AUGUSTA, Maine - A week after Gov. Paul LePage called for his resignation, long-time Maine Community College System President John Fitzsimmons has announced that he will step down.
LePage, who clashed with Fitzsimmons over credit transfers and other issues, said the system's board of trustees would feel his wrath if they failed to remove the president. Fitzsimmon's decision comes despite the expressed support of the trustees.
John Fitzsimmons first offered to step down Tuesday, but the system's board refused to accept his resignation. A day later, the board relented, announcing that Fitzsimmons would leave as soon as an acting president is in place.
The long-time president says he didn't want to put Maine's community colleges at risk of further funding cuts.
"The governor flat funded the community colleges, while he increased the other higher eds," Fitzsimmons says. "He was at several public forums, talking about additional punishment to the community colleges, as long as I was president."
To stay on, says Fitzsimmons, would be to risk hurting the system's 18,000 students and 900 employees. "You can't spend 25 years with something you love to see it being hurt, at a time when funding is one of the major issues you're facing," he says.
Fitzsimmons has led the Maine Community College System since 1990. The system has experienced a surge in growth since 2003, when its seven technical schools were recast as community colleges. Enrollment has jumped by more than 80 percent. Campuses have expanded their facilities and offerings. And the system has played a key role in training, and re-training, people to meet Maine's changing workforce needs.
"John Fitzsimmons is a remarkable guy," says Board Chair Robert Clark.
Clark says Fitzsimmons deserves a lot of credit for keeping the community colleges financially viable, despite recent flat funding by the state. He notes that Fitzsimmons launched the Foundation for Maine's Community Colleges, which raised $26 million in two years.
But Clark says Fitzsimmons became convinced that staying on would put the system's financial future at risk. "In the legislative arena, with President Fitzsimmons, it would be hard, I would assume, to appear before legislative committees with the cloud hanging over," Clark says.
In calling for Fitzsimmons to resign, LePage faulted the president for taking too long to set up a credit transfer program. The governor was also angered that the system backed away from another initiative that allowed high school kids to earn community college credits, before graduating. Fitzsimmons says campuses plan to begin offering the so-called Bridge Year program again.
In a statement, the governor praised Fitzsimmons' tenure, but also called the system an antiquated one that needed an infusion of innovation, creativity and competitiveness.
"I'm surprised. It happened really quickly," says state Sen. Rebecca Millett, a Cape Elizabeth Democrat who serves on the Legislature's Education Committee. Millett says she hopes Fitzsimmons' departure won't disrupt important, ongoing work on the system's seven campuses.
"There's a lot of initiatives that have been put into place around college completion in the community college," she says. "So I'm just hopeful that that continues and gets built on."
The system's board is expected to announce an interim president at its meeting on Jan. 28.