President Jenifer Cushman’s October Town Hall gave faculty and staff a closer look at UMA’s financial position, academic priorities, and work underway to support student success.
Faculty and staff joined President Jenifer Cushman on Oct. 1 for the first President’s Town Hall of the academic year.
The conversation focused on UMA’s financial outlook and academic priorities, with updates from Interim Chief Business Officer Corey Watson and Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Joe Szakas.
The discussion also gave faculty and staff an opportunity to raise questions about how UMA’s changing student population affects course delivery, how the university thinks about workforce needs, and how academic programs can continue to evolve while maintaining the broader value of a university education.
Building a sustainable financial model
Watson shared an update on UMA’s financial position and framed the next several years around three stages: stabilize, align, and sustain.
UMA used approximately $1.9 million in one-time strategic reserves to support the FY26 operating budget. Watson noted that UMA’s reserves remain healthy, but that reserves cannot serve as a recurring source of revenue. The longer-term goal is to move toward a model in which recurring revenues support recurring expenses.
He emphasized that financial sustainability is not simply about reducing expenses. Enrollment, student persistence and completion, instructional resources, facilities, and institutional investments all play a role. The goal is to better align resources with student demand and UMA’s strategic priorities while maintaining the university’s ability to invest in its students, employees, programs, and future.
A question from the audience focused on the demand for online, in-person, and hybrid courses and whether one modality is more cost-effective than another. Watson noted that the answer can vary considerably by academic program and discipline. Cushman emphasized that UMA will continue to offer multiple ways for students to learn.
Meeting students where they are remains central to UMA’s mission, she said, and that means maintaining online, in-person, and hybrid opportunities rather than choosing one model over another.
Cushman also noted at the close of the Town Hall that UMA is not facing an immediate financial emergency. The work underway now is intended to get ahead of longer-term budget pressures and put the university in a stronger position for the future.
Academic priorities and student success
Szakas provided an update on UMA’s academic priorities and the goals guiding the university’s work through 2030.
Among those goals are increasing graduation and retention rates and continuing to strengthen student success. Szakas highlighted work already underway through advising, early and midterm alerts, financial wellness, Early College, and other efforts intended to help students persist and complete their degrees.
He also discussed the academic program review process underway this year. Each academic program is being asked to examine its student success outcomes, alignment with UMA’s strategic plan, resources needed, strengths, and future direction. Final reports are due to the academic deans by the end of March 2027.
Szakas also highlighted work underway in neurodiversity, extended reality and immersive learning, student services, and artificial intelligence. He emphasized that the goal is not to pursue new technology for its own sake, but to use it where it can improve teaching, learning, student support, and access.
The conversation also returned to the role of a university education in preparing students for Maine’s workforce. Faculty in the audience raised the importance of critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and interdisciplinary learning alongside career-specific skills.
Cushman agreed, noting that UMA’s role as a bachelor’s-degree-granting university includes preparing students not only for a particular job, but also for the changing careers and workplaces they will encounter throughout their lives.
Continuing the conversation
The Town Hall is part of a series of opportunities this year for faculty and staff to hear directly from university leadership, better understand the context behind UMA’s priorities and decisions, and follow work that is still underway.
Cushman thanked faculty and staff for the care they have already shown in stewarding university resources and emphasized that the work ahead will continue to involve academic leadership, faculty, staff, departments, and UMA’s shared governance and planning processes.
The next President’s Town Hall will be held Nov. 2 in Bangor and via Zoom and will focus on two additional areas of UMA’s strategic plan. Vice President for Enrollment Management Jon Henry will provide an update related to marketing and recruitment, and Vice President for External Relations Kristen Eaton will discuss UMA’s work to cultivate reputation and resources.
If you need an accessible or alternative version of the slide presentations, please reach out to kristen.eaton@maine.edu.