LEWISTON – The first time Selma Botman, the new president of the University Southern Maine, visited Lewiston was 2002 when her high school daughter was visiting Bates College.

Her daughter wanted to get to campus.

Botman wanted to look around the city.

“I felt some commonality with Lewiston,” she said during a Monday reception to welcome her to the USM Lewiston-Auburn College. Realizing Lewiston was an old mill and shoe factory town, “it reminded me of Lynn, Mass., where my father was a shoe factory worker.” He made the soles of shoes.

When her father’s factory closed down in the 1970s, he was out of a job, Botman said. “He had no skills, no education. He never went through the eighth grade.”

But he encouraged his children to go to college. “He would say to us, ‘The only chance you have is to get an education,'” Botman said.

She was lucky to get a world-class education at Brandeis, Oxford and Harvard. She’s kept her father’s passion for education, and a desire to see students succeed “at the very forefront of everything I have done,” she said.

Botman, 57, of Gorham, took over at USM on July 2, filling the spot held by Richard Pattenaude, now chancellor for the University of Maine System. Before USM, Botman served as executive vice chancellor and university provost for The City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s largest urban public university.

One the toughest jobs she faces at USM is continuing work to tame a budget deficit of $8.2 million, due in part to a drop in enrollment with more students going to community colleges, where the tuition is half the cost. Another problem is a trend of a third of USM freshmen not returning for their sophomore year.

Despite budget woes, Botman said there are no changes planned for LAC.

Cuts made last year will mean “people will have to live within their means” so that an ongoing deficit will not continue. There will be careful spending, she promised.

The Lewiston campus “is important to this region and is a vital part of USM,” Botman said during an interview. “There’s nothing on my radar screen that says LAC is going to change.” Botman pledged to ensure the campus is not only maintained, “but will survive and flourish.”

Some view the deficit as a problem. She called it an opportunity “to look at what we are doing, and how we are doing it, so we can demonstrate to the people who pay our salaries, to the taxpayers of Maine, that we are providing the highest quality education for students and living up to the public trust.”

One way she’ll address the decline of students is look to build on what USM does well “and sing it off the rooftops.” That means more recruitment and promotion.

She may soon visit Lewiston High, Edward Little, and other high schools. Botman plans to visit high schools to recruit, an uncommon move for a university president. Her style is hands-on, Botman said.

“My message to students is two-fold: The best thing you can do for yourself and your prospective family is go to college. It doesn’t matter where you go to college, go to college.”

But she tells them about USM, that “virtually anything you want to study, we have available for you.”

Botman’s hoping her message will make a difference. A student can hear the same thing from others, but sometimes it resonates from a different messenger.

“I want to tell them that education transformed my life. And I was no different than they are. The message is go to college.”

Botman bio:

Selma Botman, 57, of Gorham, grew up in Chelsea, Mass. Daughter of a shoe shop worker, describes herself a frugal New Englander.

Graduated from Brandeis, Oxford and Harvard

Taught and administered at the City University of New York, the University of Massachusetts, Holy Cross College, Clark University.

Married, the mother of two daughters, one graduated from Bates in 2007

For more, go to: http://www.usm.maine.edu/pres/botman.html