The University of Southern Maine has eliminated its public affairs office, laying off all three staff members, in a move to modernize the school’s storytelling capabilities and communication goals, an administrator said Monday.

“The office structure was designed at a time when the demand for dynamic, multi-platform storytelling was far less pronounced,” said Meaghan Arena, USM’s Vice President for Enrollment, Marketing and Student Retention. “The landscape of communication and reputation building has evolved and so must our approach.”

Arena said the university will create new strategic communications positions that focus on telling stories about the achievements of faculty, staff and students and enhancing the university’s reputation across multiple platforms. Those new employees, who would also handle external communications, will join with another department to become the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications. She said the school is still figuring out how many new positions there will be.

The news comes six months after the university eliminated six positions in its marketing department, citing similar shifts in university strategy, while creating five new positions. Arena said Monday that all of those positions have since been filled.

The three public affairs employees were notified Monday, and the layoffs were effective immediately. “They will receive severance, benefits, and pay in lieu of notice in accordance with our collective bargaining agreements,” Arena said.

Employees with less than five years of experience receive four months of pay and benefits through that agreement. Those who have worked at the university for more than five years receive a larger severance package relative to their length of service.

USM is part of the University of Maine System of public universities and has campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston.

In addition to January’s marketing layoffs, USM also eliminated five management positions in May of 2024, and the system laid of 13 IT workers in September while creating half a dozen new positions. Representatives of the University of Maine System’s professional staff union, UMPSA, have chastised the system for a pattern of laying off employees, restructuring departments and creating new positions without engaging employees about the changes. “This made a lot of people nervous,” then-UMPSA President Neil Greenberg told the Press Herald in January. “Nobody knows who’s next.”

In a statement Monday, current UMPSA President Sara Abronze said USM has a right to make difficult workforce decisions, but the union would strongly prefer the university exhaust all alternatives before resorting to layoffs.

“We believe that updating employee job descriptions and providing training opportunities could have been viable ways to retain talented staff,”  the statement reads. “This would have lessened the profound impact on the affected employees, the vital services they provide, and the morale of the overall USM community.”