The University of Southern Maine Faculty Senate has voted no confidence in the leadership of UMaine system chancellor Dannel Malloy.
The vote marks the second no-confidence vote this week against Malloy, after the faculty senate at the University of Maine at Augusta challenged his handling of a presidential search, and called for a new search.
USM Faculty Senate Chair Shelton Waldrep said that situation, along with the recent layoffs of nine faculty members at the University of Maine at Farmington, were a few of the reasons behind Friday's vote at his school.
"We really got to a situation with the UMA search, and the UMF retrenchments, where we had to say something," Waldrep said.
But Waldrep said tension has been building at USM as well. The Faculty Senate passed a resolution last fall calling on the system to keep outgoing president Glenn Cummings, and some have concerns about recent efforts to shift more authority away from individual campuses and into the hands of the chancellor's office.
"So, we're very concerned by not just the treatment of faculty, but the ways in which the system is making it very difficult for faculty to do the job of teaching their students," Waldrep said.
In a statement, Malloy said that he takes the no-confidence vote seriously, and acknowledged that several recent changes, including an effort to unify engineering programs, have caused anxiety at USM.
Malloy said he plans to work with faculty and the new USM president, who he says is "the right leader to confront USM's challenges honestly" and build on its strengths. The new leader will be announced on Monday.
