Apparently, two weeks into the semester, the Provost refused to pay for the adjuncts hired to teach two math courses, adjuncts who in good faith had already taught for two weeks.  Suddenly this week, five math professors were informed that their courses were immediately changing, and in two cases, that they were suddenly teaching an additional course.  That's five courses disrupted, a disruption that impacts about 250 students.  USM is not yet the University of Phoenix; each faculty member creates his or her own course.  Suddenly, five professors need to figure out what their colleagues had already covered and how; and the students need to learn new expectations, a new course organization, new presentation styles and possibly new grading schemes.  In the best of cases, one would expect that the disruption will steal at least a week from each course.  All of this chaos and bad faith to save $5000 dollars.  Let's see, $5000, that's 12% of the Provost's recent raise?  You can bet that the $5000 loss would have hurt him a lot less than the $2500 is going to hurt each of the suddenly terminated adjuncts.  But hey, I am sure the Provost earns his big bucks telling the public how USM is devoted to providing the best possible educational experience to its students.  You know, a world class, high integrity kind of experience.