Tag Archives: new partnership plan

Governor calls for $1.5B 10 year university investment

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That would be the Governor of Connecticut, talking about UConn and, mostly, STEM. Not clear but the financing seems to involve bond sales, a la Richard Lariviere:

Increase faculty in science, technology and engineering by 258 at the three campuses, in addition to 290 new faculty the university is in the process of hiring.

If you believe Interim Provost Bean’s latest attempt to count, UO’s tenure track faculty increased by 17.2 this year. And for those convinced that the faculty union will inevitably kill UO, UConn has been unionized since the 1950s. Their union website is here. Full disclosure: my father was one of the founders. 1/31/2013.

Independent UO Board legislation, LC 978

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12/10/2012: The draft legislation for independent university boards, LC 978, has been posted, here, by the House Higher Ed committee. That committee has no Eugene representatives. From what I can see the bill does not require the appointment of voting faculty representatives – even though the OUS board has two.

There are many other parts I don’t understand. I hope people will take a serious look at this and post comments. Full text here. Here’s the beginning:

SECTION 5. (1) An institutional board of a public university shall
be formed and maintained as provided in this section.
(2)(a) The Governor shall appoint 11 to 15 members of an institutional board, subject to confirmation by the Senate in the manner
provided in ORS 171.562 and 171.565.
(b) For each appointment, the university shall nominate a slate of
candidates and shall forward the recommended candidates to the
Governor for consideration.
(c) The institutional board must include one person who is a member of the State Board of Higher Education or Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
(d) The president of the university shall be an ex officio nonvoting
member of the institutional board.
(3)(a) Except for the president of the university, the term of office
for each nonstudent member of the institutional board is four years.
(b) The term of office of each student member of the institutional
board, if any, is two years.

The elephant in the room is Phil Knight. His Oregonians for Higher Education Excellence has raised $445,000 to push this thru the legislature, and hasn’t yet spent a dime. Knight’s dislike of the UO faculty goes back to the Worker’s Rights Consortium fiasco. And now we’re unionized. This could get ugly.

Record UO enrollment mistake

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Suck it up, faculty. Press release here. No mention of the percentage of freshmen that are in-state, a politically charged percentage given the New Partnership proposals that the legislature will face this winter. I’m guessing this means it’s less than half. Word down at the faculty club is that Roger Thompson’s shop has lost some quantitative people, and that the increase from the 24,000 in Bean’s academic plan (or 24,500, Bean doesn’t even know which is correct) was the result of forecasting errors.  9/24/2012.

UVA coup attempt explained in NYT Magazine

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9/16/2012: It’s a long and complicated story, the Andrew Rice article is very comprehensive, I’m not going to even try and synthesize it just now. The issue has many other interesting education articles as well, e.g. this one on computerized tutoring. Comments welcome.

Union, Senate each get one member

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From the most recent meeting of the special legislative committee on independent university boards:

Board Composition

  • 2 Students, one undergraduate, one graduate (if appropriate) nominated by the relevant student organization(s) and appointed by the Governor.
  • 2 faculty, one nominated by nominated by the faculty senate and one by the faculty union if there is one, and appointed by the Governor.
  • 1 non-faculty staff member, nominated by the statewide staff organization and appointed by the Governor.
  • 1 from the SBHE.
  • 7 appointed at large by the Governor. These will (normally) be Oregon residents. One
    will be nominated the Foundation Board.
    [Current SBHE: 2 students, 2 faculty, 1 CC President, seven at-large.]
More here. Obviously this is all subject to change. 8/7/2012.

Gottfredson contract is

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here. For contrast Larivere’s is here. I don’t see a clause preventing Gottfredson from pursuing the New Partnership – but Pernsteiner’s board does reserve the right to fire him on 30 days notice, without cause. Page 6. Wow. But even Lariviere’s first contract had something similar, as does Pernsteiner’s. BTW – catch the contract reference to Gottfredson using Treetops as the official Pres residence? Now what could that be about. Meanwhile the New Partnership PAC has $415K in the bank – easily enough to buy a few legislative swing votes. That said there’s no indication Gottfredson wants to pursue this. 7/31/2012.

UVT wants fewer politicians on board

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From Kevin Kiley at IHE:

A group of influential Vermont leaders thinks $40 million shouldn’t buy a majority stake on the University of Vermont’s governing board. 

That’s roughly how much the state appropriates to the university every year. But the group says that’s not enough. These days, state appropriations make up less than 10 percent of the university’s overall revenue, while tuition makes up about half. 

In a report released last month, an advisory group convened by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin to study the relationship between the University of Vermont and the state recommended that the state alter the university’s governing board composition to include more members who are not appointed by politicians, a shift they say would help the university when it comes to raising money and creating partnerships with outside entities. 

The current board structure, put in place in the 1950s, has 25 trustees: Nine appointed by the legislature, three appointed by the governor, nine private trustees who elect their replacements, two students, and two ex-officio members (the governor of Vermont and the university president). That means political appointments outnumber “private trustees,” which the report says is a problem for the university. “This structure is out of balance in relation to that state appropriation and does not reflect the interest of the university or the true relationship to the state,” the report states. “Further, the limiting size and make up of the board hinders UVM’s ability to raise its profile within the state and nationally, raise needed dollars and recruit future trustees and supporters.”

 The OUS proposal lets the state appoint all members, including the token faculty and student members. 7/25/2012.

Clueless independent board reappoints President Sullivan

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of UVA. From The Hook:

In his remarks prefacing his reinstatement resolution, Fralin conceded that all Board members possessed advance knowledge of the desire to remove the president. He says he regrets that he wasn’t “clever enough” to know that he and just two other board members could have called a meeting to demand a full roll-call vote.

“I wish I’d been a little more clever,” Fralin reiterates after the meeting, and he asserts that he had “no idea” whether Dragas really had the 12 votes that Board rules require to remove a president.

More in the NYT here. 6/27/2012

Virginia lawmakers consider board changes

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6/25/2012: From the Daily Progress:

“I think the whole process by which people are appointed needs to be revisited,” said House Minority Leader David Toscano, D-Charlottesville. “I think there’s probably a role for having a designated slot for someone who has a lot of background in academia, perhaps a faculty member or retired faculty member, someone who understands higher education from the inside out.”

Del. Robert Tata, R-Virginia Beach, chairman of the House Education Committee, said lawmakers are waiting to see how the situation plays out, but it’s likely to become an issue for the General Assembly.

“A lot of times, board members are appointed according to the amount of money they give the university. Sometimes they don’t have the best interests of the university at heart. They have other axes to grind or whatever,” Tata said. “But it’s going to raise a lot of hackles when we get back in session next year, as to why this happened, how it happened and who were the major players.”

Frohnmayer proposal on independent boards

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6/23/2012: From back in fall 2009. The first part is the usual Oregon higher ed is in trouble stuff. The second part is considerably more aggressive regarding the rights of independent university boards than anything I’ve seen lately from OUS or anyone else. Pdf here, 2009 RG story here. The ironic part is that Pernsteiner paid Frohnmayer to write it, as part of his golden parachute retirement deal.

Fired UVa president to be reinstated?

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6/22/2012: Insidehighered is keeping a close watch on developments at UVa, here. Looks like the board may cave to intense faculty pressure and reappoint President Sullivan. The last graph makes clear how rare faculty input into independent boards is:

Presidents have to make controversial decisions that can alienate campus constituencies. If Sullivan were reappointed, for instance, she would have to confront the issue of whether to push for a faculty member to be appointed to the board, an issue the faculty has been championing since Monday. Pushing such a move — which would be highly unconventional among universities — would put Sullivan outside what are accepted best practices. Going against such a move could greatly upset faculty members who might feel betrayed by the president they rallied to support.

Now the Gov is threatening to fire the entire board if they don’t explain themselves. 

Would you support an independent board for UO if you knew it would have only token faculty representation – e.g. a member picked by the Governor rather than elected by the faculty?

Meanwhile President Ed Ray of Oregon State, having just received a modest emolument from Dr. Pernsteiner, does his best to repay his debt with testimony before the legislative committee on independent university boards. (Full disclosure: as a state taxpayer I am helping pay part of Ray’s raise.)