what’s a regent? continued . . .
Music: Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I-IV (2008)
Last May I reported that I didn't quite understand the role of the Board of Regents in governing the University of Texas and that I would spend the summer poking around to figure it out. I've come a little closer to getting a handle on their role, which has invited the national spotlight because of Perry's bid for the presidency and a number of high profile, political appointments in various state education agencies. The short answer is that the regents are political appointees and wield tremendous power in the UT system; they are constrained only by popular, political sentiment and legislative will. The Board of Regents has the power to hire and fire the university president, and the chancellor of the UT system also serves at their pleasure. The chancellor is the figurehead, both a policy pusher and a fundraiser---key person for the administration and corporate side of things.
My education concerning the regency mostly comes from a book recommended by Rosa Eberly, The Tower and the Dome: A Free University Versus Political Control (1971) by former UT president Homer P. Rainey, who served the University of Texas from 1939 to 1944. An outspoken defender of the tenure system and academic freedom, Rainey was fired by the Board of Regents for defending the university from politicization. Although the story is long and complicated, the trouble started when Texas governors W. Lee O'Daniel and Coke Stevenson "staked" the regency with appointees opposed to "New Deal" legislation. During Rainey's tenure, a number of the regents called on him to fire four full economics professors for teaching "radical" views. Rainey refused, citing tenure protections and the principles of a "free university," where upon a many-year struggle ensued, eventually going public. The regents began meddling in the UT curriculum and fired three untenured economics professors, leading Rainey to make charge the regents with sixteen violations that he publicized. Despite widespread popular support, Rainey was ousted. Rainey eventually moved on to the University of Colorado and had a productive career, publishing The Tower and the Dome as a principled account of the controversy (the book is full of memos, speeches, and policies).
Rainey explains the power structure of the regency this way:
The University of Texas is a constitutional university; that is, it was provided for by the Constitution of Texas and not by legislative statute. It is controlled by a Board of Regents of nine members. These members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. Appointments are made for six-year terms which are staggered in such a way that the terms of one-third, or three Regents, expire every two years. The Governor is elected for a two-year term [today it is four years]; consequently, each time a governor is inaugurated he has the privilege of appointing three regents. If a governor is elected for a second term, two-thirds of the Board will consist of his appointees, and by this process he can if he desires, secure control of the Board by appointment men committed to his policies.
As Rainey tells the story, high-level meetings were held in the late thirties by politicians to "take control" of the university system, expressly for the purpose of controlling what is taught. This resulted in "staking" the regency to push forward policy reform that comported with what has come to be known as "conservative" values (at that time, "anti-Communist" values and profound disdain for New Deal reforms).
The comparisons of the current regency to the one appointed during Rainey's time are plain; all nine regents and the student representative were appointed by Perry: Alex M. Cranberg, James D. Dannenbaum, Paul L. Foster, Printince L. Gary, Wallace L. Hall, Jr., R. Steven "Steve" Hicks, Brenda Pejovich, Wm. Eugene "Gene" Powell, John Davis Rutkauskas, and Robert L. Stillwell. Of course, Perry has been governor forever, so it makes sense he would have appointed the whole board. Nevertheless, one can easily understand why there is high tension in the current higher education environment in Texas.
That the board is awash in Perry appointees explains why there is so much controversy about higher education reforms in Texas: the governor---an office that is relatively weak compared to other states---can push through pretty drastic changes should he want to do so. This makes, of course, the university president's job an especially tricky one, taking history as our measure. This may also explain why the Chancellor has "given in," so to speak, to the demands of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's "seven breakthrough reforms" stressing higher accountability and "more" productivity. The agenda has been set: increase enrollment, decrease tuition, teach "blended" classes (which is to say, adopt the University of Phoenix model), and stop supporting "frivolous" scholarship. Scholarship like mine, of course, which takes popular culture as a serious academic subject.