By Mitchell Schnurman
mschnurman@star-telegram.com
It hurts to lose James Spaniolo as president of the University of Texas at Arlington. Will replacing him hurt even more?
Last week, Spaniolo announced his retirement after leading UTA to new heights in the past 81/2 years. At 66, he wants more control over his time, and the job is too consuming to allow that. He agreed to stay on until his successor is in place, which could take a year.
Typically, this job would attract top candidates, despite steady cuts in state funding. But a political cloud is hanging over higher education in Texas, and faculty members fear that the school can't attract superstar talent in the current climate.
Others worry that conservative members of the board of regents will gain the upper hand and appoint a leader focused more on business than academics.
The stakes couldn't be much higher for UTA and the community. The university has become a vital partner in Arlington's economy, as its enrollment has swelled and its residential campus has taken root. Its push to become a top research university has already brought in better students and faculty, and raised the odds of landing significant research dollars.
The next leader has to build on that momentum, regardless of the headwinds in the state, and make major inroads in fundraising. Spaniolo expects top candidates to apply, in part because UTA is much stronger now than a decade ago. And he doesn't believe that its problems with funding cuts and polarized politics are worse than at most other places.
"Every university system has challenges and controversies," Spaniolo said. "It's a turbulent time in the country, not just in higher education. But I believe the UT System has become the premier system in the country."
Higher education is facing severe problems in California, long considered the top public system, and many other states have funding shortfalls. And the political issues are just as widespread.
The University of Virginia had a scandal this month after firing its president just two years into the job. The governing board said that Teresa Sullivan, who formerly worked at UT Austin, was moving too slowly on spending cuts.
According to
The Washington Post, board members didn't believe that Sullivan would shut down programs like the classics and German. Protests have been so strong that there were reports Friday that Sullivan may be reinstated.
If not, she's the fourth leader of a flagship public university to leave under controversy recently, according to Jeremi Suri, a UT Austin professor.
"The men and women in these jobs seem to have a target on their backs," Suri wrote in an op-ed piece for CNN.
Governors and lawmakers are impatient for efficiencies, he wrote, while professors are adamant about protecting their work.
All sides in higher ed seem to agree that there's a need for cost savings and accountability, and they want to use technology to be more productive. The question is how to do that without compromising the best traditions in research and teaching.
In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry embraced the notion of running colleges more like businesses and appointed some regents with the same ideology. Proposals for conservative reforms included scoring the workloads of professors and separating research and teaching budgets.
That effort alarmed insiders and alumni, who warned that the state's best research universities could be seriously degraded. Perry's call for a $10,000 college degree also seemed to put more emphasis on the piece of paper than the quality of the education.
The debate has ebbed and flowed, but it's not going away as long as money is so tight. Last month, UT Austin President Bill Powers said he was disappointed that the board of regents had rejected a request for a small tuition increase. That prompted some regents to call for his firing, according to one report. Supporters rose to his defense, and he remains on the job.
As a flagship university in Texas' capital, UT Austin has been in the crosshairs of this debate from the beginning. UT Arlington has generally been untouched, and when Spaniolo didn't request a tuition increase this year, that kept the school under the radar.
But now all eyes will be on the UTA appointment, because it's the first search for an academic president since the reform movement surfaced. Defenders want an aggressive leader who'll fight for the cause, defend the humanities and build on research traditions.
"We want our university presidents to be bold, decisive, visionary advocates for their campuses, not an obedient lap dog," said Melinda Perrin, who's served on several UT System search committees.
Perrin also serves on the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a nonprofit group that began in response to the reform movement and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which championed it.
If the selection process plays out as designed, she believes that all will work out well. But that assumes that the regents choose from among the three candidates typically proposed by the search committee.
Spaniolo said he has confidence in the selection process because it pulls in so many stakeholders. The search committee includes a vice chancellor, a regent, two presidents from the UT System, three faculty members, a school staffer, a student, the head of the alumni association, a dean and at least two representatives from the community.
The search is open and transparent, especially compared with the business world, Spaniolo said.
With UTA, the regents may not want to shake things up anyway, given its efficiency. UTA has attracted 9,000 online students, for instance, while also launching a big push into research. About half its undergrads are first-time college students, and more than 7,000 graduated in the past year, a record. It's producing better results and didn't raise tuition.
"We're trying to strike the right balance here," Spaniolo said.
The next leader should do no less.
Mitchell Schnurman's column appears Sundays and Thursdays, 817-390-7821Twitter: @mitchschnurman
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