Lorien Lake-Corral is a professor of sociology at the University of Maine at Augusta. Noel Tague is associate professor of English, rhetoric and technical communication at UMA. The views expressed here are the writers’ own.
Last month, the Faculty Senate at the University of Maine at Augusta did something rare and consequential: It voted to declare no confidence in President Jenifer Cushman. A vote of no confidence is one of the few formal tools that faculty have to declare that a president has broken faith with the institution she was hired to steward.
This vote, as Faculty Senate President Peter Precourt wrote to university officials, is “a signal of deep, significant, institutional distress that demands a substantive response.” In our case, it came on the heels of a difficult year in which our president repeatedly circumvented the university’s own shared governance policies, most visibly in the mishandling of Handley Hall.
We are not members of the Senate. We represent faculty members from across UMA’s
departments, and we write not to repeat what our Senate colleagues have already courageously articulated, but to insist that what they did deserves further attention and consideration by the Maine public.
Handley Hall is the home of UMA’s nationally accredited architecture program, the only such program in Maine. The building was donated to the university over 15 years ago, gut renovated expressly for the program, and has been lauded by the students and faculty who use it. Their outside accrediting agency gave the program a rare perfect Visiting Team Report when they assessed the program in 2022.
Nonetheless, last year, the architecture department was abruptly notified that UMA was selling the building. No faculty, staff or students were consulted. It has subsequently come to light that this plan emerged from a closed-room deal whereby President Cushman was permitted to buy a different building — one already filled with tenants for the next decade — in exchange for deaccessioning Handley Hall. Once faculty became aware of this plan, they sent multiple formal correspondences to the president, facilitated discussions and participated in public forums to raise alarms. They were all but ignored.
A public architecture program shouldn’t be viewed as a line-item expense, but rather as a
powerful driver of community equity. It is one way the University of Maine System fulfills its promise to serve all the people of Maine, not just those who can afford private alternatives.
Moreover, students and graduates of UMA’s architecture program play a major role in seeking solutions for Maine’s critical affordable housing deficit. Treating Handley Hall as a disposable asset rather than the heart of a community-engaged curriculum is a failure of leadership and of mission.
With its vote of no confidence, the UMA Faculty Senate defended a public good from short-term thinking. The most important decisions at a public university — those that affect how, what and where the people of Maine can study — require the full participation of faculty, students, and staff. President Cushman chose to lead by pronouncement instead, so the campus community spoke out to protect a gem of the University of Maine System.
The vote should have prompted the UMS Board of Trustees and Chancellor Dannel Malloy to consider an important question: what is it worth to the people of Maine to have a public institution that provides Maine citizens with the opportunity to learn and invest in their home communities? Instead, three days after the no confidence vote, the chancellor reappointed President Cushman. And the Board of Trustees reappointed the chancellor.
Faculty at UMA are using every power we have to demand leadership that respects and elevates our mission. We are writing because the people of Maine are our past, current and future students. You deserve the right to learn where you live and build the future of Maine alongside your neighbors.
We believe the worth of our high-quality, community-engaged programs like UMA’s Bachelor of Architecture is priceless. And we think it is past time for those at the top of the University of Maine System to lead as if they believe it too.