Trustees of the Maine Community College System are speaking out in support of the system’s president, John Fitzsimmons, despite Gov. Paul R. LePage’s call for his resignation.
Mr. Fitzsimmons has led the system since 1990, and several trustees told the Portland Press Herald that they were surprised at Mr. LePage’s actions. Governor LePage, a Republican, objected to the system’s decision to pull out of a program allowing high-school students to earn college credits before graduation, and said the system wasn’t moving quickly enough on a system for transferring credits to other colleges.
In a written statement on Tuesday, Mr. Fitzsimmons said he was “focused on serving the best interests of the 18,000 students, 900 faculty and staff, and businesses across the state who rely on our colleges.“
A spokeswoman for Mr. LePage told the newspaper that the governor had not changed his position on Mr. Fitzsimmons, despite trustees’ support for his leadership.
LePage first called on Fitzsimmons to resign on Friday, citing two issues: The system pulled out of a favorite LePage project, the Bridge Year Program, after only a year; and the system wasn’t moving fast enough on setting up a system for transferring credits between community college and other colleges, such as the University of Maine System.
In a statement Tuesday, Fitzsimmons said the system has resumed participating in the Bridge Year Program, which allows a high school student to earn college credits before graduation, and had made “very real progress” on the credit transfer issue.
Fitzsimmons in his statement said that the community college and university systems have been working on the credit transfer issue.
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