Former University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings, shown here in October 2021, is the state’s first green schools director. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Maine has hired a former college president and politician from Portland as its first green schools director.

Glenn Cummings, the former president of the University of Southern Maine and speaker of the Maine House, started the $121,000-a-year position at the Maine Department of Education on Monday. He is tasked with promoting sustainability in facilities, transportation and curriculum.

“There is a real opportunity for us to work with the next generation toward climate resilience, effective solutions to climate change, and to help communities thrive in the face of challenging environmental conditions,” Cummings said Wednesday after attending his first Maine Climate Council meeting.

When done right, public schools can serve as a living laboratory for affordable sustainable architecture, efficient clean energy, and low-impact food and waste policies, Cummings said. Successful implementation often leads to widespread community adoption, he said.

Before Cummings’ hire, the Department of Education tackled sustainability division by division: facilities managed energy efficiency efforts, transportation mapped out the road to electrify the Maine school bus fleet, and nutrition considered ways to cut food waste. Cummings will now coordinate this work across divisions.

In 2023, Maine lawmakers split along party lines over a bill to create the green schools director position. Republicans opposed hiring any new Department of Education staff, claiming taxpayers couldn’t afford new positions during such inflationary times, said Sen. Jim Libby, R-Cumberland, who sits on the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee.

“Glenn Cummings is a great guy, highly qualified, but for my constituents, it’s the wrong time to hire anybody getting paid with tax dollars,” Libby said. “As for the value of a green schools position, and any cost savings, well, it’s a laudable goal, but the payback time is long, and it’s a tough time to ask.”

The bill, L.D. 612, from Rep. Marc Malon, D-Biddeford, died on the appropriations table in July at the end of the legislative session, but the Department of Education included the position in its budget, which was approved as a whole by the Legislature.

Although Cummings served eight years as a Democrat in the Legislature, including one term as the House Speaker, his hire was not a political appointment. The position was advertised on national online job boards in June and he went through the human resources hiring process.

A native of Bath, Cummings has been a fixture in the state’s educational landscape for decades. He started his career as a high school history teacher in Gorham, taught at Southern Maine Community College, and then at the University of Southern Maine.

After terming out of public office, Cummings was appointed deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education in the U.S. Department of Education. He was executive director of Good Will-Hinckley and the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, one of Maine’s first charter schools.

He was hired to lead USM in 2015. Although not the first choice, Cummings drew praise from academic and business leaders for transforming USM, which was struggling before his hire.

Cummings stepped down in 2022 but still teaches public policy classes at USM. He has spent the last two years as president of the Albert B. Glickman & Judy Glickman Lauder Family Foundation, which supports the local arts, environmental projects, human rights and Jewish causes.

Cummings has made sustainability a focus of his academic and professional work. He did his doctoral dissertation on sustainability in higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. At the U.S. Department of Education, Cummings was chair of the Green Education Council.

At Hinckley-Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, Cummings oversaw the development of the first fully solar-powered, net-positive school facility in Maine. He led the development of the Portland Commons dorm for USM, which is projected to use less than half the energy of a standard modern building.

“I have a lot of technical experience building sustainable facilities, but this job is as much about building a sustainability curriculum as it is about green schools and electric buses,” Cummings said. “We want to develop K-12 environmental principles that promote sustainability and climate solutions.”

As advertised, the new position will oversee department decarbonization and energy cost-cutting efforts, enact state climate initiatives, take advantage of state and federal funding opportunities, and improve indoor and outdoor air quality in Maine school buildings.

On the curriculum side, the director also will work with the department’s climate education team and students to build connections between decarbonization efforts in Maine schools, and climate and clean energy education and career opportunities.

While at the Glickman Lauder Foundation, Cummings helped raise funds to support the Maine Trust for Local News, the owner of the Portland Press Herald.

Note: This story was updated Sept. 26 to remove incorrect information about USM enrollments, which declined during Cummings’ term as president.