https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/29/trustees-face-pressure-resign-michigan-state-its-hard-force-out-boards?utm_content=buffer2616e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer
Issues are not just with elected trustees at public universities. Many have written, including me, that we need more transparency about governance at public universities-more about what they do and don't do. Who measures their performance and effectiveness on governing issues is an important matter for higher education, governors and state legislatures to address. Be interesting for state legislature to ask every university board chair to come and present about the board's strategies on benchmarking of the board, public evaluation, transparency statements and how they plan and offer board training on their public fiduciary and policy roles at the university.
The Michigan House and the Senate require each year that each university president testify before each house's Higher Education Appropriation sub committee. Presidents generally do a very thorough and excellent job of keeping the legislators posted on their university and answer very detailed questions. In my forty plus years around the Michigan legislative /public policy process I do not recall the legislature asking board chairs to testify on a regular basis. With all that is going on with higher education funding and public concern on costs maybe it is time for the boards to testify before the legislature.
Before someone yells back at me about university constitution independence, I will remind them that the legislature has tuition restraint rules written into each year's appropriation bill. If you do not follow it you lose part or all of your state aid. So why not apply same process to the above. At least talk about it.