University presidents hire Courtney aide to run new ‘council of presidents’

and lobby the legislature. Is the lobbying going to focus on more state funding, or on even less state control? It’s unlikely it will be about how to rationalize the system for redistributing what little state funding there is, given the competing interests of the universities. Andrew Theen has the story in the Oregonian here. A snippet:

But Les Ruark, a Gilliam County farmer, asked a state lawmaker to look into whether the council is subject to meeting and records laws. Rep. John Huffman, (R-The Dalles), asked the state’s Legislative Counsel to offer its nonbinding opinion on whether the council is exempt from the laws.

In an opinion authored July 1, the state lawyers said the council is “probably subject to disclosure under the public records law,” but likely does not meet public meetings law because it was “created informally” and not through a government action.

But it’s no secret that the presidents aren’t happy with the HECC. Here is Theen reporting on that in May:

Not everything, though, is hunky dory in the new world order.

Wiewel, Ray and others said they’re concerned the statewide HECC board is being too aggressive in trying to regulate and oversee the universities.

“We’re already being monitored six ways from Sunday,” Wiewel said of national accrediting bodies. He said HECC’s university surveys released this year went too far.

Ray said he’s been “the biggest mouth” worrying that HECC is morphing into a new version of the university systems.

Cannon said he would “push back very, very hard against that perception.”

The old system had a staff of 200 at its peak, Cannon said, while HECC has six full-time staffers focused on the public universities.