Two days on the job as the president of the University of Southern Maine, Selma Botman said she has been struck by the sense of optimism and energy among the staffers at the university.
She is taking on the post as the university grapples with an $8.2 million deficit triggered in part by falling enrollments, stagnant state aid and soaring energy, food and health-care costs.
Botman, who now inhabits the president’s house on the university’s Gorham campus, moved from New York City where she was executive vice chancellor and university provost of the City University of New York.
She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University, a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and a master’s of philosophy from Oxford University. She and her husband, Thomas Birmingham, a lawyer and adjunct professor at Tufts University and former Massachusetts State Senate president, have two grown daughters.
During an interview in her official first week at the school, Botman said part of her job is to move USM into a new era.
Q. What is at the top of your agenda?
A. My first priority is learning as much as a I can about this institution and (to) listen to the people who have considerable experience. I want to attend to the enrollment issues, working very closely with my colleagues in the kindergarten through grade 12 and community college sectors so we can build a pipeline of students who understand the jewel USM really is. I want to build a 21st-century university, something that will evolve over time by tapping our considerable faculty expertise in order to train a work force that can contribute to the Portland economy and the Maine economy and to life in this state.
Q. What do you mean when you talk about the ‘new USM’?
A. Did you see the new Web site (http://www.usm. maine.edu)? The ‘new USM’ is really important and (will come about) by looking at what and how we teach our students. It is interesting to me that at USM there are faculty already engaged in online education and offering students face-to-face instruction as well.
The new USM is a destination campus that is student friendly, student focused and that pays attention to the needs of its faculty. We have to find new ways to impart knowledge and cultivate student success and promote Portland and Maine’s economic future.
Q. How do you do that?
A. One of the things I would like to focus on is telling the USM story and what I mean here is that USM sits in Portland, one of the country’s most livable cities. Portland and the region is prized for its quality of life and its sophisticated cultural scene. USM is one of southern Maine’s most powerful draws. I want to communicate that, plus the strength that exists in terms of faculty and programs.
Q. What is a 21st-century university?
A. It is a university that also thinks about sustainability, is very careful about how it uses its own resources and one that looks very carefully at the kinds of programs it offers its students. My experience tells me universities must periodically reinvent themselves, look under the hood and dig down and ask themselves how are they doing and what to aspire to become. That is a process I want to begin in the fall when the faculty comes back. At the end of the year I promise to tell you what we learned from this planning process.
Q. How will you deal with the dismal financial situation facing the university?
A. Unfortunately, public institutions in the United States are suffering financially. The situation in Maine is no different than the situation I left in New York or what Massachusetts is suffering. Energy prices, food prices, health care prices are rising.
I have promised the University of Southern Maine I will oversee a frugal administration. We will take the public’s trust in us and the resources the public and the state bring to the university and spend them well on faculty and students.
Q. What has surprised you about Maine and the university so far?
A. People in Maine seem to be so fundamentally nice. So what a joy to be in an environment where my immediate colleagues, the building and grounds staff and everyone has a smile.
Everyone here is welcoming and I deeply appreciate that. In New York in my office and apartment I always heard a cacophony of taxi drivers beeping their horns and now I hear birds singing
