Students of University of Southern Maine came together on November 1st and 2nd to discuss the future of USM.  Much of this conversation centered on what we, as students, want and need from the university.  Additionally, we discussed micro areas of excellence at the institution, and how we’d like to see them applied on a macro level.

The following is what we came up with:

We are stewards of a public good in the institution of the University Of Southern Maine, and as such, it is USM’s responsibility to foster an environment of learning, outside of a corporate decision making model. 

We believe that flexible and diverse academic programming, measured by social need and passion for learning, should be the core of academia, not always dictated by the end result of employment in specific fields.

Profit in an academic setting should not be measured monetarily, but in the civic and community enrichment that is ultimately derived.  Success of a course should not be gleaned from numbers alone, but also from course evaluations, as well as student and professor feedback.

As students, we need an environment that will foster learning.  In order to achieve this, we need a faculty, staff, and administration that operate as a cohesive unit.  As such, we believe that faculty are entitled to contracts, which fairly stipulate the terms of their employment, and make the University Of Southern Maine a competitive, attractive institution for employees.

In order for us, as students, to be active participants in our university community, we expect administration to fully include us in the decision making process, which should be widely publicized and use more precise and accessible language.  To this end, we suggest that the university administration also hold an open forum each semester for students to voice their concerns and suggestions.  Programs reviews, when occurring, should include a student perspective, especially from the program up for review.  Per the Governance documents, the Student Senate ”shall be responsible for reviewing and making policy recommendations concerning such areas of student life as admissions, financial aid, discipline, advising, counseling and career placement, housing, food service, and recreational facilities and activities.“  We recommend that administration bring all issues of concern to Student Senate for review.

 University Of Southern Maine is uniquely positioned in a diverse and thriving economic area of Maine.  As students, we see our diversity as a key asset that should be reflected in our programming, including integrating fields of study, both with diverse community resources and with other academic programs.

In this spirit, instead of cutting programs and defunding departments, we believe we should be focusing our energy on continuing creative fundraising, including tapping into our huge alumni resources.  In addition, it is antithetical to the vision of USM as community stewards to continue investing our endowment in coal, oil, and natural gas industries.  As such, we believe that the University Of Southern Maine should be completely divested from these industries within the next five years.

We know that the University Of Southern Maine is taking steps to solidify its identity.  During our process of trying to have a voice in these proceedings, we as students identified what we considered areas of excellence, based on our experiences and interactions with the university.

The following were areas we discussed:

The Women and Gender Studies program does an amazing job integrating programming.  With the exceptions of a couple of core classes, thesis/internship, and capstone classes, every other class offered in the program is cross-listed with another class.  This allows majors to easily double-major, as well as receive a more well-rounded education.  We believe that this could easily apply to other majors, where appropriate, to both increase class size, and give students are more integrated education.

The Engineering program has a staggering retention rate, much higher than the overall retention rate at USM.  According to many engineering students, it is because faculty, staff, and students go out of their way to create community, setting aside time to just be in the same space, outside of academics, which improves the atmosphere, and helps students to perform better, overall.  We believe this could apply to the whole institution, in the form of a common, or university, hour, which is currently being explored by the Faculty Senate.

Finally, we discussed community integration in the context of the linguistics program.  A student shared his experience working with members of the Portland community that do not speak English, learning their native language, and, in turn, teaching them English.  This served not only as an educational moment for the student, but also as a way to make a marginalized population feel like a valued and contributing member of their community.  Not only do we believe that our education needs to be integrated in the classroom, but also in our community, and not just at big corporations.  We need ways to work with our community that not only provide education for us, but allow community members to feel valued, tailored to each program and major. 

These are the primary needs of a student-based educational institution, as outlined by the students that participated in this process, which was open to all students.  University of Southern Maine is positioned to emerge as the only urban comprehensive university in Maine, and should embrace that identity as soon as possible.