7/17/2011: OUS meetings usually consist of George Pernsteiner and the Board chair (was Paul Kelly, soon Matt Donegan) telling UO how much money they are going to take from us for “overhead“.
This 7/21/2011 governance meeting looks slightly more interesting. The docket is a review of how other states handle institutional independence. Obviously this will be the topic of the year, now that the governor has signed SB242 and SB909.
These bills give Dr. Pernsteiner a huge amount of new authority over UO. For example, he will now have independent authority over legal services – which will no longer be under the control of the Oregon DOJ. Pernsteiner in charge of UO legal? He could contract with his old pal Frohnmayer, for example. Melinda Grier as assistant? OK, the later sounds unlikely, but from my read there is nothing to prevent OUS from contracting with Harrang, Long et al. and their chief rainmaker for legal advice, and charging it to the students. And then of course they will hide the details as protected by attorney client privilege.
At the same time the bills create two oversight boards for OUS. Obviously the bills will need to get reconciled into some practical structure. Kitzhaber has given Tim Nesbitt this job. UO’s only hope at this point is for Lariviere’s new partnership proposal, which fortunately seems to have some Kitzhaber support. And this docket does discuss states with independent, institution specific boards. The tone of the docket report is, of course, couched in pros and cons with an emphasis on the cons:
For understandable reasons, such as a board’s perception of its role, and simple proximity to the campus, institutional boards tend to act as institutional advocates without the ‘checks and balances’ tendency of a statewide board to integrate the institution’s individual needs and desires with statewide needs. Issues such as higher rates of tuition increases, harm to access and affordability, lack of checks and balances functions, or destructive competition emerges logically in such contexts. Conversely, there is the possibility that institutional governance—or a delegated governance model that mixes aspects of statewide and local governance—could help by stimulating new approaches to addressing higher education’s challenges.
That is indeed the basic tradeoff. Fortunately for UO the OUS board under Pernsteiner does not have much of a record to run on. They do dole out a lot of patronage though, and that may still win the day. On the flip side this will all go down as the NCAA’s investigation unfolds, reminding everyone of exactly why UO needs adult supervision. University boards often end up controlled by boosters.
The docket report is worth reading — a bit biased, yes, but reasonably judicious and well-informed. It makes the point that governance structures per se tend to have little direct impact on research, teaching, faculty, and students, excepting perhaps the key issue of tuition rates.
Booster control of a UO board is a danger. One the other hand, watchful boosters would’ve at least ensured that Bellotti had a proper written contract — even if its terms were just as offensive as the crooked handshake deal he did in fact get.
It is well balanced, considering. I wouldn’t dismiss the booster issue. Remember Pat Kilkenny was appointed to the UO Foundation board, until he quit over the WRC.