ACTA's Must-Reads
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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 March 8, 2010 03:26 PM
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