The Commission of Presidents
We will now return to the story
of the twenty-year history of the PASSHE Commission of Presidents for the years
between 1993 and 2012. Recall that Act
188¹ contains a specific mandate in these words: “The commission shall recommend
policies for the institutions and shall act in an advisory capacity to
the chancellor and the governors.” (Emphasis
added.)
But despite this mandate, during the
first sixteen years of that 20-year period, not a single resolution was ever
moved, discussed or voted upon by the Commission! And as a result of that failure, not a
single Commission policy recommendation affecting the PASSHE universities was
ever approved and sent to the Chancellor and Board of Governors for their consideration
and possible approval.
Upon my election to the position
of Chair of the Commission of Presidents in 2009, I resolved to get the PASSHE Commission
of Presidents to function according to the clear, unambiguous language of Act
188.
PASSHE’s 14 universities
include Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney,
Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield,
Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester.
The Challenges Facing the Commission of Presidents
As far as living up to the Act
188 mandate was concerned, the greatest challenge facing the Commission of
Presidents involved the near impossibility of bringing the fourteen presidents
together in person for long enough periods of time to conduct meaningful
discussion on the important issues and concerns facing the universities. There were many pressing issues and precious little
time to deal with all of them.
But based on my experience, university
presidents tend to be highly-focused problem-solvers at heart. By the very nature of their work, and to have
any chance of success in their careers, they must be able to identify both the
greatest challenges and the greatest opportunities facing their universities,
and to provide the energy and guidance needed to turn planning and execution into
successful outcomes.
While identifying and solving
challenges came naturally to each of the PASSHE university presidents, certain,
shall we say, political challenges, had managed to thwart the Commission’s
purpose for years. Chief among them
involved the presidents’ painful awareness that the most critical challenges
facing the individual universities—and the PASSHE students they served— could
never be discussed inside PASSHE.
From the perspective of the
fourteen PASSHE presidents, three decades of falling State appropriation—
compounded by the Board of Governors’ “low-tuition-for-all” policy—was
impoverishing the universities and their ability to deliver to the students
PASSHE’s statutory purpose of ‘High quality education at the lowest possible
cost to the students.’
The frustration of the PASSHE university
presidents on this issue—feeling thwarted in their longing to convey their
strongly held beliefs officially to the Chancellor and Board of
Governors—manifested itself most powerfully every year as the July
“tuition-setting” meeting of the Board of Governors approached.
Although the presidents between
1993 and 2012 regularly made the PASSHE Chancellor aware of their
concerns—about declining educational quality and the need for tuition increases
large enough to compensate for steadily falling State appropriation funding—not
one of the three chancellors serving during that period was either: 1) able to
convince the Board of Governors to heed the presidents’ second-hand advice; or
b) willing to request an opportunity for the presidents to meet directly with
the Board of Governors in a closed session to express their concerns first-hand
and face-to- face.
Instead, the only opportunity
available to the presidents to notify the Board of Governors officially of
their concerns about declining educational quality and insufficient tuition
increases would come at the public tuition-setting meeting in front of the
Harrisburg media.
A typical scenario at the July
BOG tuition-setting meetings between 1993 and 2012 went like this: A resolution
on the proposed tuition increase would be moved, seconded and opened for
discussion.
The first Board members to speak—obvious
supporters of the low-tuition-for-all policy—would begin by speaking to the responsibility
of the BOG “to keep tuition affordable;” would praise the presidents for ‘the
great job they were doing to save millions of dollars by cutting costs;’ and
would end by expressing their support for the low tuition increase being proposed,
and their confidence that PASSHE’s excellent presidents could continue to
preserve educational quality as they had always done in the past.
A few BOG members, typically one
or more of the three student members of the Board, would speak in favor of a
larger tuition increase in order to preserve the quality of their education.
The Presidents’ “Impossible” Opportunity to Speak
Prior to voting on the
tuition-increase Motion, the Chair of the Board of Governors would routinely
invite the Chair of the Commission of Presidents (a.k.a., ‘the president of the
presidents’) to speak on the proposed tuition increase. For my first sixteen years I watched in both horror
and empathy as one of my conflicted colleague presidents struggled with the
impossible opportunity being offered to them.
Why impossible? Because despite apparently being given an opportunity
to be truthful to the BOG before they voted on the Motion, no president in
his/her right mind could bring themselves to be totally truthful about the decline
in educational quality—in front of the media.
That headline could write itself:
“PASSHE’s
‘President of the Presidents’ Decries Decline in Educational Quality!”
The PASSHE presidents had been maneuvered
into becoming enablers of the Low-Tuition-for-All policy.
When all Board members wishing to
speak to the motion had been heard, and the Chair of the Commission of
Presidents had also spoken, the proposed low tuition increase would be passed
either unanimously or by a lopsided majority.
While I never criticized my colleague
presidents for holding back on the truth in that terrible situation—a public Board
of Governors meeting with the media present—I resolved to do it differently if
and when my turn came as the chair of the Commission of Presidents.
But that story as well as the story
of “The Professor and the Donkey” will
have to wait until another day.
To be continued.
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