Disclaimer: The opinions in this column are those of the author and not necessarily The Augusta Press
Just over 35 years ago, I began my teaching career at a small college in the Kentucky mountains. My office was small; but then again, I was a brand new assistant professor and glad to have an office (and a job).
One afternoon, I was sitting in that office staring at the (nearby) opposite wall and contemplating a disturbing fact: other than my department head, there was nobody in the hierarchy above me who really understood what I was doing, or what I was supposed to do.
Fortunately they were good and honorable people, and I never had any trouble during my five happy years there. For one thing, they were always willing to listen, and they genuinely cared about what the campus was thinking. The president, for example, ate lunch every day with the faculty in the college cafeteria.
Yesterday all this came back to me as I was thinking about what had just happened in Atlanta.
The University System Board of Regents effectively made former governor and agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue, the new chancellor of the University System of Georgia.
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Before we get to Sonny’s merits as a potential chancellor, we have to consider what this decision really means about rules and regulations in Georgia – and in the University System.
Perdue was not appointed as the result of any proper national search but simply because of Georgia state politics. The Regents had begun a search many months ago to look for a qualified candidate. That search collapsed because some Regents tried to bypass the whole process and appoint Sonny. The search firm that had been hired, resigned, apparently valuing their reputation above the immediate check they would have gotten for continuing. Then, Gov. Brian Kemp discovered that he could legally replace some of the Regents, which he did, and the new appointees promptly forced through the appointment of Perdue.
So, what is wrong here?
To understand what is wrong, you have to consider a little history. In 1940-41, then-governor Eugene Talmadge purged the Board of Regents so that his new appointees could fire University of Georgia faculty and staff who favored Black and White students being in the classroom together. People were duly fired. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools withdrew its accreditation from Georgia’s universities, as did a number of other accreditation groups. A firestorm arose, and it caused Talmadge’s defeat in 1942 by Ellis Arnall, who then created a new legal structure for the Board of Regents.
Two ideas underlay Arnall’s changes. First of all, the board should be independent in its day-to-day decisions. The governor still would appoint the Regents, the Legislature would still set the budget, and the universities would still be subject to all state laws, but the Regents would run the system; not the governor, not the legislature. Second, the university system would, as much as possible, be above and outside of politics. Partisan politics would no longer be allowed to interfere with the running of the USG.
Until last week.
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Both these principles were violated – and there was really no attempt to hide it. The Regents, who insist that faculty and staff adhere to every jot and tittle of every system regulation, simply blew off their own founding rules – with considerable meddling by the governor.
Nor did the Regents even pretend to consider the views of the students or faculty; all the comments I have seen show that there was substantial opposition – and no support that I ever saw – for this appointment.
You might expect that SACS would have something to say, and a few months ago, it did indicate concern about the contamination of the search process, but the president of that body has indicated SACS will not look into the appointment to the single most important position in higher education in the state of Georgia. Apparently SACS has the guts to step all over a small and penniless institution like our own Paine College, but when it comes to dealing with the big boys, not happening.
So the Regents, aided and abetted by the governor, have made an arbitrary and politically motivated appointment to one of the highest paid jobs you can get from the state. You can hardly blame Sonny for wanting it, as the outgoing chancellor was paid $523,950 per year; compare that to the measly $221,400 he was making as secretary of agriculture. And Sonny will certainly get no less. But the Regents’ action is not only a procedural blunder. There is also the substantive side of things.
Many people have commented on the fact that Sonny has no experience whatsoever running a university system, or running a university, or running a single university department, for that matter. But that’s not the biggest problem to me. Here is the problem, and it is two sides of a single coin: First, he does not know what a university is supposed to do. It’s not hard to explain. A university is an intellectual institution. It is there to develop the students’ intellect, that is, the ability to think. A university may well contain departments that teach specific skills and trades – be it accounting or surgery – but everything comes under that overarching principle.
Now under some circumstances, that might not matter, but you have to consider the above point in relation to the second; namely, that Perdue will not be surrounded by people who are going to tell him.
The chancellor meets with two groups of people. He will have a number of meetings with the Regents – and these are important. The biggest “top” decisions will be made there. The Regents will ask tough questions – and you need a chancellor who can answer them. That is the real reason why you want an experienced chancellor. Now if the Regents were made up of people with an academic background, it would not matter. But effectively, you will have the biggest decisions about the University System made in a room where there might not be one single person who really understands what happens (or does not happen) on a university campus.
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Now the chancellor does have regular contact with the administrators of the chancellor’s office – a huge bureaucracy of people who do have experience. So, he might learn from them, provided he is willing to do so. But we don’t know if he is or is not, as he not been through any thorough vetting process. And besides, the chancellor’s bureaucrats have a mixed record when it comes to working with the local campuses, and on many occasions during my 30 years at Augusta University I felt that they ranged from indifferent to hostile.
There are faculty working groups that the Regents could use to gain information – but I have never seen that work. Those working groups were used mainly to transmit ideas and instructions from on high, not to hear from us what was actually happening in the educational trenches. Consider that the Regents and their bureaucrats are busily attacking faculty tenure. And don’t think for a moment that abolishing tenure would benefit students or taxpayers; the only people would benefit would be politicians and bureaucrats who would gain greater power. How does this relate to Sonny’s appointment? There is very little chance that the chancellor, or the Regents, or the central office bureaucrats, are going to listen to the faculty, staff, or students. They will make their decisions in an information vacuum and leave the local campuses to try to sweep up the broken glass. And here is why you should pay attention to all this:
THIS WILL COST YOU MONEY.
The University System is already one of Georgia’s biggest state expenses. If the system is going to run by political hacks and career bureaucrats, it will either cost taxpayers MORE, or the decision makers will cut THE WRONG THINGS because they don’t know any better.
I’m retired. None of this will affect me directly; but I am still a Georgia taxpayer. And although I’m off the payroll, I do care what happens to our universities. I hope you do too.
Hubert van Tuyll is an occasional contributor of news analysis for The Augusta Press. Reach him at hvantuyl@augusta.edu
