Citing “unbearably intense and acute” personal stress, University of Maine System chief legal officer James Thelen has stepped down in the midst of turmoil over the recent hiring of a school president with a dubious past. 

Thelen’s resignation as CLO and vice chancellor for strategic initiatives comes after UMS Chancellor Dannel Malloy received faculty votes of no confidence for allegedly failing to share potentially concerning information about a candidate for the president of the University of Maine at Augusta.