A Wake-Up Call to PASSHE Students, Parents and Alumni Donors - Part 12

The Commission of Presidents

As we saw last time, Act 188 defines the membership of the Commission as the fourteen PASSHE university presidents, and specifies its purpose¹ as follows: “The commission shall recommend policies for the institutions and shall act in an advisory capacity to the chancellor and the governors.”

Recall that when used in laws, the word “shall” denotes what is mandatory.  (Emphasis added.)  Also recall that Act 188 is the enabling legislation that created and ostensibly guides the PASSHE system of fourteen universities.

PASSHE’s 14 universities include Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester.

Last time, under the heading “Still Another Example of Malfeasance by the PASSHE Board of Governors,” I cited the Act 188 text on the ‘Commission of Presidents’ and asserted that Chancellor Cavanaugh and the Board of Governors “decided otherwise” when it came to obeying that provision of the law.

By asserting that they “decided otherwise,” I was in fact asserting that by ignoring that specific mandate from Act 188, their actions were “contrary to law” and were therefore—by definition—malfeasance.

 

To Recommend Policies and To Act in an Advisory Capacity

It is clear from the ‘Commission of Presidents’ language in Act 188 that there are two critical provisions in the law, and that both provisions—labelled I and II below—require cooperation between the Commission of Presidents on the one hand, and the Chancellor and Board of Governors on the other.
 
Also clear is that both sides in this needed cooperation have roles to play, and responsibilities to accept.
 

I: To recommend Policies for the Universities

According to Merriam-Webster, to “recommend” is “to suggest that someone do something.”   In PASSHE’s case, the Commission of Presidents is empowered—and in fact mandated—to suggest to the Chancellor and Board of Governors that they do something such as, e.g., adopting a particular policy affecting the fourteen universities that the Commission of Presidents, as a group, supports.

 
The Role and Responsibilities of the Commission
 
Before the Commission of Presidents can recommend policies to the Chancellor and Board of Governors, it must first invest the necessary time and effort to study and develop potential policies for submission to the Chancellor and Board that are favored by a majority of the fourteen presidents.   
 
In short, the role of the Commission is to study and develop policies that, in the eyes of a majority of the presidents, would benefit the PASSHE universities.  But that role can be accomplished by the presidents, only if they accept the responsibilities involved in doing “staff work,” which PASSHE presidents are often reluctant to engage in because of the time commitment required to achieve any sort of consensus. 

And because PASSHE presidents are often required to travel to Harrisburg once or twice a month to participate in meetings with agendas created by the Chancellor or Board of Governors—with few if any opportunities to do any face-to-face “Commission” work while there—the work of the Commission of Presidents—to the extent that it gets done at all—is conducted by telephone conference calls with the presidents in their offices and, not infrequently, in their cars on route to or from off-campus meetings.
 
The Role and Responsibilities of the Chancellor and the Board

According to Act 188, the role of the Chancellor and Board of Governors in this case would be to receive and consider for approval any recommendations sent to them by the Commission of Presidents.  
 
But before the Chancellor and Board can receive and consider a policy recommendation from the Commission of Presidents, the Commission must first do its part by developing and then sending their policy recommendation to the Chancellor for transmittal to the Board of Governors.

And before any such recommendation could be considered by the Board of Governors, a number of other arrangements would need to be completed by the Chancellor, the chief executive of the Board.

 
Many of those required arrangements arise from the fact that, by law, PASSHE Board policies, whether added, amended, or rescinded, must first be approved in public session with the media present.
 
So, for example, meeting times would need to be scheduled to enable the Board to consider and discuss the policy recommendation in question, before being called upon to vote on it during a public session.     
 

The Commission of Presidents (1993 - 2008)

In my first sixteen years as a PASSHE university president, five different colleague presidents were elected and served as Chair of the Commission of Presidents.
 
As a first-time university president and “newcomer” to the PASSHE system of fourteen universities in the summer of 1992, I set out to listen and learn as much as I could so that I might be able to contribute not just to my university but to the “system” and the other thirteen universities as well.  
 
In truth, it didn’t take long for me to notice some disturbing patterns with regard to how the PASSHE system operated.  Chief among them was a frequent lack of agreement between “words” and “deeds,” a subject to which I will return in future blog posts.    
 
The bottom line is this: During that sixteen year period, I can’t recall a single motion having been made, discussed, or voted upon by the Commission of Presidents!   And as a result of that failure, not a single policy recommendation affecting the PASSHE universities was ever made by the Commission and sent to the Chancellor and Board of Governors for consideration and possible approval.   

The Commission of Presidents (2009 - 2012)

 
After 16 years of witnessing first hand that the Commission of Presidents was not functioning at all as mandated in Act 188, I ran for the position of Chair of the PASSHE Commission of Presidents, and was first elected by my colleague presidents in FY2009, eventually serving for a total of four one-year terms.
 
To be continued.

¹ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6772880/act188-pdf-405k.