Ex-CMP chief named as USM's interim president, calls for 'leaner' university
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David Flanagan
David Flanagan, a former Central Maine Power Co. CEO and gubernatorial candidate, has been appointed as the University of Southern Maine’s interim president.
The University of Maine System announced Flanagan’s appointment today, two weeks after it was reported that USM’s former president, Theodora Kalikow, would step down on July 18 and join the UMaine System as acting vice chancellor. Flanagan will start on July 28 and finish when a permanent leader is found, expected to happen by mid-2015.
In today’s announcement, Flanagan called USM’s business model “obsolete,” saying that “outside forces have rendered it unsustainable” and that it “must transform itself to ensure its value to [Maine].”
Flanagan said he will seek a “leaner” model for USM that is “smaller both in employment and footprint … less bureaucratic, competitively priced and offering greater flexibility for students.”
UMaine System Chancellor James Page said in the announcement that Flanagan will be tasked with five objectives, including closing USM’s projected $12.5 million budget gap in the next fiscal year and implementing USM’s plan to become a “metropolitan university.” He will also be tasked with rebuilding trust and seeking greater alignment between campuses, improving USM’s stature in the region and laying the groundwork for USM’s next leader.
“We must act decisively if [USM] is to remain a viable, valuable and affordable pathway to opportunity and advancement for the Portland and Lewiston-Auburn regions,” Page said.
In speaking about Flanagan’s need to lead USM through a “significant organizational change,” UMaine System Board Chairman Samuel Collins said USM “has to eliminate underperforming programs, reduce its labor costs, improve access, build stronger ties to the community, and invest in promising courses of study.”
Flanagan, who worked for CMP for 15 years, was previously chairman and a member of the UMaine System Board of Trustees. He also led a 2009 task force on the system’s structure and governance that issued a report called “Meeting New Challenges, Setting New Directions” — which had most of its plan “unheeded” at the time, Flanagan told the Bangor Daily News earlier this year for a news analysis about the UMaine System’s continuing financial problems.
According to the BDN, the plan calls for a reduction in duplicate services and courses offered among the system's seven campuses. It also seeks a change in the state funding formula for those campuses. The newspaper noted that the system is working to implement some of those changes.
Besides Flanagan’s past work with CMP and the UMaine System, he also has served as an assistant Maine Attorney General and chief legal counsel to former Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan. He sought the Maine gubernatorial ticket for the 2002 race as an independent candidate and later quit when he said he realized he had no chance of winning. In addition, Flanagan worked on Eliot Cutler’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign as treasurer.
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