UT Prez, A&M Prof Tussle With TPPF
At a panel hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation today, Bill Powers, the president of the University of Texas, and Robert Strawser, an accounting professor at Texas A&M University and the speaker of its faculty senate, responded to the conservative think tank's proposed higher education reforms.
The ongoing debate about TPPF's "breakthrough solutions" for higher education and the vocal resistance to them by the UT community has been at times very tense. That was reflected in today's panel discussion, during which a defense of the reforms was mounted by Ronald Trowbridge, a senior fellow at ...
Comments (11)
Bill Carson
"Changes need to be made, [Trowbridge] said, but they cannot be made by the likes of Powers and Strawser. 'It has to be done by the regents or trustees.' Their job, he noted, was not to be cheerleaders but to govern."
Disagree. It is the job of the regents and trustees to provide oversight and accountability. It is not their job to govern. You hire professionals to govern. You appoint cronies...er...political hacks....no, ideologues...uh...I mean, regents and trustees to oversee the work of the professionals.
Keep politics out of the boardroom!
spike benitez
It has yet to be established why Texas A&M, UT Austin and all other state schools are now required to respond to a small, explicitly political and ideological think tank. They deserve no special authority over our state funded schools. They have forced, for unexplained reasons, thousands of man-hours (and dollars, because time is money) across campuses to generating reports, responses and attention to comply with their interests and demands.
The retireree taking breaks from cigs and drinks is the person spearheading and speaking for change in Texas education -- how ridiculous. None of the TPPF have served in tenured research capacities or at the helm of academic units at research one universities. VP at a small Michigan school is nothing akin to UT or A&M. I would bet that the College of Engineering at UT or A&M is larger than that little school's entire budget.This would be the equivalent of someone who ran their town's check cashing business suddenly prescribing national banking regulation. It is not the same thing, both are about money but totally different operations and enterprises.
The ambition and purpose of large state flagships and small private schools are different. They are both valid but distinct. It is silly to think that we should try to make our great state research institutions into the Phoenix Online. That is a drop in quality, not an improvement. People who want that education can do so, there is an open market for education and students consistently choose what we offer over these online educations. Let the market work. Let the universities work. TPPF can lobby all they like, that is fine. But, universities should not be subject to meeting with and responding to them or any other interest group simply because the principles are well connected and wealthy.
Jesper Marklund via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This idea that these guys say that research and teaching are inseparable is malarkey! Every prof at a research institution views their job as research, and teaching as a past time. I have never heard of a prof not getting tenure because they were bad teachers.
Ben Martinez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Jesper, on what resource do you base your statement.
Sharon Arnoult via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I actually do know of a professor who did not get tenure at UT because of poor teaching. It is considered, even at research universities, and it is an even greater factor at the other schools.
Sharon Arnoult via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Because tenure is a personnel matter, universities do not -- cannot -- make public the specifics of why tenure is or is not granted, unless it becomes a legal matter, i.e., the faculty member denied tenure dues.
Bill Carson
Good points, Spike. We see the same problems at the public education level (K-12). Small think tanks made up of people who have never been in a public school classroom, who have never served in public ed administration, come up with hairbrained schemes. Those think tanks lobby the grassroots and thereby influence local representatives, and those crazy ideas become law.
Kenneth Collier
Trowbridge assures us that he knows everything about universities. Yet somehow he disagrees with everyone else who knows about higher education. It should be clear by now that the TPPF has been taken in by another self-declared expert who will only embarrass them. If Trowbridge and the TPPF were truly interested in making teaching a priority they would be urging more funding for those schools with less research and higher teaching loads. Since they're not we can only wonder what their real agenda might be.
People come from all over the country and the world trying to get into UT and A&M. Apparently, Mr. Trowbridge rejects market forces and instead impose his will through the back rooms of government. It's ironic to see conservatives so anxious to centralize authority and I wonder if the TPPF has realized that their conservative think tank has spawned a liberal agenda for higher education.
James Harner
Once again Trowbridge trots out his erroneous assertion about the number of articles written on Shakespeare. Here is my response to his "guest column":
The American Enterprise Institute researcher who asserted that 21,674 articles were published on Shakespeare between 1980 and 2006 needs some basic instruction in research methodology. It is likely that he or she did a basic keyword search of the MLA International Bibliography. The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online--the authoritative record of Shakespeare research worldwide--records 34,011 articles on Shakespeare for the period 1980-2006.
poryorick
It would be really nice to see Powers and Strawser give equal time publicly to the Center for Public Policy Priorities for balance; I doubt you could hope to have Trowbridge even entertain. It's really disconcerting that one ideological bent is controlling a conversation that could have serious implications for the trajectory of higher ed in Texas.
think
It has been an aggressive political agenda for years. It has also NOT been student oriented. Deregulation, tuition hikes, cutting state funding, proposals for land development for retail use instead of education mission, raises for administration on the backs of education positions.
The fact is the old GOP is having a battle over politcal influence by the new Tea Party freshmen. And one politcal party making all the appointees and agenda setting isn't going to be good for public education. Is research only for biased interests who profit from it (like pollutors, companies who are indifferent to their Oil Disasters in the Gulf) or is it out there to better the public (like independent earth sciences, geography ,and responsible business) . Going on the GOP's pro pollution record it is hard to see how they can make assesments about education. Their own infighting is only a symptom of a troubling condition.
Texas education needs improvement and a good housecleaning but it isn't going to done by the Tea Party it will have to be done by the PUBLIC not deeply funded profiteering political partisans. Special interests and one party system that has never been accountable to the public has been the problem for too long (not talking about religious people because that is who founded this country ).
Look up Texas state board of accounting and it is odd that Texas A&M has the most people taking the CPA and passing even though it isn't known or recognized as an accounting school . Makes one question just how deep rooted politics as a criteria for getting jobs, licensing, appointees in Texas is.