Guest Column: Only Regents Can Reform Higher Education
"Addressing this crisis requires strong leadership. Who can provide it? Senior administrators? Regents? Ideally, both. But former Harvard President Derek Bok, in his book Our Underachieving Colleges, finds presidents “often reluctant” to lead for fear of “faculty opposition,” which could “threaten their jobs.” College CEOs lack the power of their corporate counterparts. Facing a faculty no-confidence vote, few presidents possess the wherewithal to lay down their jobs.
Who, then, is empowered to implement reforms commensurate with our crisis? Benno Schmidt, former Yale president and current chairman of the CUNY board, answers, “Change in institutional strategy can only come from trustees.”
Such change is overdue: Higher education reached its crisis state with the acquiescence of trustees, who too often let boosterism trump their fiduciary duties. “Fiduciary” derives from the Latin fiducia, for “trust.” A trustee possesses the legal power and duty to act on behalf of others, both the school and the Texas citizenry, under conditions requiring both complete trust and complete openness."
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