EDITOR'S NOTE: Moments after this story aired, the University of Maine System board of trustees voted to eliminate the University of Southern Maine's bachelor of arts program in French and its master's program in Applied Medical Sciences.
The University of Maine System board of trustees is meeting in Portland this afternoon to vote on a proposal to eliminate two academic programs at the University of Southern Maine, as part of a plan to close a projected $16 million budget shortfall next year. Students, faculty, alumni and others packed a campus hall shortly after 1 o'clock, many of them to urge the trustees not to approve the program cuts.
The programs in question are the bachelor of arts in French, and a master's program in Applied Medical Sciences. There is widespread opposition to cutting both of them, but it was the proposal to eliminate the language major that got the most visible reaction.
"I'm a second-year French major and I'm fighting for my education," said Daniel Bahun. Before the board meeting got underway, Bahun stood outside the venue holding up a sign written in French - one of many homemade placards on display Friday afternoon - urging the UMaine System board of trustees not to get rid of the full-time language course.
"It's part of Maine's heritage," he said. "We have French culture all around us, especially in Portland. If they cut the program, they're cutting the cultural aspect of many people's lives here."
"We believe that this course of action is the best available alternative for the university, its students and community it serves," University of Southern Maine President David Flanagan told the board, "because it will preserve the greatest number of majors and courses at the cost over the longest term."
Flanagan described the proposed program eliminations - which were announced less than three weeks ago - as the least painful of a number of painful options. "This combination of eliminations, along with other productivity and re-organization measures, is the least negative of all the possible alternatives for addressing the reality of the $16 million deficit for fiscal year 2016," he said.
The administration says the programs are financially unsustainable, amid declining enrollment numbers and shrinking revenue. The Applied Medical Science Program, for example, costs the university nearly $1 million a year to run, and graduates fewer than five students a year. The French course also produces fewer than five graduates and runs at a deficit.
USM leadership says cutting the two programs will help remove $6 million from that projected budget shortfall. The board, however, heard one public comment after another attacking the proposal. Law student James Fazuko is a USM alumnus.
"I am struck by the irony that you wish nothing more than to create a metropolitan university and ignore the entire meaning behind what a metropolis is," Fazuko said. "A metropolis is a mother city, it is defined by its populace and diversity, and your very first move to create a diverse city is to eliminate foreign languages."
Critics also say the cutbacks will cost the university money. They say the system's assertions about how much money these programs are losing do not tell the whole story. For example, the nearly $20 million in grant money that the Applied Medical Sciences program has received over the last seven years is not taken into account, while the proposal to scrap French uses what critics call "highly questionable accounting methods" and fails to recognize that in the last fiscal year the program actually generated a surplus - albeit a small one - of about $12,000.
The university administration insists both program cuts are a necessary evil: the best way to make USM more streamlined, and more productive during the lean times that lie ahead.
