If Elected Officials Cared about PASSHE Students, What Would be Different?

As we saw in last week’s blog post:

 
“If Pennsylvania’s elected officials cared about PASSHE students, they would begin by obeying the law, and demanding that the political supporters they appoint to PASSHE’s governance boards do the same.”
 
But—if the elected officials cared—that is not the only thing that would be different.  Here’s another:

If Pennsylvania’s elected officials cared about PASSHE students, they would require every political appointee whom they place on PASSHE governance boards to take a fiduciary oath of office, and to be bound by that oath to maintain a fiduciary relationship between themselves and the PASSHE students. 

The Lack of a Fiduciary Oath or Fiduciary Relationship between PASSHE and Students

Currently, the political supporters who get appointed by elected officials to seats on PASSHE’s Board of Governors (BOG) and PASSHE’s 14 Councils of Trustees (COTs) must take the following oath of office:
 
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity.”
 
Note that these 37 words constitute the entire oath taken by PASSHE’s BOG and COT members.¹
 
Note also, that while the oath calls on the PASSHE governance board members to “discharge the duties of their office with fidelity,” the object of their fidelity is not specified!
 
According to Merriam-Webster, “fidelity implies strict and continuing faithfulness to an obligation, trust, or duty, such as, for example, marital fidelity.”  That is, fidelity requires both a subject and an object.
 
Question: To what, or to whom, are PASSHE governance board members required to be faithful?
 
Answer: Neither the official oath nor Act 188—which stipulates² the duties, powers and responsibilities of the Board of Governors and the Councils of Trustees—specifies the object of fidelity in the official oath.  The many stipulations in Act 188 apply to the Board of Governors and Councils of Trustees only as groups, without ever specifying the responsibilities of individual members of those governance bodies. 
 
Lacking an oath-mandated requirement as to whom the governance board members owe their fidelity, it would not be surprising if political supporters of elected officials who receive appointments to PASSHE’s governance boards chose, as the objects of their fidelity, the same elected officials who appointed them. 
 
In fact there is convincing evidence that politically-appointed officials on the PASSHE Board of Governors and the 14 PASSHE Councils of Trustees discharge the duties of their office with fidelity to the elected officials who appointed them, apparently in the hope of being reappointed when their terms expire.³
 
The current oath taken by PASSHE governance board members—which doesn’t explicitly require them to put the best interests of the students first—is incredibly damaging to the students because there is a huge difference between the best interests of the PASSHE students and those of the elected officials.
 
These facts portray still another example of Pennsylvania’s elected and appointed officials competing against the PASSHE students, and doing so with impunity—because PASSHE’s governance board members can ignore the interests of PASSHE students and still be faithful to their oath of office!
 

If Pennsylvania’s Elected Officials Cared about PASSHE Students, What Would be Different?

 
If Pennsylvania’s elected officials really cared about PASSHE students and required every political appointee whom they place on PASSHE governance boards to take a fiduciary oath of office, and to be bound by that oath to maintain a fiduciary relationship between themselves and the PASSHE students, everything, from the PASSHE student’s point of view, would not only be different but incredibly better!
 
A fiduciary relationship is a relationship of trust that has been well described⁴ by the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) on its website as follows:
 
“Members of college and university boards are fiduciaries of the institutions they serve. The concept of ‘fiduciary’ is well established in law and practice. It refers to the one charged with acting beneficently on behalf of those whose welfare depends on trust.  In fact, the word "fiduciary" comes from the Latin word for "trust." College and university board members govern within a long-standing tradition, with responsibility for the public trust, for the future of the institution, and for the benefit of current and future students.”  (Emphasis added.)

The AGB also defines the three duties of governance board responsibility⁴ as follows:

1.       The duty of care requires the full attention to one’s duties as a board member, setting aside competing personal or professional interests to protect the assets of the institution. This includes financial assets to be sure, but it also includes the institution’s reputational, personnel, and tangible assets as well. The expectation is that a board member acts reasonably, competently, and prudently when making decisions as a steward of the institution.

2.       The duty of loyalty requires board members to put the interests of the institution before all others. It prohibits a board member from acting out of self-interest. The board’s conflict of interest policy provides guidance on how a conflicted board member can avoid putting personal interests first.

3.       The duty of obedience refers to the board member’s obligation to advance the mission of the college or university. It also includes an expectation that board members will act in a manner that is consistent with the mission and goals of the institution. Failure of this duty can result in a loss of public confidence in the institution.

If PASSHE’s individual governance board members were to accept their responsibilities as fiduciaries—as they are morally obligated to do—their adoption of the duties of care, loyalty and obedience would change the lives of PASSHE students in many positive ways.  More later.
 
¹ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6750603/oath-of-office-pdf-37k.
² https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6772880/act188-pdf-405k.
³ http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Without-Plan-Leadership-Pennsylvania/dp/1491295244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408368767&sr=8-1&keywords=angelo+armenti.  Pages 31-33.
⁴ http://agb.org/knowledge-center/briefs/fiduciary-duties.