Oregon AAUP proposes faculty on OSSHE Board
The Chancellor and Board are supporting a major restructuring of
public higher education in Oregon. The Higher Education Efficiency
Act (Senate Bill 271) replaces the current structure with a more
powerful Oregon Public University System Board of Trustees. The
Oregon Conference, in a letter to Senator Luke, stated that, "with
21 ORSs being deleted and 224 ORSs and various chapters within two
Oregon laws being modified, it is impossible to identify all
possible problems that this act will create for faculty and
students. This act was created with essentially no faculty
participation. Because of this tremendous power shift and the
ambiguity that is inevitable with such a major restructuring of the
ORSs pertaining to the new organization, it is critical that
faculty have a voice by direct membership on the Board."
The letter then proposes a modification of the composition of the Board
to include two faculty members, appointed by the governor from the
list containing the names of two elected faculty members from each
institution. This is not a revolutionary idea. The Conference has
been urging this action for a number of years. At the national
level, about one-third of the universities responding to a survey
by Carol Bernstein, President of the Arizona Conference, indicated
that they have one or more faculty on their governing boards,
although not necessarily as voting members. However, many have
voting rights. For example, the faculty, staff, and student
trustees are voting members of the Board at the University of
Louisville.