Iowa City Press Citizen, IA
06-09-06
State requests documents from regents
Group looking into management style of board
By Gregg Hennigan
Iowa City Press-Citizen
An Iowa Legislative committee's hearing on whether the Iowa state Board of
Regents' management style is driving off university leaders likely will be next
month, one of the committee's co-chairs said Thursday.
First, members of the Legislature's Government Oversight Committee want time
to go through the "long list" of documents they have requested in response to
questions on the dynamics between the regents and the institutions themselves,
said Sen. Ron Wieck, R-Sioux City.
Gary Steinke, Board of Regents executive director, said he welcomed the chance
to provide the committee with information for the hearing. But he said he was "as
frustrated about all this as I ever have been about something" because of the
implication that the regents are being underhanded.
Almost all of the questions the committee asked involve actions that took place in
public meetings, he said.
"Just about everything we're giving them is off the (Board of Regents) Web site,"
he said.
The joint Senate and House committee's next scheduled meetings are June 19
and 20, but the hearing on the regents will be in early or mid-July to give the
committee time to go through the information, Wieck said.
Concerned about the recent resignations of former University of Iowa President
David Skorton and athletic director Bob Bowlsby, Wieck asked the committee to
look into whether the regents, including board President Michael Gartner, are
micromanaging the state's public universities, and UI in particular.
Skorton will take over as president of Cornell University on July 1. Bowlsby is
leaving UI on July 9 for Stanford University.
Both have declined comment on the issue. Skorton, though, has said repeatedly
that the Cornell job was too good to pass up and that he did not feel slighted last
summer when he was given a smaller pay raise than the presidents at Iowa
State University and the University of Northern Iowa.
Additionally, the regents have offended many UI faculty, staff and students by
taking the lead role in the search for Skorton's successor, a change from recent
history when the faculty led the effort.
Among the documents the Government Oversight Committee has requested are:
• Minutes of board meetings.
• Any documents, including correspondence, regarding the departures of
Skorton, Bowlsby and former UI President Mary Sue Coleman, who left for the
University of Michigan in 2002 before most of the current regents were on the
board.
• Salary information on those three.
• Whether the regents have followed the recommendations of a decade-old
report on the need to streamline efficiencies at the regent universities.
• Information about UI's recent purchase of space in Old Capitol Town Center
and its decision to not buy the entire mall for less money in 2003.
Another question, Steinke said, was who "hired" Gartner as board president and
why regent Bob Downer was not "hired" as president.
By state law, the regents select the board president themselves. Regents are
appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. They are not paid.
Steinke added that the majority of the committee's questions regarded Old
Capitol mall and came the day after a Des Moines Register story on the topic.
The purchase, he noted, has nothing to do with the resignations.
"I mean, what are we doing?" he said.