Members of the Arizona Board of Regents decided Friday to oppose legislation that would replace the statewide board with separate boards at each university.
The bills in the Arizona Legislature, sponsored by Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert, call for three individual advisory boards with five members each. Three members of each board would be appointed by the governor, one by the president of the Senate and one by the speaker of the House of Representatives.
At an ABOR meeting on Friday at UA, regents were given an opportunity to recommend that the board support the legislation, but none chose to do so.
Regent Dennis DeConcini, a former U.S. senator, said he opposed the bills because Arizona universities have thrived under a statewide board.
“The system works well,” DeConcini said. “What Rep. Nichols wants to do is dismantle that and, to me, that would be very detrimental to the capability of our universities.”
ABOR tries to bring the universities together to work for appropriations from the Legislature, DeConcini said, but smaller boards would probably not be successful in doing so.
“They would make these universities much weaker,” he said. “Our system has been quite successful in spite of legislators who consistently reduce the amount of money that is available for higher education.”
If university boards are unable to accomplish this, the funding for research would decrease and the international recognition of ASU and UA could be compromised, he said.
Rep. Nichols said the universities are too large and too diverse for ABOR to manage effectively.
“They’re trying to manage three different universities that have three very different purposes and missions,” Nichols said. “I don’t believe they’re making decisions based off of what’s better for the university system as a whole.”
He said the board of regents directs much more money on a per-student basis to UA than to the other universities, but local boards would ensure each university gets equ al funding from the Legislature.
“ASU is getting the least amount of money on a per-student basis from the board of regents,” Nichols said. “You can’t tell me that the board of regents isn’t being parochial in their decisions based on the funding of the universities.”
Nichols said he believes competition for funding among university boards would ultimately benefit all students and make each university better.
Funding based on student population and academic success would provide more incentive for schools that is not found under the statewide board, he said.
“That type of friendly competition I think is fantastic,” he said. “I don’t believe that this would ultimately pit one university against another.”
But DeConcini said there is ample competition among the universities already.
“There’s competition for grant and research money, there’s competition for faculty, there’s competition for students,” he said.
Until the recent budget crisis, he said ABOR supported efforts by ASU President Michael Crow to hire high-priced faculty members who make ASU more competitive.
By becoming more competitive, Crow has been able to increase Foundation and grant money to ASU, DeConcini said.
“By doing what he’s done ... he has been able to pay for some of this without having to rely on the Legislature,” he said.
Regent Fred DuVal said in an e-mail that Nichols’ proposals will hamper Arizona’s efforts to form a more efficient and strategic university system by creating greater division among the institutions.
“At a time of such difficult budgets we shouldn’t be creating duplicative, redundant and expensive additional layers of government,” he said.
Reach the reporter at adam.sneed@asu.edu.
