This idea is on the table because the school has to cut something. If it isn’t a campus, it’s faculty.

Noel K. Gallagher of the Portland Press Herald reported.

USM Faculty Senate proposes closing a campus

Facing a plan by administrators to cut 50 University of Southern Maine faculty positions and two academic programs, the Faculty Senate on Friday offered an alternative: Consider shutting down one of USM’s three campuses instead.

“My proposal is probably as brutal to good people as is the (administration’s) proposal. The difference is, I propose to isolate the damage,” said Tom McDonald, an associate professor of business computing. “We have to tell the citizens of Maine we can no longer afford three campuses.”

USM has campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston.

The idea of closing a campus has been discussed informally for years, with many noting the difficulties of a fractured campus set-up for students, staff, faculty and administrators. But it hasn’t ever been used as a formal proposal to address a budget shortfall.

An alternative proposal endorsed by the Faculty Senate at its meeting on Friday was to have the University of Maine System offer a better retirement incentive in order to get more of the 100 retirement-eligible faculty members to leave, possibly easing the number of layoffs.

“We should put them in a room with someone with authority to negotiate” a better package, said English professor Bud McGrath. “The terms for retirement could be a lot more imaginative, and if you make an attractive enough package, it may get more than 50 faculty to retire.”

One incentive could be a payout equivalent to the amount given to any laid-off faculty member under the contract – 18 months worth of pay plus benefits, McGrath said.

USM President David Flanagan, who announced the proposed cuts Monday, told the Senate he would entertain those ideas but that time is running out.