Identity crisis: Changing demographics confront UMF with difficult decisions

Gage Varian
Contributing Writer

At the beginning of 2022, the UMaine system opted to put significant budget cuts in place. This was the cause for the elimination of a large portion of the humanities department at UMF. Currently, faculty are at a pivotal moment. As UMF struggles with budgetary issues, the faculty ask themselves “who are we?” The answer to this question will have considerable implications for the future of UMF, determining what the campus will look like.

“Studying the profile of our institution, UMF looks a lot like Orono. The only difference is Orono grants PhDs. Most of the other campuses have fewer terminal degrees. In my opinion, we are going to have to shift to an institution with a more nimble faculty,” UMF Professor Dr. John Messier said.

The rationale for such a structure was stated by Scott Erb: “Most universities only give Professorships to people with Ph.D.s. Universities are traditionally structured with positions having tenure after fulfilling a number of requirements. This is to protect academic freedom, and also important in recruiting faculty members (good people are less likely to choose to work at a place without tenure). UMF has small classes as part of its role to provide quality personalized education. Students may not have the variety of options that large research-oriented universities have, but they'll have more attention and smaller class sizes to hopefully enhance learning.”

The comparison to UMO turned into a contrast opposed to most other colleges. Professor Messier made reference to another college in the region, The University of Southern New Hampshire (USNH). Unlike UMF, USNH is a very large institution with over 200,000 students.

“A terminal degree [is the] highest possible education in the field. This is different from what we see in a lot of schools. The University of Southern New Hampshire is a contrast to the model of UMF. Often you have people with master’s degrees teaching single courses working at four different institutions.”

UMF students and faculty have expressed angst over a very notable change that has already happened that gave UMF a unique identity: assimilation to the UMaine System’s three credit system.

“For years UMF has adopted a model of public liberal arts. Liberal arts colleges tend to follow that model. A part of the mission of UMF is to provide a similar style of education you can get at an Ivy League school at an affordable rate. UMF bounced back and forth from three to four credits. The past shift to four was an investment. Around 16 - 17 tenure-line professors were brought in at just this time. Fewer classes allowed you to dive deeper into a class, we increased the stature of the professors to do this,” Professor Messier said.

When asked about the driving force for such changes, Professor Messier cited two sources: the tight competition amongst so many state schools in such a small area and a declining population of 18 - 24-year-olds and difficulty in retaining that same population. Similar can be said for private colleges.

“This is a very difficult problem to address. I am not from around here[, I] lived in Massachusetts and other parts of the east coast. Coming up here, I was astounded upon learning about the sheer amount of colleges private and public in Maine given our population of 1.4 million.” As a result, UMF is shifting its recruiting strategy by looking for students who have unfinished degrees.

When asked about the future of UMF, Professor Messier gave an insightful answer touching on multiple points. He believes significant changes have yet to come:

“I don’t think this is sustainable. The faults are showing, we are shifting back to three credits. From many of the faculty I have talked to, we arrived kicking and screaming into it. This change back is a way to hopefully shore up most of our finances. We have raised the caps in our classes, and the campus doesn’t believe the small class sizes are sustainable.”

Professor Messier expressed concern over the unchanging nature of UMF, having remained very constant in its structure for over 15 years:

“We are not in a death spiral but it is a concern when trying to reinvent ourselves…we need to make sure we meet the needs of our students and Maine taxpayers.”