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.