Weakening the Grip of Multicampus Boards

Many public colleges are winning more autonomy, but critics wonder if state interests are served

By PETER SCHMIDT

Do the public colleges that answer to their own boards have an advantage over the rest?

For lawmakers in a growing number of states, the answer is yes. Several states have established new oversight or advisory boards for individual public colleges, and some are even dismantling multicampus public-college systems to give "local" boards more power.

The changes are designed to help public colleges compete in a changing higher-education market. Many lawmakers are concluding that institutions with their own boards can respond more quickly to the needs of their students and local businesses.

In Florida, for example, lawmakers are likely to vote this spring to scrap the state's university system and establish separate boards of trustees, appointed by the governor, for each of Florida's 10 public universities as part of a broader plan to reorganize all public education in the state.

The Florida plan calls for the creation of a "super board," also appointed by the governor, to coordinate all sectors of education in the state while the local boards oversee the operation of individual institutions. Lawmakers in Nebraska and New Mexico have proposed reorganizing their higher-education systems along similar lines, although the measures are not expected to get far in those legislatures this year.

In West Virginia, legislators have agreed to set up separate boards of governors for each of 13 public-college campuses, effective this July. Illinois and Maine lawmakers also have given public colleges their own boards in recent years, while New Jersey legislators have given the existing Board of Trustees at each public college much more authority.

Colorado lawmakers are discussing whether to transform some of that state's 28 public higher-education institutions into "charter colleges," with their own governing boards. Each board would be responsible for making sure that the institution met the performance goals that state officials set as a condition for giving it autonomy and continued public financial support. In other states that are considering the establishment of charter colleges, like Massachusetts and New York, the assumption is that each institution would have its own board.

"The model that was good in the 1970's and 1980's is not good for the 21st century," says Gerald H. Gaither, editor of the book The Multicampus System (Stylus Publishing, 1999), and director of institutional research and planning at Prairie View A&M University.

The multicampus systems that have dominated public higher education for the past four decades have come under fire for being unwieldy, stifling the ambitions of their member institutions, and making it difficult to track the performance of constituent campuses. As public colleges seek more autonomy, "the multicampus systems are starting to fracture a little bit," Mr. Gaither says, and the idea of "one board per campus" appears to be gaining currency.

"There is virtually no question that the public is getting better direct accountability by having local boards," says Darryl G. Greer, executive director of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities.

But it's a stretch to say that boards for individual public campuses are the wave of the future, according to Mr. Gaither and other experts on higher-education policy.

Multicampus university systems remain a powerful force in higher-education policy. They exist in 38 states, control about two-thirds of the nation's public colleges, and serve about 80 percent of public-college students.

What's more, some states appear intent on building up these systems rather than tearing them down. In Kansas, lawmakers voted in 1999 to expand the reach of the state's Board of Regents from public universities to community colleges as well, which had been governed solely by local boards. Texas lawmakers have voted several times over the past decade to merge free-standing public colleges into multicampus systems.

The efforts to dismantle such systems have had their critics. Among them is Nicholas C. Yovnello, president of the Council of New Jersey State College Locals, the bargaining agent for faculty and professional-staff members at the state's nine four-year public colleges. New Jersey's decision to take apart its state board of higher education and to entrust institutions to their own boards, he argues, has left the state without any governmental entity that speaks for all public colleges or coordinates higher-education services.

"Each institution is battling for its own part of the pie without addressing the overall needs of the state," he says.

Other advocates of system governance say that, if public colleges are left to their own devices, they will tend to duplicate each other's offerings, and the largest or most politically connected institutions will claim more than their fair share of state funds.

"What I see in several places is that the institutions are going to be out there competing against each other for fewer dollars," says Charles B. Reed, chancellor of California State University, who is a former chancellor of Florida's State University System. "I don't think that is a healthy and good way to build quality and maintain access," he says.

Donald N. Langenberg, president of the National Association of System Heads, a membership group for the chief executive officers of public-college systems, says he does not perceive any broad interest in the creation of local boards. "It's just not something that we pay much attention to," says Mr. Langenberg, who is chancellor of the University System of Maryland.

But other national experts on higher-education governance say the fact that any states are championing local boards is significant, considering that, for the past half-century, most such boards have been on the wane.

Prior to World War II, about 70 percent of public colleges were governed by their own boards. But when enrollments shot higher in the ensuing decades, fueled by the G.I. Bill and the baby boom, a massive consolidation of public-college governance occurred as states sought to manage the rapid growth.

By the mid-1970's, about 30 percent of public colleges answered only to their own governing boards. Most other colleges either answered to centralized state boards or belonged to multicampus systems.

The revival of interest in local boards began about six years ago, partly in response to the competitive pressures being placed on public colleges by distance education and the emergence of new, for-profit higher-education providers, explains Richard Novak, executive director of the Center for Public and Higher Education Trusteeship and Governance.

"I think there has been a devolution of authority to the local boards, but I don't think it is happening in a vacuum. It is sort of forced by market forces," says Mr. Novak, whose Washington-based center, operated by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, plans to study the trend.

Officials of public colleges that have boards of their own say the arrangement has clear financial benefits for their institutions. In many cases, their board members have been instrumental in lobbying state legislators for more money, or in soliciting philanthropic support. Board members themselves have often opened their wallets as well.

Charles M. Lyons, president of the University of Maine at Fort Kent, says the nine members of his institution's Board of Visitors, mostly prominent local residents, "have helped us tremendously in terms of tapping into local wealth."

"These are the guys who know where the stuff is," he says.

Donors "are willing to have a deeper relationship with the institution if they can serve as full, privileged members of the board," says Mr. Greer, of the New Jersey state-college association. Eager to cultivate such relationships with wealthy and accomplished alumni who have moved out of New Jersey, public-college officials there successfully lobbied for a change in state law to allow each college to have as many as three out-of-state residents on its board.

Jean Lawson, a senior legislative analyst for the West Virginia Legislature's Joint Committee on Education, says lawmakers hope that the boards of governors being established for each of the state's public colleges will keep their day-to-day operations on track, enabling the state's new commission on higher education to remain focused on big-picture policy questions.

In Florida, university presidents are among those who advocate dismantling the university system's Board of Regents in favor of institutional boards. In a joint statement presented in December to the legislative committee overseeing the reorganization process, the 10 presidents suggested that the state board had outlived its usefulness, and that the proposed reorganization would leave their institutions better able to serve local communities, focus on the needs of students, and look after their own interests before the Legislature.

"It is very difficult for the Florida Board of Regents, under the current structure, to ever get to know and understand what each university is doing, and to get to know and understand the needs of that community," says Modesto A. Maidique, president of Florida International University.

"For 15 years our community has told us, 'You need a law school,' and for 15 years the Board of Regents has said 'No,' " he says. It was only after the Legislature voted last year to try to do away with the state system that lawmakers in Tallahassee were persuaded to establish new law schools at Florida International and at Florida A&M University.

Many defenders of the State University System say that the state did not need more public law schools, because it already had two public and six private law schools that had open seats and were producing more lawyers than the state needed. For the system's defenders, the Legislature's vote to establish the two new schools buttresses their view that the state needs a strong Board of Regents to coordinate education policy and the distribution of resources. They predict that with no such board in place, public colleges will be locked in a cutthroat struggle over resources, and that some will be neglected while others gain unneeded programs and professional schools simply because they have powerful allies in the state capital.

"Like the pharaohs built their pyramids, we are building unneeded professional schools in order to show honor to legislators," says U.S. Senator Bob Graham, a Democrat who served as Florida's governor from 1979 through 1987. He has proposed amending the state's Constitution to revive the Board of Regents and protect it from legislative interference.

Not every state believes that strong university systems and local boards are mutually exclusive.

The University of Maine System, for example, is governed by a strong Board of Trustees, but lawmakers there voted in 1997 to add a Board of Visitors for each of the system's campuses. Those boards are charged with advising the campus president on regional needs; advocating for the university in the public arena; raising private funds; and reviewing the institution's recommendations to the state Board of Trustees regarding tuition increases, new academic programs, and long-term plans. The institutional boards have little say over their institution's budget, however, and their role in presidential searches is limited to a few seats on the search committee.

Terrence J. MacTaggart, the university system's chancellor, says he supported the legislation creating the Boards of Visitors because "the system was in immense difficulty and needed to rebuild its credibility." He felt that "creating more autonomy for the campuses, and more of a voice for regional leaders, would in fact strengthen higher education over all."

Last October, the University of Southern Maine's board issued a report calling on the state to transform the institution into one of the nation's top-ranked regional, comprehensive universities. To some lawmakers and system officials, the report sounded like a protest against the campus's status within the system, and a demand for a larger share of system resources. But in a state where residents are often viewed as complacent about their local public colleges, lawmakers and higher-education officials say they are happy just to be hearing expressions of concern.

Among those welcoming the Southern Maine report was State Rep. Christina L. Baker, a Democrat from Bangor who had urged her fellow lawmakers to adopt the 1997 law setting up such panels. "I would like to see all of the boards advocate with that same degree of vigor," she says.

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