Vacant spots on UC Board of Regents raise questions, concerns

The UC Board of Regents decide how much students need to pay to
keep the university afloat, how people will be admitted to the
university and why. But the regents table has been two members
short since Dolores Huerta and John Davies finished their terms in
January, and as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger puts off appointing
replacements, perennial questions about the nature of the
University of California’s governing body begin to surface.
Vacancies on the board are common, but some say they are a matter
of concern as the regents face a battery of important decisions,
and some debate whether the board’s composition represents
the diversity of the state and the University of California. And as
it has for 136 years, the future of the UC currently rests in the
hands of 26 individuals. Seven of these are ex-officio regents who
serve by virtue of their positions ““ the governor, the
lieutenant governor, the speaker of the Assembly, the
superintendent of public instruction, the president of the UC, and
the president and vice president of the UC alumni association.
Eighteen more regents are appointed by the governor for 12-year
terms, and one student regent is appointed by the regents for one
year. In addition, the chair and vice chair of the UC Academic
Senate and the student regent designate sit on the board but do not
vote. Regents attend a two-day meeting every other month, as well
as a number of smaller committee meetings. Their travel expenses to
the meetings, usually held at UC San Francisco, are covered, but
they do not receive any monetary compensation for their duties as
regents. The UC president is the only regent who is a paid employee
of the university system.

Empty chairs common Regents are split over
whether the unfilled positions are a problem, but vacant positions
on the board are a historically common occurrence. “It is not
that unusual for positions to go unfilled, especially with a new
governor,” said David Longanecker, executive director of the
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Longanecker
said by not appointing new regents promptly, Schwarzenegger is
losing an opportunity to have his voice heard on the board. Regent
Norman Pattiz was not concerned. “It is not unusual for there
to be vacancies,” Pattiz said. “It is the
governor’s prerogative, and he will make the decision when he
is ready.” But other regents say having a full board is
important as the body makes decisions that shape the
university’s future. “I think it is important to have
both of those positions filled as soon as possible,” said
Jodi Anderson, the student regent for 2004-2005. George Blumenthal,
vice chair of the UC faculty senate, said new regents are important
for the “expertise and group dynamics of the board.”
“I am anxious to get them on because there are some weighty
decisions that have to be made — like eligibility criteria in July
— and especially with the divisions (within) the regents. We could
use the people,” Blumenthal said. But even when the board is
full, not all the regents attend every meeting. Most of the
appointed regents attend consistently, though Haim Saban, chairman
of Saban Capitol Group and a Davis appointee, does not attend the
meetings. But of the ex-officio regents, only the UC president and
the two representatives of the UC Alumni Association attend
regularly. And when governors do attend, it is often for political
purposes. Minutes from regents meetings in the 1970s show that
then-governor Ronald Reagan attended a series of meetings, mostly
to assert political control over the university, according to
Archie Kleingartner, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of
Management who was an assistant professor at UCLA in the
’70s. And when former Gov. Gray Davis or Lt. Gov. Cruz
Bustamante have made surprise cameo appearances in recent years,
usually to take a stance on a highly charged issue like fees. When
State Superintendent Jack O’Connell came to give a
presentation at the March regents meeting his presence was regarded
as novel. Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles,
came to his first regents meeting in May and pledged to be a
regular, though not constant, presence.

The people in charge As the UC waits for the
governor to appoint new regents, some question how he will chose,
and on what basis. Schwarzenegger’s office has declined to
comment on candidates, offer timetables for new appointments, or
elaborate on the appointment process. When appointing regents, the
governor is advised by a 12-member selection committee which
includes several members of the state Legislature, a UC alumnus, a
faculty member, the chair of the regents board and a student. Bylaw
5.1d of the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education gives
the governor loose guidelines for appointing regents. The bylaw
states that “regents shall be able persons broadly reflective
of the economic, cultural, and social diversity of the state,
including ethnic minorities and women. However, it is not intended
that formulas or specific ratios can be applied in the selection of
regents.” The regents board is much more reflective of these
guidelines now than in 1973 when a joint committee on the
California Master Plan wrote, “the typical appointee to a
California governing board has been white, male, at least middle
aged and financially successful.” Of the 16 appointed regents
currently on the board, six are women and nine are white. The 17th
regent, appointed by the board, is the student regent. Over
two-thirds of the appointed regents are wealthy business people.
Dolores Huerta, a labor activist who worked with César
Chávez and sent many of her 11 children through colleges such
as California State University, Bakersfield and San Francisco State
University, represented a break in this pattern. Huerta was
appointed by Gov. Davis in the summer of 2003 to finish the last
year of another regent’s unfinished term. She was a popular
regent, especially with students. By the time Huerta’s term
expired in March, over 1,850 people had already sent e-mails or
letters to Schwarzenegger asking for her to be reappointed. Huerta
said the governor’s office offered her a position on the
Community College Board, but she declined ““ saying there were
many teachers who are more qualified ““ and said she was still
available to serve on the regents board. People who contacted the
governor asking that Huerta be reappointed have received form
letters saying that she will receive full consideration. Huerta is
still waiting to hear the governor’s decision. “As long
as the position is still open, there is still hope,” Huerta
said of her chances to be appointed. Huerta said the many workers
the UC employs, as well as those who make up a large portion of
California’s population, need to be represented on the
regents board. The UC employs 114,000 full-time employees. “I
think you really need someone who represents workers, people of
color and low-income people so the people of the University of
California can really have representation on the board,”
Huerta said. Some, like Longanecker, say Schwarzenegger is unlikely
to reappoint Huerta. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Gov.
Schwarzenegger brought in people with very diverse backgrounds, but
I doubt that it would be someone who was appointed by Gov.
Davis.” Longanecker also said governors like to appoint
people that they know well because they know those people reflect
their values. Many regents are also active politically. Incoming
chairman Regent Gerald Parsky is the chairman of the Bush campaign
in California, and Regent Richard Blum, the incoming vice chair, is
Dianne Feinstein’s husband and a trustee of the Carter
Center. Though governors often appoint people who share their
ideologies, Longanecker said appointed boards are stronger than
elected boards. He said governors may be able to appoint a more
diverse board than would be elected ““ the University of
Colorado’s board of regents, for example, which is elected,
is all white ““ and can appoint community leaders who will
bring prestige to the university but would not want to stand for
elections. Though many of these community leaders are millionaires
or billionaires ““ both Parsky and Blum are chairmen of large
investment companies, and John Moores, the outgoing chair, is
chairman of the San Diego Padres — Regent Velma Montoya said most
of the regents are “self-made.” “I think you have
to realize that they want to help kids make it the way they did.
They are very sensitive to opening up opportunities for young
people,” Montoya said. Matt Murray, the outgoing student
regent, said more perspectives are preferable, but the business
perspective is valuable. “The cynics would argue that the
governor appoints regents to say thank you for a big campaign
donation, and the alternative perspective is that the university is
a multi-billion dollar institution, and it takes someone with
business experience to run something that complex,” he
said.

Insiders without a vote The two faculty representatives to the
regents board may have more experience of the everyday functions of
the university than any other regent, but they do not have votes on
the board. And minutes from regents meetings in 1974-1975 show that
when the regents first voted to have faculty representatives on the
board, there was no discussion as to whether such representative
should have votes. Longanecker said it is a tradition in American
public education to have boards made up of laypeople. He said
having voting faculty members on the board could be perceived as a
conflict of interest. “(Faculty) do have a unique perspective
to bring, but it is also a partisan perspective,” Longanecker
said. But Blumenthal disputed this argument, saying the UC
president and the student regent, who are also part of the
university, have votes on the board. Blumenthal said in the
mid-1990s the faculty representatives were thought to be out of the
loop because they did not attend the smaller committee meetings,
and tradition kept them from speaking at the regents table. But the
influence of faculty members has expanded in recent years.
Blumenthal and Lawrence Pitts, the chairs of the UC Academic
Senate, speak regularly at regents meetings, and the question of
whether faculty representatives should vote has begun to
resurface.