Board reforms necessary to ensure universities’ future

Board reforms necessary to ensure universities’ future

Alterations should include term limits and selection process

By Suzanne Evans

In an uncharacteristic showing of solidarity and decorum last
week, the University of California Board of Regents voted
unanimously to begin implementing the ban on race-based admissions
in the spring of 1997, thus ending yet another explosive chapter in
the ongoing saga of affirmative action.

Yet, despite all the political hype emanating from California,
the debate over the fate of affirmative action has been
surprisingly revealing. Not only has it thrown into relief the need
for a more fair and equitable system of university admissions (such
as one based on socioeconomic status instead of race), but it has
helped underscore a need for reform in the way the UC system is
governed.

That the former has overshadowed the latter is perhaps to be
expected given the fact that race seems to trump just about
everything these days. But the social explosiveness of one issue is
not a valid excuse for the neglect of another, and hiding behind
headlines will not make the University of California’s own internal
problems go away.

Indeed, if the University of California is to successfully meet
the challenges of the 21st century and remain one of the premiere
public institutions of higher learning in the world, significant
changes must be made in the university system’s governing board,
and they must be made now. What kind of changes? Below are some
suggestions:

– Change the way the regents are selected. Under the California
Constitution, the government of the university is entrusted to the
Board of Regents, which consists of 26 voting members: 18 are
appointed by the governor for 12-year terms; seven, including the
governor and the president of the university, are ex officio
members; and one is the student regent who is appointed by the
regents for a one-year term.

Rather than by appointment, board members should be selected in
a more democratic manner: by general election. Substituting
elections for appointments will not only transfer power from the
governor to the citizens of California (where it rightfully
belongs), but it might also help neutralize the highly politicized
nature of the board. In addition, it will help ensure that those
who serve are the best qualified for the job.

– Reduce the term that each regent serves. Except for the seven
ex officio members and the student regent, each board member serves
a lengthy 12-year term. Why not limit each term to four years?

Because the regents are vested with legal and corporate
authority to establish policy and oversee the financial management,
investments and property holdings of the University of California,
four-year terms are preferable to 12-year terms in that they will
make the regents more frequently accountable to the citizens of
California.

Moreover, since most members have full-time careers and many
serve other boards and committees, reduced terms might help
minimize regent apathy, burnout and stress. If at the end of the
term a member wishes to serve again, she or he can simply run for
re-election.

– Televise board meetings. Convening once every six weeks, many
board meetings take place in closed-door sessions in hard-to-find
rooms at the UC San Francisco Laurel Heights campus. One recent
meeting was actually held in a windowless room in the basement of
that sprawling university. While exigent circumstances may have
made such (Kafkaesque) measures necessary, there is no legitimate
reason why other meetings have to be so inaccessible.

Certainly it is not too much to suggest that the regents
advertise the time, place and agenda of upcoming meetings. Better
yet, meetings could be televised on cable, so as to reach an even
broader audience. Finally, minutes of the meetings should be made
widely available to all citizens. As it currently stands,
transcripts are available through the Office of the President in
Oakland, but it takes several weeks to receive them and many
important details are often excised.

– Change the procedure for selecting the student regent. In
1974, California voters amended the state constitution to provide
the regents with the option of appointing one student as a voting
member with full rights of participation. Since 1975, a UC student
has served as a member of the board.

To help ensure more effective representation, the student regent
should not be appointed by the regents; rather, she or he should be
elected by the student body. One way to do this would be to allow
each campus to nominate one candidate (in primary elections) and
then allow the entire UC student body to elect one regent from the
field of nine (in a general election).

Though it is unclear what effect such reforms will have on the
future, what is clear is that reforms must be made if the
University of California is to remain one of the premiere public
institutions of higher learning in the world. Indeed, the question
is not whether changes are necessary, but what type of changes,
when and how.

Evans is a UCLA alumna.Comments to
[email protected]