Diamond departs UMS for opportunities in Arkansas
John Diamond, a longtime presence in the Bangor area and an outspoken advocate for higher education, has only a little more than one week left in the Queen City. On Sept. 27, he begins a new job as associate vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His last day as executive director of external affairs for the University of Maine System is Friday.
A family presence in the Fayetteville area and the University of Arkansas' strong reputation drew Diamond to apply for the position in January. Diamond was ultimately selected out of 150 applicants and accepted the job on Sept. 2.
At his new post, he'll be in charge of media relations and strategic communications, publicizing university events and fundraising, strengthening its web and community presence, and working with its key constituencies in government, business and the public. He'll be working with a staff of 27, as well as others in different university departments. "I'm anxious to sit down with the staff and find out their thoughts on what's working and what needs to be improved," he says.
Diamond has known his days at the University of Maine System were numbered for a year and a half, when the economic downturn handed the system and its universities a "double whammy," he says -- a cut in state funding and a decline in philanthropic giving. UMS decided to slowly eliminate its department of external affairs, spreading its functions out to the individual schools, and of its original staff of five, Diamond is the last remaining employee.
Diamond, 55, has served as executive director since the department was created in 2002, overseeing recruitment, media relations, advocacy and public outreach. Prior to that, he spent a decade as the director of public affairs at the University of Maine flagship campus in Orono, his alma mater, and three years teaching journalism. He has two degrees from the school and is working to finish a doctorate in communication and public administration. His connections to the school are so strong that he occasionally slips into referring to it as "we."
He's also well known in the area for his work as chairman of the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce board of directors, a yearlong post he held in 2009. He's credited with helping to develop a new vision statement, improving the chamber's disorganized finances and overseeing a contentious leadership change.
During Diamond's decade-long tenure at UMaine in Orono, he helped guide the school's reputation through a major overhaul. Negative publicity from budget problems, controversies over academic changes and a public access lawsuit with Guy Gannett Communications, then the owner of the Portland Press Herald, sent its public perception tumbling, he says. A campaign to revamp its image by being more open and transparent succeeded in boosting its favorability between 1993 and 1997, the results of two Bangor Daily News survey showed, according to Diamond.
"I think the improvement in UMaine's reputation that we were able to generate is something to be proud of," he says. "It was a concerted effort, a strategic effort to improve the university's reputation with its constituencies, and it paid dividends that I think we're still benefitting from today."
While at the University of Maine System, Diamond worked on the system's out-of-state student recruitment campaign from 2005 to 2008, which "produced double-digit increases in the areas we targeted," he says, mostly high schools in the Northeast.
He also was involved with the external affairs department's advocacy work -- to the public and the state government -- on the role of higher education and its impact on the state economy. UMS created a network of more than 6,000 friends of the university willing to speak out about the issue of public higher education. The role of the university system in driving economic growth was also a major component of its "New Challenges, New Directions" initiative, finalized in November.
"When you look at those states like Arkansas where the economy has been stable, a lot of it is tied to the public recognition of higher education as essential to the economy," he says. "There's a strong recognition of this within the business community, but the resources aren't there yet to make the kind of investment that's necessary."
State budget challenges may have reduced those resources, but Diamond -- a former Maine legislator in the '80s -- is quick to praise the governor and Legislature for handling tough decisions. And while the state has seen the need to fund university R&D over the past 15 years or so, Diamond says there's still room for improvement. "If we could continue making efforts of showing the role that higher education plays in economic development and quality of life, then Maine would be able to grow its economy and better weather these economic storms we have from time to time," he says.
It's work he'll continue now at the University of Arkansas, which has been experiencing growth and this year hit a record enrollment of 21,406 students, and has earned a favorable reputation in the higher education world for its efforts to position itself as a "top-tier American university," according to Diamond. "The economy in Arkansas is stronger than Maine's, especially in the area around the university," Diamond says, attributing the growth to large corporations with headquarters nearby that partner heavily with the university on research and other projects.
Though he says leaving Maine and his long history at the University of Maine System "will be hard for a number of reasons," Diamond isn't dwelling on the negative. "I'm excited about the idea of moving to Arkansas because we have family there and because of the reputation of the university there," he says. "I'm ready for a new challenge."
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