Just for the record, any of you NOT see Deron's post?
It said:
From UM Today..
0 President Hoff has sent a strongly worded letter to the Boston
Globe, expressing concern about the numerous factual errors in Sunday's
story about UMaine's approach to enhancing its image and its
enrollment. Among the errors were references to incidents and problems
at other University System institutions that were attributed to UMaine.
BTW, between the years 1979 and 1996, the record between Maine/UNH is
34/19/3. Source 1996-97 UMaine Hockey Media Guide.
Now (drum roll) here is the article that is raising all the worms from the
wood:
UMaine looks to restore lost stature
By Kenneth Z. Chutchian, Globe Correspondent, 11/23/97
ORONO, Maine - It numbers horror novelist Stephen King and US Senator
Olympia
Snowe among its distinguished alumni. But in the last few years the
University of
Maine has been hit with a series of public relations disasters and
watched its enrollment plummet by about 3,000 students.
Administrators at the flagship campus here say they are working round
the clock to restore the once-proud university's reputation. But its
new president acknowledges the job will take some time.
''A lot of people lost us off their radar screen,'' said Peter Hoff,
the former president of California State University System who was
brought on board Aug. 1. ''In a lot of ways,
we are a far bigger success story than enrollment would indicate.''
Administration, student, and faculty leaders say that UMaine-Orono has
some ''world-class'' degree programs. The forestry
program is ranked among the top five
universities in the country ''ahead of Yale and Berkeley,'' Hoff notes,
while the
engineering school consistently develops graduates who are hired by the
top private
companies in the nation.
And the downward trend at UMaine is not regional. The University of New
Hampshire saw
a slight decline in its enrollment - from 12,518 graduate and
undergraduate students in 1994 to 12,209 in the fall of 1997. The
University of Vermont has also seen a small decline since 1991, to
9,105 students this fall from about 9,600.
But the University of Maine's flagship campus has been particularly
hard hit; Orono's
enrollment has slipped from about 12,500 undergraduate and graduate
students in 1989 to fewer than 9,300 this fall.
Administrators say that not all of the enrollment decline can be
traced to the university's bad press, but that certainly accounts for
some of it.
The string of setbacks began in 1994, when an NCAA investigation
uncovered numerous
recruiting violations by its hockey coach, Shawn Walsh. UMaine
eventually suspended
Walsh for a year, but to avoid losing its 1993 Division I national
hockey championship, the university had to lobby the NCAA and prove
that corrective steps were being taken.
During the same period, two professors fired from their jobs filed
federal lawsuits against the school. One professor at UMaine-Fort Kent
was awarded $805,000 in damages after a jury decided the school
overreacted to a charge of sexual harassment. Another professor at
UMaine-Augusta received a $180,000 out-of-court settlement over a
dispute concerning credits he granted to a faculty member's son.
An interactive television network that served UMaine and other schools
within the statewide system was completely revamped after critics
charged that its administration was bloated.
And worst of all, the Maine Legislature consistently cut the
university's appropriation in the 1990s, leading to yearly tuition
hikes.
Jennifer Nelson, 21, is a graduate of South Portland High School who
chose UMaine for
two reasons - its engineering program and its women's field hockey
team, which
periodically ranks in the nation's Top 20. Nelson was a member of the
field hockey team as a freshman, but the university's many internal
problems persuaded her to sacrifice athletics for politics. She is now
president of UMaine's student government.
Both Nelson and Hoff say there should be no underestimating the damage
caused by
Walsh's recruiting violations. Nelson is particularly blunt on the
subject the men's
hockey team.
''You had a Division I coach breaking the rules and getting away with
it, and he's still
here,'' said Nelson, noting that Walsh has been reinstated as head
coach. ''That sends a
message.''
Student government representatives drafted a resolution calling for the
university to fire Walsh, but the proposal met strong opposition from
the student body and was dropped.
''I think it probably did have a negative effect, in ways that don't
make sense to a lot of
people,'' said Hoff, referring to the NCAA findings. ''Students,
faculty, and members of
the community told us of their concerns about'' athletics being given
a greater priority on campus than academics.
Despite acrimony in recent years over teachers' contracts, some
faculty leaders at UMaine are on board with Hoff's feel-good campaign
to market the university's virtues. After 15 years of classroom
teaching, UMaine engineering professor Dana Humphrey took on an
additional job responsibility this year - high school student
recruiter.
''If judged solely on the strength of its academic programs, UMaine
would be considered a
world-class institution,'' Humphrey said. ''You're not going to get a
better value for the
dollar at another comprehensive university.''
--------------
Cathy Hart
President, Friends of Maine Hockey
Proud Supporters of the Finest Program in the Nation
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