Inside Higher Ed
December 1, 2015
How transparent should a public university governing board be?
Politicians in a number of states, who often say they’re responding to concerns from constituents, have been calling for appointed or elected governing boards of their public colleges, universities and systems to be more open, particularly when it comes to public meetings.
“There seems to be little trust in the trustees today,” said Thomas Harnisch, director of state relations at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “There are calls for governing board members to show their work and how they came up with the conclusion, instead of just showing up with their outcome.”
Suspicion of public officials is nothing new, but, in the case of board members, it’s ramping up as more and more people are concerned with hotly contested issues like college affordability and presidential compensation, says Michael Poliakoff, vice president of policy at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization that is often critical of college leaders and supports board activism. “It’s a natural and somewhat tempered response to the failings of the institutions themselves,” he said.
Harnisch says “greater political polarization, contrasting views on the direction of the academy and anxiety over the price of college” have contributed to the increased scrutiny.
For example, tensions between the North Carolina Legislature and the governing board of the state university system have been brewing recently, largely due to issues of openness and transparency.
Legislative leaders have been grumbling about the University of North Carolina Board of Governors meeting in closed session to discuss university leaders’ compensation, and many expressed dissatisfaction with what some felt was a secretive search for the system's next president. Both the search and the raises have been widely criticized by system faculty and staff members, many of whom haven't gotten substantial raises in recent years.
The legislature asked for minutes from the closed session in which 12 of 17 system chancellors received substantial raises. While the board ultimately gave the Legislature the records, some board members said the request was invasive and encroached on the board’s autonomy. Yet one legislative leader, North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger, told a local newspaper the request was not limited to questioning the salary increases -- the larger issue, he said, is transparency.
“It’s about a more basic thing, and that is the idea of what you do in a closed session,” he told The News & Observer earlier this month. North Carolina's open meetings law permits closed board meetings in a number of cases, including to discuss land acquisitions, legal cases, business deals, employment contracts and public safety issues.
The previous month Berger cosigned a letter, along with the state House of Representatives leader, that cautioned the governing board against trying to circumvent a law passed by the Legislature, but not yet signed by the governor, that would require the full governing board to consider three finalists for the system presidency. Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. education secretary, was selected for the position, and she was the only candidate interviewed by the full board.