact what it means to be a modern land-grant university. And so all of that is part of what is the basis and the foundation for thinking about.

I’ve been calling them visions of what we might be.

How people will describe this university. You see our new brand campaign with the blue horizons theme, and I think that gives us some possibilities at the same time. Can we be more clear? I just saw, and I only saw it on my watch as a LinkedIn thing, so I don’t really know much more about it than I can tell you, but I saw it 5 min ago. The State of Nevada has posted something that they’re calling a portrait of a Nevada learner.

And I think this is probably a K-12 initiative. But this concept of having an image or a representation, or a vision of who we are, what we are. What our learners are, I think, is a part of this strategic re envisioning work, because the more clear that we can be about that, the more able we are frankly to make budget decisions and choices and have guidelines that can help us strategically prioritize moving toward whatever those images are or strengthening the ones that we already have, which is, of course, a piece of this.

So there are just a few groundings that I’d like to be sure to remind everyone of. And again, we have a lot of information about this available in lots of places. Our situation currently is is worth staying very aware of as we do, the strategic re-envisioning work. The drivers that we have for revenue are largely tuition and fees.

And you see some data here about them. It’s 46.5% of our total revenues. And we are, we are an institution that needs to balance our budget. And so this is where we have one place that that we can pay attention to. Another source of revenue is indirect cost recovery, which is up since fiscal 21, thanks to the great work of our researchers and faculty and staff and students who are engaged in seeking external funding and the great support from the office of the Vice President for research. At the same time, research costs money to do. And so those incoming E&G dollars in indirect cost recovery need to be helping to do all of the things that make it possible for us to run research labs, to keep the electricity on, to continue repairs and so forth so.

And the other big revenue driver is, of course, our state appropriation.

Enrollment, and retention really is taking a turn, we think cautiously for the better, absolutely with retention, no question, congratulations to academic affairs and to everybody, including students. For now what is it today, John? 83.7% retention 1st year to second year. And what was it last year at the end? It was 76.6. Yeah, so just I think that’s probably a round of applause for everybody, all of us

So many rooms.

And it’s the work of people here in the room, on the video and across the campus to make sure that our students, that we meet our students where they are as they come to us and help them to be successful. So that’s been extraordinary, and that makes a difference in really the vision of who we are.

A  place where students can succeed and can find their pathways to what they hope and aspire to do student credit hours have been relatively flat. We will have more solid results. Post census. But we’re looking. We’re looking positive, I guess. Certainly the head count, numbers are good, the dorms are overflowing, numbers are good. It’s all about how many students take, how many courses, and whether they’re in state or out of state. There’s a lot to consider with that, but we’re looking at all of it, and being affordable is a value for us. And so I think, as we imagine, what our vision or visions include, that might be a part of it.

We also should point out that people work hard here, and compensation costs, of course, also continue to increase. Our deferred maintenance is extraordinary here, and I do want to congratulate facilities management and and the operations that have supported that work. A tremendous amount got done this summer to improve the campus, to bring on the staff, and experts who can help us continue to improve the campus and great thanks there, but with 61% of our buildings having had no major renovations in more than 50 years. That’s quite significant. And the deferred maintenance costs exceed a billion. Kelly could probably give us a bigger number than that, you know. So technology is changing around us. The world is changing the needs of education by our learners are changing. The potential audiences of learners continue to change. It’s a moment that we’re taking, and we’re taking it in a fairly compressed way, and we’ll talk much more about the details. But the basic question driving SRE is, what would the university may look like if we were designing it today.

And that’s kind of an alarming question sometimes for people, because, of course, we are not designing it today. It exists. It has deep roots, deep foundations. Excuse me deep accomplishments, and yet at the same time, this is our moment. To take a look for tomorrow and think about where we want to be, where we want to go. And I’m just delighted at the expansive involvement across our campus in people who are trying to do that work, who are trying to come together from very, very different perspectives, with very different levels of knowledge and depth. On some of these fiscal matters in particular, and roll up their sleeves and say, Who do we want to be as a university? What are we going to be as a university.

So this really is a visioning exercise. It will flow into budget work for the fiscal year 2026, which begins really beginning at the system level now, and it will begin here. But one thing I would like to emphasis, I’m so heartened by the great involvement and great response to this SRE that I don’t think we imagine this as somehow being concluded. When phase 2 or phase 3 ends. This will need to be ongoing. We’ll have staging really of the ideas that are coming through, and of the expression of the vision that we’re trying to create over the next many months. This 1st budget step will, of course, be important, and we’d like to be able to do that with some clear guidelines and guard rails criteria for how we think about things coming out of the discussion so far, but at the same time I’m excited by these discussions, and we need to continue them. I believe so with that. I believe it’s my now ask to turn this over to vice President for finance administration, Kelly Sparks.

We’re a little unclear on choreography. but I’m going the wrong direction.

So, as the President mentioned, the strategic re-envisioning process will inform our multi-year financial plan. So we want to make sure that we get through the phase one and phase 2 of this process. So we have that context to put in place. We are in year 2. As the President mentioned upfront. I’m going to show you the numbers in just a moment for context of where we’re at. So next year, this year, and next year we will continue to strategically use our reserves so that we can make good strategic decisions through the envisioning process. And then in year 3 we will start to rebalance our overall budget.

So I’m going to just jump to the numbers so that you all know these are the same numbers you saw last April. If you were with us at the Town Hall. There they’re the same numbers we’ve communicated to the board of trustees, and, thanks to the incredible work of the enrollment team the incredible work of retention. We are coming in right in on budget for FY25 and for those of you who’ve been around for a couple of years. That’s not what we said last year, and that’s not what we said year before. So we planned for it. We achieved the goals that we have our revenues, our financial aid. Everything is looking nice and tidy on the top line. So now our job for the rest of the year is to manage. Keep those students here for the spring and to manage our expenses so that we achieve our budget for year end.

We will use reserves so that number that 4.8 million for FY25.

That’s a negative number. That means we’re taking from reserves. Okay, so we’ve been very intentional in saying, we don’t want to pull back too much. We don’t want to make decisions that aren’t strategic until we are informed by the University that we want to be, and then next year we’ll continue to do that will continue to use another 2.1 million dollars in reserves in FY26.

But how we get to that. 276 million 279 million dollars and expenses will be informed by this process. So there’s no specific plan yet.

There’s no secret plan yet. There’s no specific strategies that will be implemented. So the work that the provost fellows are going to talk about today will inform what will happen in Phase 3. As we start to work with our deans, our directors, our other Cabinet members on specific strategies, that we can implement in years 1, 2, 3. So I really think of this as a multi-year financial plan, so multiple years will be will have evolution over time.

So that’s I’m gonna add, I’m gonna leave it there and I can come back to questions. As we move forward. I am now turning this over to oh, I did want to just say one last that we do have a Budget committee. We will bring the presidential budget Advisory Committee. We. I think we’re meeting in 2 weeks. For the 1st time this year this group will come into, and it will be the group that will be in the details of the number as we get into the process. This is the group from last year. We do need to make sure that we edit the students for participation. Next year we had some graduate. We have some returning, but note your representation for your various bodies. These are your advocates in the budget in the budget process over the next year.

And with that I’m turning it back over to. I’m trying to get to the Provost. Sorry I don’t have my script.

Good morning, everyone. I think everyone has seen this Venn diagram. President introduced it last year. These are 3 major foci of the university that really came out of the 2025 Inhumane Commission that had 9 major recommendations. If you will, you can still see that up on the website. And but very important, this is actually guiding a lot of the work that we’re all involved in so integrating research and teaching for tomorrow’s innovators growing and thriving, inclusive community of learners. And then this really specific one, but certainly part of our core DNA here at the University of Maine university health of our planet and confronting climate change very contemporary as well and interesting work that we’ve been doing a very long time. You know. We’re not jumping on the bandwagon. This is this is work that we’ve been doing for more than half a century.

And we do have the strategic re envisioning, guiding principles, if you will, which are, you know, guiding principles help us make decisions right that are aligned with our mission.

With our values, you know, with our overall vision. And so, as you can see. And the President mentioned this earlier, you know, we are the Land Grant University. We’re a research intensive university. These are part of our guiding principles to again integrate teaching and research. That’s if you look at the committees, the 13 working groups right now. And there’s adjacent projects that will be coming, you know, off of this work you’ll see a lot of integration, of teaching and research throughout. We have to be financially sustainable. Right? That’s a key. So we often get that question is budget exercise. No, it’s not just a budget exercise, but certainly the financial sustainability. Long term. Well, short term and long term is critical.

This is this is 4^th. The 4th point is important. We’re saying, this is one of our guiding principles. Yes, we are a residential community. We see ourselves being a residential community in the coming, you know, decades at the same time, if you remember the strategic Enrollment management recruitment retention, action plan that many in this room and online have been a part of. And it’s been really.  You know, worked at for the last couple of years. It’s focused on all learners, right? You see, very strong things like this that have come out lack their advantage focusing on all learners and robust online offerings as well. So we’re really trying to. Actually, I would say, double down on the Land Grant Mission to make sure that we get education to everyone in the State.

We’re foster supporting inclusive community course. And you saw last year, with the with Amanda glimmer. That was, you know, the faculty Senate, President Robert Dana, and myself kicked off that wonderful task force that that worked on student faculty and staff. Mental health and well-being task force that work that didn’t end up on a shelf. A lot of work has been moving forward in that space because it is definitely one of our guiding principles and hats off to Angela Felicia, who’s really been one of the great leaders on that.

And finally, as we talked about before. You know that we are a community that’s committed to transaction research, prioritizing and education and prioritizing responsible stewardship of our natural resources, part of our part of our heritage here at the University of Maine.

This is on the website. If you haven’t been to the President’s site on strategic envisioning. I really, there’s a lot of wonderful information there that you can really dive in. And we’ve kind of said this all along. This is, you know, May 9th to June 1st is that phase, one period that led to right. Now we’re in phase 2 and phase 2 is the 1.st One is reflection and revisioning. The second phase really is focused in on prioritization and assessment. This is going on through September here, and that funnel is all these ideas coming together, but like a tornado, and something’s gonna pop back up. But eventually the idea is that we come together as a community with the best thinking that we can to be, and that phase 3 as we’ll be entering here, will be a refining and executing phase. You just heard the President say, we will be kicking, you know. It’s going to start in October, and some may take, you know, longer a few months, perhaps, but this is the work, the hard work that we’re all committed to doing.

And I believe I turn this over to Sabrina. Thank you.

So hi, everybody and those online as well. I want to really take a minute to acknowledge the hard work that’s been going on by this group of folks here. Fellows, and what we’re referring to as team leads. So when we ended up with 13 of these themes that emerged from the really good ideas that came out of the retreat last spring, the Town Hall from cabinet and deans and directors, and so on. We had identified that there would be the 10 faculty and staff fellows, and then needed to bring in 3 extra folks who very kindly stepped in and are leading some of the groups on things like generative AI and student success and athletics that got added a little bit later. So I think actually, if I can, a round of applause for these folks and their hard work.

And then many of you, I’m sure, have seen these on the website or in other communications, but these are the themes that we’ve been really diving into. And I want to be really clear that that does not in any way mean that these are the only things that we think are important in this process, but they are ones. And I said this yesterday in a Senate meeting I do feel very strongly. These are ones that came through so loud and clear from the feedback that we were getting in those early stages. So I do think that we can all feel confident that there is a lot of really good information and potential ideas for change that can be brought out here.

I’m gonna ask James to come up and talk through a little bit, particularly with one specific way that you all can get involved in providing information. I just want to emphasize that this engagement is so critical to the process. And I think it’s extraordinary how many people we’ve already had that have stepped up to become involved in the SRE. And we’re not done.

Yeah. So we have opportunities throughout this month, and probably heading into October to be talking with other groups through the Senate, through student government, through the Umm Faculty Assembly, etc., and we are also still looking for your very specific ideas, suggestions, things that you think are worth further consideration. So, James, you want to talk a little bit about the online tool here.

Thank you, Sabrina. So, as the Provost noted, we would need to engage the thinking of the entire community on campus. We’ve been working on doing that through the activities that you see listed here. But one way that we can continue to do that and help is still needed. As the process is still ongoing to develop the assessment opportunities to understand the priorities and the ideas that exist in a community, we gotta collect information. So rather than going out and having a meeting with every single one of our faculty, staff and students are on campus, we devised an idea collection prototype tool.

So the SRE idea prototype tool is the QR code that you have here. It’s the only different QR code through the entire presentation. So snap it with your phone now. But if you don’t catch it right now, it’s also available on the Sre Project website as well as every communication. The President has been sending out to leverage the opportunity for our community to say, Hey, I have a great idea. We all have knowledge, experience, and passion for this institution. We want you to be able to communicate where those opportunities exist to re envision the University from your perspective.

So if you were to click that your QR code and go into there. You’ve seen ability to enter your idea or your ideas. Please feel free to send as many as you’d like. But it’s very simple criteria. Of what’s the name of this thing? What does it do? Who is it going to impact? What are the concerns that you have. What are the opportunities with it to to take that information and bring it back into our working groups, to be able to evaluate and understand what it means to re envision the university around, not just the thoughts that the 13 fellows have and 180 people in the working groups have them. But the entire community has, as we continue to engage in this process.

If anything looks sideways, you have any trouble understanding what the form is, send us an email, feel free to email Sabrina and say, couldn’t figure out the form. But here’s what I want you to think about. We can work that into the process and leverage the tools from there.

So with that, I’d like to hand off to the 1st of our fellows who has a chance to walk through the theme. There’s 13 of these themes. There’s only so many hours in the day. We have only so many events for the Town Hall. Here we identified 4. That kind of spread the gamut of what the themes are where the work is today. So with that, I’d like to hand off to Andy Pinkham to walk into the 1st theme around space allocation.

Thank you, James.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for having me. I’m happy to share with you the work that we have been conducting for the Space Allocation Project, and, as you can see on the board here, these are the working group members that I have been working with. And what is the charge for the space allocation that has been presented to me? Optimize space allocation with awareness to our carbon footprint reduce operational costs and enhance student experience, learning outcomes and research productivity while meeting our organizational needs.

And what I’m happy to share with is through the summer. Through the past few weeks I have been able to engage with our working groups from our working groups. I’ve had some wonderful feedback, thoughtful feedback from our staff and our faculty, and who we can identify for one-on-one meetings, and what data that we have available to us with regards to analyzing our space, and how the University of Maine, as well as University of Machias, are utilizing those spaces.

The topic of space is very broad and very encompassing whether it’s classrooms that we’re looking at the facilities, fields for farmlands and so forth. Office space.

And so we had a new charge brought for us when we tried to focus down to perform an opportunity assessment for both of the campuses and understand the gaps that are potentially.

Facing this system we would like to look at, what could we tear down if we need to reduce? But then also, what can we rebuild? If space is an a need as we grow, and I’m working with them. As far as I will be working with my working groups to rank these ideas and assess the positive, and the negatives to ensure that we capture all of the positives and negatives towards that from my working groups. I they thoughtfully identified, like I said, various departments, and this isn’t all inclusive. I’m sure there will be other areas of opportunities that I can have included within this.

But I have looked at the space and capital management where we’re looking at the buildings that we have on campus and their ratings, and how we can best utilize the buildings that are in better shape. I’ve also looked at events in hospitality when we face space and events on campus and energy and the utilization management, and what are the buildings costing us to remain online? So those buildings that are in need of demolish or gut renovations. How much is it the cost of keeping them online. And how much is the savings if we do take them offline?

And then looking at the design and the architect space management? And are we maximizing those buildings that are in better shape in the spaces and the opportunities that are available.

I’ve also worked with the registrar’s office, and in order to identify that we need to know. How. How are we utilizing those spaces, and how are they being scheduled? Are we in? Are we optimizing them?

Good news?

That’s where we’re asked for this particular theme on this SRE project, and I will go ahead and turn over.

Laura was. I think she’s

Thank you.

Good morning. I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about the work that this working group has put into the topic of optimizing our humane online offerings.

Our charge broaden our audience by optimizing structure and offerings.

But before we started into that charge, our working group wanted to focus in on understanding who are our online learners. So we started looking at the data that we have. And it’s we have thriving online programs degree programs with learners who are completing everything online. But more and more. We also have residential campus based learners who are using online courses to round out their schedule. Those needs for those residential learners need to be accounted for in any structure or offerings that we have, as well as those fully online degree seeking students. So we talked about the equity issues involved in our optimization, on our re envisioning of the University of Maine and all of our online programs getting to our charge.

We also were able to dig in and look at how other universities across the country are approaching this issue. And there’s such a variety of structures and formats and spin offs and different kinds of structures there that we determined that what we wanted to focus on as a group was quality, 1^st maintaining our identity meeting accreditation needs, of course, but also back to those guiding principles, meeting our learner needs. So in our investigation of different types of structures, we had Richard Roberts come in from humane online and give us a presentation on some of the data that he’s collected on how learners want to access and what learners are looking for as far as online programs and online degrees, we learned a lot. Some of it is as simple as learners wanting a really quick turnaround from the time they decide that maybe they want to explore a degree program to be able to start that program.

That’s a structure issue that we have started talking about.

We are also looking at different course timing what’s appropriate for different courses, and how we can offer potential shorter courses. Maybe if they’re appropriate and they still maintain that quality of instruction and quality for the learner. And, as Tanya said, we’re looking at pros and cons of these different administrative and faculty structures that we’re teasing out from this investigation the 3rd part of our charge well, the 3rd the 3rd bullet it’s the second part of our charge is also to investigate. Where are those opportunities? Where are those market growth places where we can be that leader? And we’re diving into that now as a team. But we’ve been given a lot of great information on market growth job growth area and also what students are interested in. So while we’re not making recommendations, we’ll be able to tease out and pull out some of our areas where we could potentially offer online programs that meet the needs of learners across Maine, but also beyond the beyond the boundaries of the State.

So next, Dr. Ellen Weinauer is going to come up and talk about the work of the working group where she is a member of. Thank you so much.

I am not Jessica Riccardier. I’m a member of the working group. The group focused on developing a learner focused. R1. Jessica can’t be with us today. So I’m representing the work of that group, both really from the perspective of a working group member. And what I’m going to try to do just in a few minutes. Here is provide a window into some of our group’s conversation about what it might mean to become or be an R1 institution that focuses on undergraduate learners.

So importantly, this idea challenges, I think, a truism, a truism that’s been around for a long time, and that we have not really fully challenged. I think in higher education that an institution is either research focused or teaching focused. So the idea is to challenge that bifurcation. A learner focused r. 1 university would intentionally leverage 91¸ŁŔű’s research profile to enhance in particular the undergraduate experience explicitly incorporating undergraduates into the University’s Research and Land Grant Mission and providing them with enhanced opportunities to engage in critical thinking and problem solving in applied context. Would our group believes, garner many benefits to students, to our student success and retention efforts. We know this, the literature tells us this to faculty and to the university at large.

So for our group, the question has been less. Should we try to become a learner? Focused? R1 and more, we’ve been asking, What does it mean to be a learner focused? R1 What does this look like? And how do we become such an institution?

The what does it mean? Question has generated a great deal of conversation from the group, from terminology to conceptual models.

As an English Ph.D. I’m particularly keen on this 1st point. For example, we have discussed the very definition of research, and expressed the importance of being fully inclusive and comprehensive in that definition. In short, we must recognize that research takes many forms from traditional lab and field research to humanity, scholarship, creative activity, community engagement, and so much more we’ve discussed whether, being a learner focused R1 means ensuring that all undergraduates engage in research, broadly defined in all courses, in some select courses or programs, in a developmental progression or in some other way.

And we’ve discussed what it means to center undergraduate learning in light of the new metrics for maintaining our one designation metrics that clearly prioritize Ph.D. production as we contemplate these and other questions. We have been looking at areas on campus where this work is already happening. For example, this is not an exhaustive list, RLEs and pathways to careers, the Honors college including honors, in brief, the center for undergraduate research, the 91¸ŁŔű Sea phase program. Among others.

What can we learn from these programs and their approach to undergraduate research learning. And how can we both deepen this work and extend it to other areas?

Finally, as the slide indicates a major topic of conversation has been around capacity and return on investment.

At whatever scale. This approach to undergraduate learning is costly.

We do believe that there are significant potential recruitment and retention benefits. And we’re working on gathering data from the RLEs and other areas about that.

But we also know that institutional and especially faculty capacity already stretched, would be stretched further. Under this initiative we are, by all accounts, a sort of an open university, readying students, all students for this kind of learning is challenging matters like workload and tenure and promotion standards would have to be recalibrated. Innovative ideas will require new investments or identifying new sources of funding.

So as we move into the next phase of the SRE, these are the kinds of issues that the working group will be focusing on.

And I think I’m now going to turn it over to Matthew Curtis.

Who’s the provost fellow for the working group focused on athletics.

Good morning, everybody. As Ellen alluded to, my name is Matt Curtis. I’m leading the SRE committee that is focused on the themes evolving around athletics. Behind me you can see the committee members that we’ve been working with and also our theme. And just to share that theme states as the only division one college athletic program in the State. We will optimize our investment facilities and strategic approach in ways that positively impact student success, equity, access and opportunity as well as the institution’s brand.

Just like all the other themes. That is a lot to come back. So, looking at Bullet Point one, how do we lift the University of Maine up and build off the recent success of 91¸ŁŔű athletics. You know we recognize that we have a great opportunity in front of us, with the recent success mentioned. And of course, the new facilities that are already online. We’re coming online shortly, thanks to the generous support of the Harold Alpha Foundation.

Our group has met several times and early on face the challenge of determining if this is a budget exercise, or if this is a higher level, strategic analysis. And like you’ve kind of heard it, it’s both not wanting to dismiss any ideas or proposals that could possibly impact our university. We began categorizing things and ideas into shorter term buckets and longer term approaches.

Meaning that these ideas in the shorter term buckets could be implemented more quickly, perhaps even FY26 would be placed in that shorter term bucket, as I mentioned, and ideas that are bigger in scope, and that take more time to implement, are placed in that longer term bucket category. The Provost alluded to. We have adjacent ideas that are stemming from these conversations. We’ve been able to generate a list of these items meaning ideas that could be implemented much quicker and don’t necessarily need to go through the formal SRE process. They could be approaches categories, ideas that an individual on campus or the appropriate department could take on and simply move forward and push forward and not have to necessarily stick to that sre process.

So now that we’ve received feedback from campus leadership, we’re taking a deeper dive into the research from some of these proposals to clearly understand what we’re talking about, and just be that directional force that gives campus leadership information that they need.

I know that’s pretty big. We’re very excited to see where these conversations going. We’re just trying to get into that data and research piece down. And like, I said, very excited to see that what the next step consists of. So now I think I’m ending up this spring. Thank you.

Back to me again. I do really want to thank the four folks who just came up to give kind of a window into what they’re doing. So when we were conceiving, you know, sort of the agenda for the Town Hall. I mean, we thought it was really important that you should all get sort of a glimpse into what these working groups are all about

One of the challenges there is that they are very much still in the midst of everything. So again, really appreciative that I contacted all these folks at the end of last week and said, I know you’re still in the middle of a work in progress. But can you somehow condense that into a single slide and present it to a large group of people next week, and they all stepped up, and I think, did that effectively.

And again, I want to emphasize that this is very fluid, and, as Kelly said earlier, like, there is no sort of plan in the background that these things are driving to. And I think you got a sense here as well, of the very different approaches that the groups are taking. And that’s intentional. We didn’t go into this thinking, like everyone, has to have exactly the same blueprint for how they are doing this work. And so there’s a lot of flexibility there.

I want to just briefly talk about kind of bringing to an end phase 2 which, as I alluded to earlier, is sort of scheduled to end at the end of September, although we realize that these phases are a little bit fluid in terms of timing, and then I’ll just talk a little bit about moving into Phase 3. And then we have plenty of time for Q&A, which is certainly where we wanted to focus a lot of attention.

So, as I mentioned earlier. Over the next few weeks we will be continuing to solicit feedback. Both kind of concrete ideas that you all think should be put into the mix to be considered, and then more generally feedback around these questions of what are positive and negative impacts of choices that we might make as an institution, and also what are criteria that folks feel would be important for decision makers to take into account, as they might be evaluating a very concrete idea or change or possibility. So that’s a lot of what we’ll be looking at. The working groups are certainly a part of that. And I really want to reiterate that I know that not just the 4 folks you heard from today, but all 13 people would be happy to hear from anybody with specific thoughts, specific feedback specific issues or criteria that you feel need to be considered. Just reach out. Everybody is on the website. You can find them. You can figure out which theme you’re interested in and send things directly to them. James and I, of course, are also happy to take that feedback.

By September 30th we’re hoping that most of the groups will be in a position where they’re delivering some kind of a summary document. Again, we are very aware that that might look different, depending on the theme, but something that is going to give us some of that sense of positive and negative impacts, and a kind of set of criteria for continuing to evaluate ideas around those themes that is being delivered, of course, to the President, members of Cabinet, etc. And as we move into Phase 3.

And Kelly alluded to this earlier. I mean, there, we’re really kind of making a transition to say, all right, out of all of this that came forward. What are some things that we really want to do? A deeper dive on, that we think we could have either more immediate or within sort of the next 2 to 3 years financial budgetary implications that we want to take more of a look at. This is where we’ll also be, I think, transitioning and bringing in folks like the Deans and directors, members of Cabinet who have specific areas of responsibility that begin to dovetail with these themes to say, ok, what does this really look like? If we were to drive down this path, so to speak. And so I think in October you’ll be hearing more about kind of you know what’s coming up to the top. As you know, things that we’re going to consider further, perhaps other opportunities to solicit more detailed feedback around certain ideas. But really, you know, kind of trying to refine a bit there.

I believe that is it, unless any of my colleagues have other points that we want to make? Or shall we just move to? QA. Is that okay? So, Amanda, what makes the most sense? Do you want to come up and share.

So we’ve got the QR code so people could still use that we also have a mic in the room. But maybe if some things have come online, we could start there and then. Okay, I’ll trade with you.

I think this this 1st question kind of leads directly to the process from here on out that Sabrina was just mentioning. But it was, Will the University executive leadership and the SRE team be directly involved in implementing the changes decided upon? Or will they simply task these changes to the departments and then check in periodically, I envision a wonderful plan, but struggle with trusting implementation and growth that will come to fruition across the board.

Well, I’ll start with this one looking at it here, too. Question about will sort of what happens when we have these ideas. And as Sabrina just really clearly explained what the groups are delivering at the end of the month will be. Think of them more like criteria, perhaps guidelines considerations to keep in mind, as some of these ideas are then really taken to the next level. You know it’s partly going to. What happens next will partly depend on what comes in at the end of September.

And, as you’ve heard, there are many different leadership groups that will have to be involved in this. The Cabinet represents the major departments of the University, and so they will be key. I do want to pick up on another question. Sorry that the University of Maine at Machias, of course, is a central part of all of this work, and is represented on the Cabinet by Dean Megan Walsh. So the ideas will come to Cabinet. They will come to the Dean’s group. They will come to the Research and institute university level directors. They will then, of course, be continued in discussion through those groups with those groups, and then priorities will make their way into departments and units at a variety of levels. So it’s our usual distributed decision making. But it will start with an analysis of what’s coming in.

And I’m going to add one thing that I think I’d like to introduce into the process, and apologies to all for a bit of a surprise here. But these ideas are outstanding, and some of them to be budget related are revenue generating ideas that will take some investment that might take some time, and some are savings or efficiency ideas, and we’ve used language about consolidation and about restructuring and so forth. I think those ideas are coming as well.

But part of what we need. To be sure, we have in hand in a clear way that has consensus behind. It is what I’ve been calling this set of visions. So if we could just go back to the slide, the Provost showed the slide. It’s a slide of guiding principles, or something sorry.

10 or 1110 or 11.

Think it might be interesting to propose an additional group or process to take a look at this list of 6 ideas and work together to see if they serve, serve as a basis for and span the entire set of visions. We might like to propose at this time. And then work on crafting language that moves them from being guidelines to actually being statements of what we will be. So imagine in 5 years. Somebody looks at this University, they say, oh, that’s the universe, that is me, premier Land Grant, Space Grant, Sea Grant, and so forth. I think there’s a bit of a distance between what is here not a lot, but some re-crafting, so that they come across as more powerful vision statements. So this is a starting set that we can work from. I think these have been oops.

These have been out and around now for some time. Those could be the possible. A piece of the starting set, and they intersect with the next slide. But would there be interest? And I’ll just ask in the room sort of rough show of hands. If we put together a group charged with, let’s see if we can get some articulation, at least an intermediate version of what we claim our visions of ourselves to be just with. You know you’re not volunteering now you’re just giving me a reading. You might be. You’re just giving me a reading of whether you think that’s a fruitful piece of this work as we go forward.

Just kind of a show of hands.

Okay, there’s enough for a group. Good. I’m just kidding. I think, team we maybe want to try to do that. So that that’s happening in parallel. And all of this has to remain fluid. None of this suddenly gets stamped as complete. So, anyway, thank you.

Great, thank you, Joe, and I will just say that this came up in my SRE working group. And we have started working on our own visions regarding the 3 circles, and I know there are some from the Budget Advisory Committee as well. So maybe this could all intersect. I’m just going to reach to a question that was put into the

Online chat from the zoom. Because I’ve heard this from a bunch of faculty as well as faculty. Senate President, it says, can you please assure faculty that any new initiatives and changes will take into considerations the impact on faculty workload mental health and include close collaboration with AFM. As the contract is renegotiated.

So as each of the provost fellows talked about. They’re looking at the positive and negative impacts of any decisions. I think that is really key to answering that question. So we’re really asking the working groups to help us understand how both faculty and staff will respond to potential ideas as they might be implemented so that can be used as a decision making criteria. And those would absolutely be impacted on faculty well-being impact on staff well-being impact on workloads. So I think that’s really important for us to consider in the process. And it’s built into the way that the working groups are designed in terms of the ATM and the bargaining contract. Of course, any decision-making process will need to follow our faculty Senate, our bylaws, how we make decisions as well as what’s embedded in all of our bargaining unit contracts.

Of which we have of multiple. So yes, that is, that will be built into the process. We don’t have a specific plan for those yet, because no recommendations at this point are being vetted for decision making. But we are aware that as we move forward into specific ideas in phase 3. That we’ll need to be very, very mindful and considerate, and consider those impacts.

Should we pause and see if there’s any questions in the room.

I’ll do my best. So I I guess my question is the timeline of phase 3 October till February, and I believe that I recall from previous conversations, Kelly, that’s usually time we start submitting the budget for the next cycle. So off the phase. 3 implementation. Or will you be keeping that in mind. Will you be looking at things that could really assist with helping develop that and plan the budget looking for again, as you said revenue growth, but also other efficiencies.

I think that’s my question.

I’m gonna actually borrow a term from Matt Curtis as he described it. So I think the answer is yes. So that we have a budget that we have to submit. That’s a very, that’s a very discrete activity with a very specific timeline, and the 1st submission of that is in February. But this is bigger than one year cycle. It’s a multiyear cycle. So yes, we do want to have some concrete ideas for both revenue generation. Short term ideas. That can be built into FY26.

But, more importantly, I think we want to build it into the multiyear. Look so as we look out. FY26-27. Over the next 5 years. How do we layer in these ideas over time. There may be 15 really great ideas, but I’m going to go back to the previous question. We only have so many people. We only have so much energy, so much capacity, so much time to be able to implement new ideas. So we need to layer them on over a period of time, or there may be opportunities for reduction consolidation. And we also want to be mindful of the impact that that has. So it’s also unwinding processes, unwinding ways that we do things unwinding work that’s happening so that we can do it differently. That also takes time. So yes, there is a very concrete FY25.  Some of these will be built at our FY26. Some of these will be built into it. But we’ll also layer it on over time.

And I and I think just for each idea, we’ll need to build a very concrete implementation plan with ownership accountabilities and the ability to track and measure are we getting the successes out of it that we anticipate from it? Because we may have a great idea, and we think it’s great part way through the implementation. We may not realize we’re not getting that benefit, and we should stop. We should fail fast and let it go away.

Yes.

Thank you, Kelly?

There is a question on here about particular academic programs already kind of being in part of one of their own re envisioning processes do from 5 year reviews, etc. And so the question is, should they pause that and wait until the results of the SRE come out, or should they organ.

So that’s a great question.

The usual plan that you do for acting programming should continue. You know, we work on. We’re working on one proposal right now. That’s been 3 years in the making. Right? And some, you know, go more quickly than that. Certainly, if you are thinking, you know, interdisciplinary in a way, on some of your activating programs. That’s great. You should continue working toward those. And you know, these processes are done in parallel.

And so we definitely don’t want to slow down the innovation of academic programming. Thanks.

Alright. Is there any more in the room?

Yeah.

Yeah. I was just wondering if, we could speak to the role of graduate education in the SRE, specifically sort of noting that there wasn’t a specific theme associated with graduate education per se.

Okay? Well, so on one hand, actually, to some of the thematic areas of SRE, you know, the graduate education essentially comes in, you know.

But, on the other hand. You know, there will also be some conversation going on

university wide at different levels, different stakeholders, in other words, asking questions like, you know, what is the future of graduate education, you know, and just in general, I mean the way things are happening in this world in the nation, and then map that into what’s going on at the University of Maine, and how we can essentially develop a good strategic plan to kind of meet those kind of goals and objectives, you know. But under that big umbrella I would also say, you know, there are sort of sub areas of real interest, you know, for example, looking at but you know, I mean, we have master level programs. We have doctor level programs. All of them are important like at the master level of you know, from a strategic point of view the provisional degree programs. You know, you know, are very important, at least 2 key reasons for them. One 1st and foremost those are the kind of programs that the State of Maine has a lot of needs for and even beyond the state of main, you know. So that’s an important part of our mission to me.

But at the same time, oh, by the way, those are the programs that generally driven, you know, they’re not like research oriented master’s programs that actually, we have to generally provide assistanceships and things of that nature, you know.

But of course, then, at the doctoral level, you know, I don’t have to convince you at this point as an all one university, you know. I mean, it’s extremely important that we further grow our doctoral programs.

Not only in terms of number of students coming in and graduating every year. But also look at opportunities, you know, I mean going back to saying the future of graduate education. What kind of programs you need to have at the doctoral level, looking at the existing ones? If some of them needs to be sort of you know, a little bit changed, or a new track added to an existing one or not, but also at the same time looking at maybe development of some new programs, particularly in some interdisciplinary areas where you can really then address some brand challenges are happening in this world. So anyway, that that’s in a nutshell. I don’t know if I answer your question, but more or less, that’s where we are. Thank you.

I can also add in my group, which is Group 2. We have been coming up with our own values, as we see, for teaching, learning, and engaging with the community, and one of those that was brought up in our group is making sure that we maintain a distinct graduate education here at the University of Maine, and it doesn’t just get shunted into a part of the undergraduate education in terms of, you know, co-counting 411 classes for graduate degrees and things like that. So there are other groups that are thinking about it as well.

Okay, there’s a question online about the SRE value 5 and supporting an inclusive community. But the fact that there is not a specific SRE group focused on a supportive and inclusive community. I don’t know who would like to address that

I will address that to you. Sure

little super fees that would help.

No?

Oh, it’s you! You see it in 2 places. You see it here. You see it here again.

And now we see our themes, and I think what we are coming to here is

there’s been a question about Machias. There’s just now been a question about graduate education. There has been a question about where do we explicitly see our focus on inclusion to me. What that is suggesting is that we need to be sure to pull to the forefront some cross cutting themes that every group is charged to be sure to attend to and in my view, anything in the Dei inclusion, social justice category has to be everybody’s business. And so one approach will be to say, let’s take that through the groups and through the themes. But Sabrina can comment in more detail because she’s tracking more closely. I think that’s helpful. So I mean absolutely. There is an understanding. I think, that everything that was on this list, you know.

Flows through all of them. But I would also say, maybe more specifically. And I’m not going to get into the weeds on some of the documentation that we’ve been given to groups to work with. But we have a number of documents that we’ve given to working groups to help them with building out these kind of criteria and rubrics and evaluative strategies, and on all of those. There are sections that speak to inclusivity impact on students impact on community things like that. So I do think that every one of these themes that the working group is attending to that, as you know, sort of a subsection, if you will, of the things that they’re looking at in figuring out those positive and negative impacts, figuring out where we would have to, you know, be attentive to in developing an idea further. So I can we do better. Yes, we can always do better. Are we doing something in each theme? Yes, I honestly think we are doing that as well. So, but we are also very open to more specific suggestions. If there are places where folks would like to see real attention to that issue and feel like it’s not being clearly reflected in a public way. Let us know, and we’ll pass that along to working groups and get them to really think in that direction any questions in the room.

I think it’s, I think. Oh, sorry.

Sabrina. I think I think you just addressed it. As you were talking about use the word rubric. And so I think, as these ideas come forward from each of the subgroups that are working on the SRE, that at least these guiding principles are attached to a rubric for evaluating those ideas as they come forward, and other guiding principles that we have at the university that may not necessarily be included on this list, but are really important to us.

That’s my observation. Yeah.

Any other questions there.

Yeah, which one online.

The question is: how is athletics going to reduce their deficit, which is quite a significant portion of human structural one, while maintaining equity for men’s and women’s activities? Are they able to increase revenues to cover the costs of operations?

So I’m going to start with. First of all, there was an assumption there that they have a significant deficit. I think that’s something that we haven’t looked at entirely, and we also have to think about all funds. So athletics is more than E&G. They’re also bringing in significant donor related funds for capital improvement on campus that are enhancing the overall campus. So I think we need to talk about what is. What is the definition? We also have to think about that all of our student athletes are student athletes, and that there is an E&G contribution that is necessary and important to support those students as we support all of our students.

So the question so there’s a lot to unpack in that. I also want to call out that they exceeded their budget by over a million dollars this last year. So the new athletic director has brought many, many revenue, enhancing opportunities to the institution through external partnerships as well as through ticket sales and frankly winning teams, and specifically, hockey has not

Hurt the bottom line for athletics in any way. So I think part of the charge of the Athletics group is to continue. How do they play off of that momentum. How do they leverage that? How do we also consider that outside contribution in improving our facilities, reducing our deferred maintenance, enhancing our energy and other infrastructure on campus through some of the projects.

Are doing as well as other pathways, connections, infrastructure, landscape, beautification of our campus that is helping us to attract and retain students, faculty and staff here. So I think there’s a lot of ways to look at athletics that are beyond just what may be the cost benefit of those specific programs, and they are diving into some of that. What it means to have

Athletic programs at the University of Maine as a part of this address, the equity for men’s and women’s sports, equity for men’s and women’s sports. Absolutely. I’m going to talk about hockey to start with what is incredibly exciting to see about the the Harold Alfond donation and the Current Master Plan for athletics is it’s all about equity of our physical facilities.

As well as coaching salaries and a number of coaches that we have in our areas. So men’s and women’s hockey will have a not just equitable, but equal one for one facilities in terms of office spaces in terms of practice, spaces in terms of locker rooms.

They have also increased the staffing. You’ll see that many of the facilities that have been brought on like 1st have been about women’s sports. They’ve been about field hockey. They’ve been about women’s soccer, which is currently underway and softball. So a lot of emphasis is being put on there, and additional staffing. Additional coaching staff are Jude Kelly, our athletic director, has been bringing on coaching staff to supplement and make sure that there’s equity and balance in those teams.

Well there is a question on here about how classified employees are being incorporated into this work and conversation. So far, there’s multiple bargain bargaining units. We’ve looked to see that we have representation from each on the Budget Advisory Committee on the Space Advisory Committee, as well as seeking out to bring staff in on the working groups. If looking at the list. If there are recommendations of additional or adding people every week to these working groups. It’s not a static list. It’s an ongoing process.

We’re also building an engagement plan for the months of October and November to bring out more information to campus, so would welcome ideas for additional engagement. If if there’s an individual I can’t see the names, because I can’t see that with my glasses. Who but if you yourself would like to be included in the process if you would like to recommend specific representation for.

Or more than one of the groups. Please let us know we would be thrilled to further engage our all members of all of our bargaining units in the in the process.

Yeah, please.

Okay.

I also want to add, because the issue of capacity and workload, and so on, has come up a few times, and we are all stretched. We truly get that.

I know we’ve made a lot of invitations that might sound like what we’re saying is like, Oh, can you give us another? You know, 10 HA month of your time to join a working group.

1st of all, that’s probably not the commitment you’re looking at. But also, I really, truly want to say that any of us involved in this process, and I really do think I mean any, probably even including the President, would welcome like a 15 min conversation, a half an hour, a cup of coffee, whatever like, if all you want to do is to be able to say I have something I want to get out in front of this group. I don’t want to join a working group. I don’t want to fill in a form I don’t want. I can’t do one more thing like just reach out to one of us, one of the provost fellows whatever, and get some time with us, and we are happy to just take feedback that way as well not to discount the other option, but I get it. But sometimes that seems like a lot great. Thank you, to Kelly and Serena. Alright. So I’m going to actually, is there any other in the room? I’m sorry. I’m focusing online. That’s where my intention was. Okay.

Okay. As a teacher, you’re supposed to pause for an awkward like minute.

I was trying to do that. Okay, so this question says, our one is focused on doctoral programs. But at the same time. So we’re trying to shift funding from masters to doctoral programs. And they’d like to hear more because the master’s degrees can be direct pipelines for doctoral programs. And I’ll actually add something to that. Often. Are a part of programs that are working directly with State and Federal agencies.

Don’t start your cheek.

Okay? Sure. So everything is true that you mentioned but so essentially, you know, we are still supporting master degree programs. Students who are in research-oriented master programs, you know, and at the same time, you know, we are trying to leverage internal funds, you know, which are limited, you know, with external funds.

And at the same time there are all these essentially needs that we have, you know. I mean, if you want to remain our one, we also have to grow. I mean, where we are. With respect to the classification, expectations, and numbers we need to have. We have to grow or not grow sooner numbers, you know. So then, how one of 9 is like a balancing act, you know.

Support as many as possible, master students with assistantship, support, and all of that internally, at the same time meet the needs and objectives at a doctoral level support.

Also. Wherever we have opportunities, we. We work with our colleagues across campus and remind them that, by the way, for example, there’s the office of research development with staff members there, please go there. We have expertise to help you out as a faculty member and help your students out graduate students out to kind of pursue all sorts of great opportunities nationwide, not just like NSF Fellowships, which, of course, they’re great fellowships and increasing number of our students are pursuing that, but also fellowships from some other Federal agencies, as well as also believe it or not. There are hundreds and hundreds of private foundations, you know, where, as part of their mission and goals and objectives. You know, they want to fund students and also sometimes fund students in specific areas. So anyway, we are trying to do the best we can to kind of meet all of those risks.

I think that was a great answer, Cody. I’m just going to add one other thing, which is, as we pursue both corporate sector partnership, other kinds of engagement, a number of our actual current corporate partners and business partners, and the State have a very big vested interest in 91¸ŁŔű’s production of doctoral students, because that’s where they come from to work in those companies, in those State agencies from Maine largely coming from us. So we are also stepping up our efforts to make those partnerships more robust and more mutually beneficial, because there are some funds that we can be accessing to be sure that we’re supporting doctoral students who may not go into academia, but who may actually go into other applied kinds of fields. So all of that is happening, and we probably can start to give more regular updates in addition, as the only research university in the University of Maine System. We’ve been making the case over the past several weeks for some of the distinctions that happen for a research university, and some of the additional kinds of expenses. And within that, of course, comes the production of doctoral students. So great question. And we’re really looking at it from multiple dimensions.

We have a question in the back. Can you wait till we get the microphone? Sorry.

Thank you for the wonderful process and inclusive process, and so much engagement throughout campus going back to a doctoral piece and the registered piece. One of the biggest complaints I hear from rescuers is we don’t pay enough. And they can’t live on the on salaries that that they live in. And the health insurance plan is a. It also produced quite a bit of movements.

So I know. The President talked about going out raising some more money from foundations and industry and others, and that would be some of some of the ideas cross cutting ideas. If he wishes, how do we make it more feasible for students to come to humane and be able to live on the, on the graduate students, so salaries and so forth to attract more students.

If I’m guessing his bargaining is still happening that there’s not a lot that can be said about that at this particular moment.

I’ve heard this question a lot, so I’m glad someone brought it up. What role will the Ums system play in the implementation of our SRE initiatives? For example, when we propose new or existing online programs? Will we have to consider what other UMS schools are offering. That might limit what we can do.

Or, John.

So right now, we’re the only university in the system doing anything like this effort I’m speaking to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees on it on Sunday, and one of the points I intend to make. There is. We are a research university. We’re the r 1. We’re the lance and space grant university. And so when you take as a total our needs and our directions, and so forth. We are distinctive in that way. And so, you know, it’s a very detailed question about how the Caoc works and how approvals and programs work and so forth. But

I’ve been laying as much groundwork along with my colleagues with system leaders that this effort is critical to the health of the University of Maine, and I’m making that case. And so I think, as we. If we run into other kinds of roadblocks or problems. Then we will take those as they come. But I I think we’re doing what we need to do now to make it clear that the health of this university is central to this whole system.

John’s much more in tune with the particulars of how these approvals work, but anything to add.

So there was, there was a follow up online about, you know, the possibility of other campuses right to veto new online programs and developments. So there’s not an outright veto. So there is an Apl process. Many of you in this room and online have involved in trying to get new academic programs approved through whether it’s online or whether it’s an in person, a major.

And you know the easiest ones are like certificates. They go to the caos, and that’s pretty much it but beyond that they do go. You know, if the Ceos recommend, and we come together as provost across the 7. Well, 6 universities, and we agree before it has to go back to the governance counsel to have that looked at as an example.

And right now, FTC doesn’t even meet in the summer. And so that kind of slows down a process. You know, we can’t move forward on certain programs and it. And but all this is always constantly being worked on. Just St. John is working on that to try to see if we can’t streamline those type of things. But every time a major comes up and gets on the CEO agenda week before the meeting.

I look at that immediately, and then I go to the Deans. You know at our university that that proposal from the university is most closely aligned, and say, Can you tell me, is there is there any issues here, you know, etc.? And then, if there’s really big issues, I try to call that provost and say before that meeting? Say, Hey, can we?

Can we actually think about how we would be able to move this together? There hasn’t been an academic program since I’ve been here for over 4 years. Now, going to my 5th year that we have to be collaborative across the system, you know. Certainly we have specific areas that others don’t have. Those are more straightforward. Other programs. You know, we have a board of trustees as looking very closely at this, and we have to show that we have reached out and we’re collaborative, and that we’re not going to be both ways, that that, you know, we’re not being negatively impacted, and vice versa. And you know, how can we look for synergies where, where possible?

And and so I think it’s about right now about a fair process it can be. It certainly doesn’t leave us any of the 7 universities to be nimble, and we all know this. I was talking to the Provost at Albany, who, you, many of you know, killed him, and you know they have over 70 in the Suny system, and they can’t. They actually have to negotiate across all 70. So I actually felt a lot better. But that does give you, you know it. It can be a little clunky, but at the same time. That is the process, and it’s meant to be as fair as possible.

I will just add to that, though, like as provost fellows and working groups. We were all told to not put limitations on our ideas based on what’s happening already in the system. Obviously those negotiations and conversations would have to happen afterwards. But I think, even as you’re thinking of ideas as our community members submit them, it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the rest of the system because we can’t dream big if we’re confounded by what’s already existing.

Okay, there were just a couple of smaller process based questions that I don’t want to ignore. So one of them was, is there a process or repository for any surveys going out? I’m assuming that means the tools that are posted on the SRE website, etc., and then will the slides from today be posted on the website as well?

Yes, to both. Well, there hasn’t really been any like there haven’t been surveys or anything to date, I’m sure if we did do something like that. Yes, we put it on the website. So if you can repeat that if there’s a repository, I think it’s if we, if we submit ideas via like the tool, are they going to be recorded so. Yes, right now that is not public, but we could certainly have a conversation about whether or it should be. Yes, so there is a repository. However, it is not public at the moment. And then what was the second process, please?

So there, I want to be really clear about transparency, and how transparent we can be. So we also, we don’t want to inhibit people’s creativity and limiting ideas. So we don’t want to publish anything that might identify an individual who wants to give an idea. So that that’s something that’s really important. Another part of it is, some of these ideas may impact people.

And they may not go anywhere, so we also don’t want to create unnecessary fear or concern. So someone may we want to. And but it may turn into something else that has less of an impact on people. So we’re not going to publish a list of every single idea in the way that it comes through because they may get thrown out. They may be evaluated and turned into something else.

We will be transparent about the criteria that we’re using. That’s why we’re really asking the groups to focus on that to help us inform the way we’re transparent about decisions. Once we get to that phase, we will engage the community in the process.

But we’re not going to put a specific list out there because it it could be very harmful in a way, institutionally, that that that may not be helpful for the outcomes of the strategic re-envisioning process. I don’t know, President, if you want to add anything to that.

Are there any last questions in the room?

That and I think Sabrina or James said it, but that QR. Code and the link that leads you with the Google Poll is going to remain open. And so if you want to continue to submit questions and ideas, please do so.

So just in conclusion, thank you to all of you here in the room online, those who will be submitting questions going forward. I want to emphasize something that Sabrina said. We’re trying to make a process that’s accessible. Actually, according to all of your different needs and time frames and capabilities and in terms of capacity. So this point about it’s a 15 min phone call. It’s a quick cup of coffee. I really would like to emphasize that people are listening. This is the time to make your ideas heard, and if you have an idea that you think is especially charged or controversial, maybe that’s the best way to do it.

Is it a conversation with somebody to talk through how it might fit. So with that, I would like to thank everyone. We will do these quite regularly. We’ll keep the website updated. I’ll keep messages coming. We’ll have office hours. And as this process moves into the next phases, we’ll need to talk again about what we’re learning and where we’re headed. So thank you all for coming and have a great day.

Over the past two weeks, the SRE working groups have presented their initial findings around the themes to cabinet members, deans, and directors of research centers and institutes. These conversations have generated valuable insights and questions that will guide our efforts over the next month. 

The work of phase two, “Prioritizing and Assessing,” will be ongoing through September. During this time, some working groups will evaluate the positive and negative impacts of specific actions associated with their themes. Others will be focused on identifying criteria for assessing potential changes. The provost’s fellows and working groups are not making decisions or providing recommendations for what specific changes should be made; they are providing analysis of and developing assessment strategies for potential scenarios that will inform the work of decision-makers during phase three of the SRE process. 

We also are embarking on extracting candidate “visions” for tomorrow’s University of Maine that are emerging from the themes and potential actions under consideration. We will offer examples at next week’s town hall meeting, where you will also have the opportunity to provide feedback on decision criteria for some of the SRE themes. The town hall will be held on Thursday, September 12 from 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. in hybrid form: in-person at the Bangor Room in the Memorial Union and via .

September will be a significant time for members of the community to contribute specific, actionable ideas aligned with the SRE themes that could benefit the university in the short and long term. We encourage you to share your ideas using the online Idea Prototype Tool. As we progress, we will continue to engage with the community to evaluate the potential impacts of these proposals.

It is important to understand that the SRE process will lead to structural changes and new initiatives at 91¸ŁŔű that are necessary to progress toward our future visions of the university. Phase three will focus both on making difficult decisions that are necessary for the institution’s financial sustainability and launching new initiatives, doing all of this in the strategic pursuit of the university we aspire to become. We aim to make these decisions as informed as possible, drawing on the themes and criteria developed by our campus community. 

We have also established “Guiding Principles” that will inform the work of this process. 

Please join us at the town hall on September 12. Your participation and ideas are greatly appreciated during this process. 

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy
President

As we move closer to the start of the fall semester, the Strategic Re-envisioning (SRE) initiative continues. Working groups led by Provost’s Fellows and team leads have been meeting to discuss project themes and analyze opportunities presented by each proposed theme. The groups are reviewing relevant data, benchmarking against peer institutions, and soliciting feedback from members of our community to understand the benefits and risks of potential actions suggested by each theme. 

Response to the flash survey on July 29 about integrating teaching and research indicated strong support for developing a university-wide undergraduate major in climate change, with related stackable credentials, and plans for Maine’s climate resiliency. I’m pleased to see that our community is ready to engage in new ways to address our most pressing global concerns and I’m hopeful we’ll see the same willingness to engage over the next month with the broader re-envisioning process. 

Faculty Senate President Amanda Klemmer and I will be hosting a town hall for the 91¸ŁŔű and 91¸ŁŔű Machias campus communities on Thursday, Sept. 12. The town hall represents an opportunity to hear more about the ongoing SRE work and offer feedback and suggestions. An invitation and Zoom link will be shared soon. 

The prioritizing and assessing phase of the project continues through September and members of the SRE leadership team will be engaging with groups, such as Faculty Senate, graduate and undergraduate student governments, and standing committees of the university throughout the month. If your group would like to meet with SRE co-chairs, project directors or Provost’s Fellows and team leads, please contact Sabrina DeTurk at sabrina.deturk@maine.edu. 

You are also invited to contribute individual ideas via the online Idea Prototype Tool. Thank you to those who have already submitted ideas. 

And a quick final note: if you don’t regularly check the , take a look. The data are encouraging—91¸ŁŔű’s undergraduate FTE enrollment, compared to this time last year, is up 2.3%. At both 91¸ŁŔű and UMM projected student credit hours are up over last year as well.   

Sincerely,

Joan Ferrini-Mundy
President