OREGON STATE BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION
RENEWAL WORK SESSION
August 8, 1997

North Willamette Research and Extension Center
Aurora, Oregon

Call to, Order/Opening

President Aschkenasy called the group to order at 8:30 a.m. The following Board members were in attendance:

Herb Aschkenasy

Those not attending: Jim Whittaker who was on jury duty; and Phyllis Wustenberg for health reasons.

Institution representatives: Presidents Bernstine, Gilbert, Reno, Wolf, and Youngblood; Provosts Arnold and Moseley.

Chancellor's Comments

Chancellor Cox requested a few minutes to report several items to the Board. The Board Committee on Athletic Funding and Sports Action Lottery is being chaired by Les Swanson. Diane Christopher and Jim Willis will serve along with Mr. Swanson. Paul Bartlett, from the OSSHE Internal Audit Division, has been assigned by Vice Chancellor Anslow to the Committee to assist with financial information. One or two consultants will be retained to assist the Committee and it is anticipated that a report will be available to the Board by October.

The Chancellor reported that the Industry Engineering and Technology Council has met twice. Now that the Legislature has adjourned and the level of funding is known ($5 million), the Council will begin to develop a budget for appropriate use of those funds. Don VanLuvanee, chair of the Council, has appointed four work groups, representative of the basic themes of the decision package, to identify targets for the resources.

Chancellor Cox said that Governor Kitzhaber has established an Oregon office in Washington, D.C., and has asked that higher education representatives participate in the effort to establish a greater presence there. Kevin Smith will head this office and Andy Clark, presently in the OSSHE Salem Office of Government Relations, has accepted an assignment to the office as well.

Acting Vice Chancellor Bob Dryden has taken the lead in recreating a Virginia Tech based service-to-industry project in quality control and performance aimed directly at industry needs. The effort is being jump-started by the Colleges of Engineering at OSU and PSU, with some assistance from the Chancellor's special project fund. The goal is for the project to be self-supporting in two years.

Finally, the Chancellor thanked Board members and presidents for their calls and notes over the past several weeks. "It was one of those mercurial periods in your life when you begin with a funeral and end with a wedding - so you deal with the beginning and ending of life. Your thoughts, comments, and calls and, most of all, your willingness to shift this meeting meant a great deal to me and my family. It took a tremendous load off me so I could focus on what had to be done," the Chancellor concluded.

President's Comments

President Aschkenasy welcomed the Board to its Renewal Work Session and observed that a session like this provides an opportunity for introspection and "for discussing among ourselves where we'd like to see the System go. You may recall that I wrote to you on the importance of focusing on improving quality, cost, and access. Employability was my addition to that group. Now we've been honored by having those put into law this last Legislative Session and that means that we are going to be measured by the Legislature.

"What I'm afraid of, if we fall short on some of the objectives that we set for ourselves, the Legislature will say, 'why haven't you done this,' and we'll say, 'because you didn't give us enough money.' Then things will unravel from there."

President Aschkenasy pointed out two articles he included in the Renewal materials, indicating that they provide a flavor of where the rest of the country is heading in terms of higher education. "There is major league concern about the cost of higher education. The real question is: what direction are we going to pick? I can tell you from personal experience, it's a lot less painful if you set a direction and incrementally move toward that objective than if you dig your heels in. You might get run over."

Chancellor Cox reviewed the basic points of his context-setting paper (on file in the Board's office) and reminded the Board that much of the recent history of Board planning had its roots in the work of the 2010 Advisory Panel, chaired by Les Swanson. "I have provided you with some thoughts about what I think a university system should be and what kinds of challenges we face in getting there. As Herb has said, so much of our preparation for the future is based on an assumption that it will be an extension of the past. What if that is not the case? What if we're on the verge of an overwhelming transformation? I tried in my paper to be honest and candid and, hopefully, provocative.

I spent five years on a bank board. One of the things that I carried with me from that to this job is the notion that what is happening in banking is potentially possible in higher education. We're moving toward 10 or 12 banks in this country that will be absolutely dominate. The Big 10 has already created a powerful consortium to create a for-profit continuing education national delivery model.

"At the end of the paper I suggest that there are some agendas we need to pay attention to today - organizational, statewide services, economic partnership, and political support."

The Chancellor then introduced the facilitator for the day, Dr. Richard Jarvis, Chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada,

The Renewal Work Session

Following his introductory remarks, Dr. Jarvis reviewed the agenda (attached) and set the stage for the proposed flow of activities. He underscored that this was a Board work session and that the focus would keep coming back to the Board and a plan for its work during the next few years.

Board Accomplishments Over the Past Three Years

A brainstorming session by participants resulted in a summary of Board accomplishments:
• Improved communication and connections with "customers"
• Better listening to external audiences, including businesses
• Planning - in particular the 2010 Advisory Panel effort and moving to greater clarity on institutional missions
• Greater sensitivity and responsiveness to non-traditional students (including older students, diversity)
• Improved perception of the Board and Chancellor being in a leadership role; more aggressive in pursuing goals
• Increasingly assuming the role of "change agent," taking greater risks in decision-making; willing to tackle some big issues
• Presidential appointments
• Partnerships, in particular those dealing with K-12 and community college colleagues
• Strategic planning to reverse the disinvestment mentality

Areas Where Board Has Not Accomplished What It Planned

The following broad categories were discussed as areas where the Board had not accomplished its goals:

• Need for a more clearly defined statement of the mission, purpose, and the role of the Board and how it should conduct its business. This included statements such as the Board acting like a "rubber stamp" board, not willing to openly debate the really big and important issues
• Lack of Board time in work sessions around specific issues - have not made time to learn about issues and then discuss them together Not specific or clear enough about Board expectations of institutions; no system of accountability
• Board and institutions do not always act as if they are part of a system
• Understanding, changing, and accepting the processes of how we do our business; face what we are not doing; be accountable

Role and Responsibility of the Board

Dr. Jarvis invited participants to brainstorm the major roles and responsibilities of the Board:

• Link higher education to state priorities
• Promote linkage of institutions to market forces/change
• Appoint, support, evaluate Chancellor and institution presidents
• Provide the synergy for a vision of the System and institutions
• Guardians of access to public higher education for all who want to come
• Accountability/stewardship for accomplishing objectives
• Policy setting and long-range planning to implement; fiscal oversight
• Advocacy - persuaders
• Be informed in order to make appropriate decisions
• Act as buffer for the Chancellor and institutions
• Guide investments
• Present interests of all Oregonians

Role and Responsibility of the System
The following areas were identified as appropriate/necessary
roles for the System:
Opportunity broker - offer strategic incentives Leadership in the following areas:
Strategic planning - statewide, Systemwide; encourage collaboration
Investing, budgeting, assuring efficiencies
Advocacy, including marketing
Implementation of Board policy
Accountability, including measurement
Connections with outside groups - including public relations/media communications network

Troubleshooter; problem solver; serving System needs; risk taker

(including visionary)
Provide analysis and information
Assure fair play between institutions
Board support

Role and Responsibility of Presidents
The following items were listed as primary roles and responsibilities of presidents:
• Leadership of the institution
• Administration, including budgets
• Provide the System and Board with solutions
• Institutional governance, advocacy
• Responsive to market - mission, niche, geographic
• Private fundraising
• Outreach to other institutions, constituencies
Board's Work Plan
The following areas were identified as important elements of the Board's Work Plan:

The four overarching objectives and reaching agreement on performance indicators
Budget building/allocation policies
• Review and, where necessary, modify basic first principles
• Mission clarity (are they responsive and are there incentives for change?)
Enrollment planning/management (FTE, headcount, etc.) Viewed from a statewide context and needs Partnerships

K-12
Community colleges and transfer policies
Within the System

Other needs - industry, agencies, not-for-profits
Other providers (educational and non-educational)
Appropriate policies that remove barriers
Business partnerships - next steps for System/Chancellor; presidents
Telecommunications Network - Infrastructure
Board organization and operation

5

Board Operations

Discussion about use of committee structure to allow Board members more opportunity to learn about specific issues and to engage more people in its deliberations. Agreed that it had to be a structure that was different from the old Board committees. Need to be sure they are organized around something the Board wants/needs to be involved in or the Board will end up spending more time on something in which it shouldn't have been involved in the first place. Board needs to be sensitive to putting in additional time on Board work.
Campus visits were discussed and it was agreed that the Board should continue to meet on the various campuses, but that Board members should also visit campuses on their own. Suggested that the Board occasionally meet somewhere other than a campus - for example, a key or leading business/industry location.
Create opportunities for Board members to do more public speaking
Board members should be more active, on a regular basis, with legislators

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