ACTA's Must-Reads
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) exists to empower trustees, alumni, and policymakers who share our concern for academic freedom, academic excellence, and accountability in higher education. On this blog, we highlight important current happenings on those issues for our constituents.
Boards and the budget crisis: engaged trustees desperately needed
University of California tuition is rising 32%, staff and faculty are being downsized, libraries are in jeopardy, and crowds were in the streets last week in protest. Community college students, ready for transfer, are shut out of slots at UC and CSU. And other states are not far behind California in reaching the precipice.
Bemoaning reduced resources is not the answer, nor is viewing the crisis as a state appropriation issue. Leaders need instead to welcome the opportunity to figure out ways to better -- and generally with less. William Tierney at the University of Southern California reminds us in this crisis of the failure of higher education leaders and policy makers to think beyond the status quo:
"Do we really need nine research universities?" he asks. "The student's education should come first." He says the four-year college degree could be consolidated into three, and that more administrative savvy is needed to make sure classes are available for the thousands of students who have had to stay in school for five and even six years because they can't get the classes they need to graduate. And he says the online education world needs to be explored since it has made so much progress over the past ten years... Even if California's budget problems were over today, we still cannot go back to business as usual here," he says. "We have a 20th century education system in the 21st century."
Yet, in the midst of these challenges, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that old practices die hard and that colleges are holding fast to the status quo. This, while 62% of university CFO's in the survey expect worse to come. Message to trustees: governing boards must be the visionaries, and challenge the attempts of the guardians of the status quo to resist inevitable change. This is their prerogative and their duty as trustees. ACTA publications and report cards have this goal in mind -- highlighting boards that are undertaking this important task. Thousands of students depend on trustees' energy, insight -- and impatience -- to be part of the solution. ACTA seeks to help.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on March 08, 2010 at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
CU regents deserve praise
ACTA's report Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas urges trustees to incorporate the crucial issue of intellectual diversity into institutional statements and policies, praising the many institutions that have done so in recent years -- including Old Dominion University, Boston University, Amherst College, Rhodes College, and the University of Colorado, among others. At its February meeting, CU's Board of Regents took action to strengthen its policies even further, incorporating the following into a list of the university's guiding principles that will become part of the Regent Policies: "Promote faculty, student and staff diversity to ensure the rich interchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth and learning, including diversity of political, geographic, cultural, intellectual and philosophical perspectives." This is an excellent addition and other boards should take note.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on March 08, 2010 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Glad tidings for ROTC at Stanford
ACTA research fellow Erin O'Connor reports.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on March 08, 2010 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Active board members...and their opponents
As trustees who follow ACTA's work know, not everyone appreciates their fiduciary role in higher education. A recent -- and still notorious -- incident in the charter school world hasn't reverberated in higher education circles, but its lessons apply there as well.
Last fall, the CEO of Imagine Schools, one of the nation's largest charter school management organizations, shared his annoyance at school boards with his top execs and school principals. The CEO wrote:
Don't we want local boards to be grateful and helpful and take ownership of the school? "Yes" and "No". I do not mind them being grateful to us for starting the school (our school, not theirs), but the gratitude and the humility that goes with it, needs to extend to the operation of the school.
He continued, "Before selecting board members we need to go over the voting process and our expectations that they will go along with Imagine...if they can't convince us to change our position, we expect them to vote for our proposal." He suggested getting "undated letters of resignation from the start" from board members -- in case, presumably, a quick defenestration would be advantageous.
Heard any of this before? In higher education, it is probably packaged more artfully under a euphemism like "board discipline" or "board unity." But it's the same toxin.
The truth is, trustees need to fight for the interests of students, parents, and taxpayers -- for priorities beyond the protection of academic turf and administrators' perks and prerogatives. To those trustees reading this: Be bold and be active. There has never been a time when your institution needed your wisdom so urgently.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on March 02, 2010 at 06:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Donor intent at Yale
In an article in today's Yale Daily News, president Richard C. Levin discussed the Bass gift debacle, when the University was forced to return a $20 million gift in 1995. He said, "The main lesson learned from Yale's return of Lee Bass's gift in 1995 is that we must be diligent in complying expeditiously with the specified terms of a donor's gift. It was a painful and embarrassing episode for me and for the University, and we have since made major improvements to the processes we use to ensure good stewardship of any restricted gifts that we do accept."
This is a good start. However, the buck ultimately stops with the Yale Corporation. They--and the trustees of every other university in their roles as fiduciaries--should be closely monitoring large gifts. ACTA recommends that boards supervise incoming restricted gifts to ensure that all funds are spent responsibly and in accordance with the donor's wishes. Furthermore, a reasonable threshold should be set by each board above which gifts would receive continued oversight.
Posted by Noah Mamis on February 23, 2010 at 06:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Higher education's tunnel vision
Our friend Daniel Bennett of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity has published an excellent piece on Forbes.com in which he hits all the right notes: "Out of control tuition inflation leads to vast expenditures but produces a watered-down educational product that fails to teach graduates the skills they need... Colleges engage in excessive hand holding -- with grade inflation, deteriorating degree requirements, a growing number of non-academic degrees being offered and ever-increasing student services... Before we sink more of our limited resources into this bottomless pit, we must acknowledge that the current policies aren't working."
One point which particularly stands out is the reminder that employers and grad schools, the "consumers of college graduates" as Bennett calls them, are "interested in the skills and abilities that graduates bring to the table." Hence, if we may chime in, the need to have rigorous general education requirements.
On this note, we are pleased to announce that we have further expanded WhatWillTheyLearn.com. ACTA's online college guide now features upwards of 170 colleges and universities than together enroll more than 2 million students.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 19, 2010 at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Teaching should also count!
Ohio State University president Gordon Gee thinks it's time to pay more attention to teaching in awarding tenure. In an interview with the Associated Press, Gee describes as outdated the currently prevailing formula -- which rewards the quantity of publications, not matter what their quality, over excellence in teaching. As the head of the largest university in the country, others will surely be paying attention. And so will we. Students should always come first and making them the priority entails bumping up teaching a few notches on the academic totem pole.
Some professors on campus are already grumbling. "There's a feeling, I think, that good teachers are a dime dozen," says one English prof at OSU. Having spent more than decade in university classrooms and has taken classes from at least 75 different professors, I would like to politely disagree. I can count the really good teachers I've had on one hand. Ultimately, they are the ones who really make a difference. Once the answers to the multiple choices exams have been forgotten and the essays one has written have become but a hazy memory, the persona and insights of the great teachers are what leave a lasting imprint.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 12, 2010 at 04:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Grading the university
In our report card on public higher education in Missouri, we praised the University of Missouri's Board of Curators for putting a premium on transparency and accountability. A recent article on a new accountability system being implemented shows why the board deserves our praise. By the end of this year, a color-coordinated report card will track whether each campus is meeting its goals in the four core areas of the university's mission: teaching and learning, research, service, and economic development. Each will be graded according to some 80 measures.
The first Accountability Measurement Systems report is already available online. As board member David Wasinger noted when it was originally announced in August, "This is what I have been looking for for a long time." Other universities should take note -- and other trustees should take the lead, as he and his colleagues have.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 11, 2010 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Responsible giving to higher education
Yesterday morning, ACTA hosted a conference on protecting donor intent in college giving, in conjunction with the Federalist Society and the Philanthropy Roundtable. First we heard from directors of three programs across the country: the Tocqueville Forum at Georgetown, the James Madison Program at Princeton, and the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government at the University of Illinois. The panelists discussed how their programs successfully separated their fundraising from their host universities, as well as how these sorts of programs can serve as outlets for donors seeking to improve their alma maters.
Our second panel consisted of a quartet of lawyers who all have unique expertise in advising clients on ensuring that the intent of their gifts is respected. Some of their suggestions included avoiding making gifts in perpetuity, considering donating to a legally distinct "supporting organization," and appointing an outside ombudsman. Other suggestions can be found in ACTA's Intelligent Donor's Guide to College Giving.
Posted by Noah Mamis on February 04, 2010 at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
How Mr. Carey aced college
ACTA friend Kevin Carey has an absolutely masterful piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on his undergraduate experience. After commenting on the kinds of problems in general education made clear on WhatWillTheyLearn.com, he delves into his political science concentration, where he now sees similar problems:
But the poli-sci department didn't exactly enforce a rigorous, coherent curriculum. You had to take political philosophy, for example, but you could take it at any point during your undergraduate career. I waited until my final semester, when, despite a carefully planned strategy of non-course-taking, I still needed eight credits to finish. I signed up for "Gender, Policy, and Law" because I figured there would be a lot of women in the class. (There were, but not the kind I had hoped for.) It also met in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesdays, perfect for a lifestyle centered on four-day weekends and the 2 a.m. broadcast of ESPN SportsCenter.And I took that pesky philosophy course, where I read The Republic, On Liberty, and a number of other great books that colleges have traditionally required students to read in their first semester, not the last, in that they pretty much lay the groundwork for everything else.
Who's to blame for this? First and foremost, I am. I was an adult at the time, technically, and I could have chosen to work much harder. Plenty of other students did, and do. As time goes by, my squandered undergraduate education stands as one of my bigger life regrets. The more the demands of career and family build, the more wistful I become when I look at the pile of unread volumes on my nightstand and linger in the philosophy and literature sections of my favorite bookstore--knowing with more certainty each year that you can read only so much in life, and that some of my chances to experience great artistic and intellectual beauty are simply gone and won't return.
At the same time, this kind of wisdom tends to accumulate with age and experience, things I had in short supply when I pulled up in front of my freshman dorm two months shy of my 18th birthday, stereo system and Pink Floyd posters in hand. That's why colleges are run by people who are more than technically adults.
The link above will allow you to read the whole piece. Don't miss it.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on February 04, 2010 at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
President to higher ed: cut costs
In his first State of the Union address last night, President Obama touched upon one key ACTA issue directly, and raised another one indirectly. In his remarks on education, the President recognized the role that colleges and universities have to play in making higher education "more affordable":
it's time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs because they, too, have a responsibility to help solve this problem.
As universities hire and ever-expanding army of administrators, and as tuition increases continue to spiral out of control causing two-thirds of college freshmen to worry about their ability to pay for their degrees, ACTA welcomes the President's belt-tightening message.
The President also returned to one of his campaign promises when he pledged to work this year to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Many of our elite universities continue to invoke DADT to justify their opposition to on-campus ROTC programs and it will be interesting to see, if the law is repealed, whether they will adopt a more welcoming attitude toward the military.
On the question of a ROTC participation, as on the need to cut costs, the buck of course ultimately stops with the trustees. They are the key levers of change and they have the fiduciary authority to act--now.
Posted by David Azerrad on January 28, 2010 at 03:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Governance in the news
Trustees are from Mars, and faculty are from Venus, if the Association of Governing Board's latest report is any indication. As both the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed report today, both groups supposedly display a lack of understanding of the others' roles in university affairs--adding yet another layer of confusion in the already murky business of shared governance. But is that all? ACTA president Anne D. Neal weighed in and found fault with the survey's methodology and the study's conclusions--particularly the fact that most of the survey's respondents were administrators rather than trustees. This unfortunately seems to reflect the common view that when it comes to university governance, administrators should be running the show at the expense of the board's authority. While education about all aspects of university governance and operations is crucial for trustees to be able to do their jobs well, their fiduciary role requires them to have the final word.
Posted by Sandra Diaz on January 25, 2010 at 05:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Higher ed costs: still going up!
There's still a dirty little secret in higher education and it's called ever-spiraling costs. At a time when families are cutting back and taking out loans to send their kids to college, higher ed costs continue to rise.
You wouldn't know it from the headlines of course, since we are told, in today's Chronicle of Higher Education for example, that "Paychecks Stagnate for Presidents of Many Public Universities." In reality, executive salaries are not staying put -- they are merely increasing at a slower rate. Whereas median salaries increased by 7.6 percent last year, they only rose by 2.3 percent this year.
The same article also tells us that base "salaries stopped growing last year for more than one-third of the 185 public-university chief executives" surveyed by the Chronicle. According to my old-fashioned math, this still means that nearly two-thirds of these CEO's saw their base pay grow! Yes, it's great that some CEO's are declining their bonuses or donating some of their pay, but let's get real.
During economic downturns, most businesses don't increase costs and raise prices. Instead, they find ways to cut overhead and reduce administrative expenditures to make their products more affordable. That's what should happen in higher ed. And yet all too often, journalists, policymakers and families seem to take it for granted that tuition increases are inevitable in times of economic downturn and that higher ed costs -- which are, wouldn't you know, governed by their own inflationary measure -- must always rise.
At a certain point, the cost of a college education will exceed its value. Some would argue we're already well past that point. Isn't it time we started expecting colleges and universities to cut costs and live more like the rest of us?
Posted by Anne D. Neal on January 19, 2010 at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Lessons from Stevens
Sweeping governance changes just imposed by the attorney general of New Jersey in a case involving the Stevens Institute of Technology Board of Trustees underscore why trustees need to get their houses in order: If you don't, someone may do it for you! Here are some lessons, for starters.
The full board -- not just the executive committee -- needs to set the pay level of the president and resist the temptation to raise presidential salaries higher and higher. It is interesting to remember that the New York Board of Regents once removed almost an entire college governing board for permitting enormous presidential compensation (of which the full board was ignorant) on the grounds that it was the trustees' legal obligation to conduct adequate oversight.
Boards must insist on clear conflict of interest policies. Self-policing measures will obviate the need for intervention. While outside trustee involvements can sometimes be valuable and informative, they can give rise to inappropriate transactions if the potential conflict is not disclosed. Accordingly, it is imperative that higher education governing boards adopt clear conflict policies that ensure transparency in university operations.
Presidential leadership does not depend on being a member of the board. Presidents of private colleges today commonly have voting rights on their boards. However, this status confuses the governance relationship. Presidents, after all, work for the board and frequently bring proposals to the board; sometimes presidents are also members of the faculty, where various conflicts of interest can arise. Permitting the president to serve as a nonvoting, ex officio member, or to attend board meetings upon the call of the board, can eliminate this problem.
Boards of trustees should insist on their own staff and budget. Currently, most boards of trustees have no staff and no budget. They are, for the most part, entirely dependent on the president's staff for support and for continuing education. It is not surprising that, given this fiscal arrangement, most boards are not independent.
Boards of trustees should regularly ensure donor intent is being followed. As a general practice, trustees should review restricted gifts and ensure the donors' terms are followed as part of their fiduciary responsibility.
Bylaws should provide for trustee term limits, and for removal of trustees for lack of attendance, misconduct, and conflicts of interest. The audit committee (whose members should be financially literate) can be responsible for ensuring that policies are adhered to and conflicts of interest avoided, reviewing compensation (including the 990s) and publicly disclosing top administrative salaries each year.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on January 15, 2010 at 06:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)