| Many observers suggest that following their appointments, the regents spend more energy ensuring their independence from the governor than they do from a scruffy bunch of lawmakers.
Not sure. Ask the Governor.
The Regents meetings are a real spectacle. Mike Tyson would cringe with jealously over the entourage from each campus and the Office of Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE) that trek dutifully to each meeting for reasons not altogether clear to them. They wait expectantly to be summoned forth to the shrine for a five-minute exchange of wisdom. Sadly, many of the regulars are never invited to respond or engage in Q & A.
The logistics involved must be immense.
It's a cast of dozens and dozens. No one knows exactly how many.
They trek. They descend. And the practice of these road shows costs money. A lot of it. How much? Well, you know....The Board meets four or five times a year, usually for a two-day extravaganza. There is nothing short-sighted about this bunch. It is scheduled through November 2011.
Is there a method to this madness or is it is a coincidence that the Board meets in November Bozeman on odd numbered years and Missoula in even numbered years?
You decide.
The dates just happen to fall on the Thursday and Friday prior to the Cat-Griz football game. Rooms for Friday night booked in advance and paid for by . . . . ? Yeah.
It also meets in Helena, in January and March of 2011. Isn't that when the Legislature is on session? The impact of these meetings on the legislature appears to be minimal. Not the most persuasive and influential, these regents.
Titles and dignitaries abound. There are the seven Regents, Doctors of most every kind, Presidents, Chancellors, Provosts, at least one Commissioner, Vice-Presidents, Registrars, Deans, and loads of vice-this 'n -that's.
Bet the base salary of none of them is under $80K. Laptops, blackberries and cell phones are standard issue.
The meetings somehow manage to earn the rapt attention of spectators even though they move at the pace of a lame mud-plodder.
The Regents themselves are content to engage in a type of academic certainty, whereby nothing is resolved and everything questioned. They delve and dawdle in the minutiae, while the core mission and future of MUS and the educational opportunity it provides are too often secondary.
Deference is key. Decisions routinely deferred.
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the system hang in the balance.
And, the students, hoping for an opportunity to enter the promised land? The collections plate is making its way around the tabernacle.
Dare anyone say, "Pay More? What for?" |
