Des Moines Register
06-24-06
Why not a broad review of Regents' role?
IOWA VIEW
Recent news articles indicate a legislative committee will raise questions about
alleged Board of Regents micro-management of the University of Iowa.
Little good is likely to emerge from an investigation that focuses on specific
incidents and personalities. What could be helpful is the appointment of a blueribbon task force by the General Assembly/governor to conduct a thorough
review of the structure and functioning of the Board of Regents.
The three regents universities themselves have been the subject of several
serious reviews in recent decades, as has been the K-12 system. But the basic
structure and functioning of the Board of Regents has not been carefully
examined from outside since it replaced the State Board of Education in 1955.
That has not been the case in other states, Illinois for example.
What questions about the Board of Regents might be appropriately pursued by
such a task force? The following would be a good start.
1. Should Iowa law provide a governing board for each institution rather than one
overarching structure? There is necessarily some overlap in the missions and
programs of the three institutions, but they also clearly possess unique strengths
and face different economic realities. In an environment where available new
resources are not keeping pace with increasing costs, a strategic focus of
building on strengths may well make more sense than attempting equitably to
allocate diminishing quality. A board dedicated, say, to Iowa State University
could itself focus on goals appropriate to that institution and develop the specific
expertise necessary for wise policy decisions. Certainly the current board
manages institutions that are far larger, more complex and more expensive than
they were in 1955.
2. Should the present trend toward centralizing the governance structure in Des
Moines, often characterized as movement toward a "system" model, be halted or
reversed? The staff and budget of the Board Office (staff to the Regents) has
grown significantly faster than its legislative appropriation. Nearly $2 million has
been reallocated from the institutions to support this growth, funds that might be
better spent on hiring (or retaining) quality faculty.
3. Should the institutional governing boards be reconstituted as public
corporations, as they are in many states, rather than as state agencies as they
are in Iowa? Universities undertake few of the regulatory functions characteristic
of most executive agencies. The public-corporation model would serve to
underscore the fiduciary role of governing boards as "long-term stewards" of the
universities, rather than as an extension of a governor's political program, as
most true agencies are and should be. This change, then, would tend to return
the boards to their historic role as buffers between short-term political concerns
and long-term institution-building.
4. Should the boards and their officers be given at least general direction
concerning their appropriate role? Steven B. Sample, who has led the University
of Southern California to an enhanced academic reputation and relative
prosperity has this to say:
Which decisions should be made by the Board of Trustees? Very few, if the
trustees have the university's best interests at heart. The board should be
concerned mainly with decisions that define vision and goals, and whether the
president and his coterie of top-level officers are achieving their goals. In the long
run, these may well be the only decisions that any university governing board
should make.
This is the advice given to all trustees by the Association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges, which includes trustees of public institutions often
known as "regents." In the same vein, a board president should see herself as
the presiding officer of a collective governing board, not as an executive officer
superior to a university president.