Archive for the ‘Events at UT’ Category
Guest Column: Why UT-Austin Shouldn’t Raise Its Tuition
University of Texas System Regent, Alex Cranberg
The University of Texas System is an extraordinary institution. It educates more than 200,000 students, mostly from Texas, and it conducts an enormous amount of groundbreaking research. The cumulative impact of the education of young people and the research output of the thousands of brilliant faculty is prodigious and valuable. I could not be prouder of the University of Texas diploma on my wall, representing as it does not only knowledge and thinking skills gained but also the symbol of the four joyous and challenging years I spent growing as a person and learning about myself and others. What a gift the founders of Texas gave our state in establishing “a University of the first class.” It is a special privilege for me to serve on my university system‘s board of regents (although the views expressed here are mine personally and not necessarily those of other board members).
Over the 35 years since I graduated, many measures of the quality of UT-Austin have grown dramatically. But tuition has also increased — by more than 80 percent over just the past eight years. I am forever grateful to the university and to the state of Texas for giving me the opportunity to be able to pay my own way through school and graduate almost debt free. Today’s students are not typically so lucky.
It is fashionable to blame higher tuition on legislative tight-fistedness, but the facts simply do not support that charge. Nationally, state support for higher education has roughly kept pace with general inflation over the past 20 years. Some pushing for higher student tuition tend to point out that state support of higher education has dropped substantially as a share of total revenues. That is true, but only because educational costs have increased much faster than inflation and federally funded research budgets have grown substantially, making state support naturally account for a much smaller portion of the entire budget.
At UT-Austin, generous philanthropists and state-granted lands have endowed the university with extraordinary additional pillars of support that other institutions could only dream about. Even intercollegiate athletics, often a loss-maker, provide meaningful support for academic programs. Finally, a little-noticed change in the admissions practice at UT-Austin is shifting many slots previously allocated to Texas residents, who pay $10,000 per year, to nonresidents, who pay $33,000 per year.
During the past 10 years, after inflation, investment income and university funds available for operations (i.e., over and above capital expenditures) have grown by $2,100 per student. State support has dropped by only $1,300 per student, partly due to nonresident students not being subsidized by the state. Roughly two-thirds of state funding cuts are either tied to or offset by increased nonresident tuition. The $3,300-per-year tuition increase families are already paying is simply not justified by reductions in state support — and nor is possibility of further increases.
The public is told by some that holding the line on tuition will imperil much-needed student programs, hold back research or result in a “dumbing down” of the university. The actual data demonstrate that this is a fundamentally misleading position. Instructional revenues are going up, even without tuition increases. State funding cuts are frequently cited by those asking for more money from students — despite the negative consequences of even higher tuition on student access. Yes, there are plenty of students willing to pay the tuition at UT even if it increased further. But is that what the founders of Texas had in mind for their “University of the first class”? The Texas Constitution does not famously promise its citizens a “University of the upper class.”
We can earn financial support from other parts of society than students facing an uncertain job market. We can enhance learning productivity, better reward our faculty and have an even bigger positive influence on the world by harnessing technology even more innovatively than we do now. We do not need to increase tuition.
It is a competitive world. I love the University of Texas too much to see others take the lead. I expect the Texas Legislature, the University of Texas System and our many dedicated, inspired faculty, staff and administrators will continue to work together to find ways actually to cut students’ outlay and increase quality of learning so that UT students may be even more blessed by the UT opportunity than I have been.
Alex Cranberg sits on the University of Texas System Board of Regents.
“What a great Mother’s Day gift,” said Regent Alex Cranberg in his commencement address, “a college degree that will transform lives.”
UTPB held Spring Commencement at 9 a.m., Saturday, May 12, 2012. 339 graduates received their diplomas in a ceremony that was outside in the grassy quad area between the Mesa, Science and Tech, Student Activities and Library Buildings.
U.T. System Regent Alex M. Cranberg gave the commencement address. Regent Cranberg was appointed to a six-year term on the University of Texas System Board of Regents by Governor Rick Perry in February 2011. Mr. Cranberg has been active in education philanthropy, governance and policy advocacy.
In his commencement address, Regent Cranberg noted the population of those graduating from UTPB: 82% were transfer students, 62% were first generation college graduates, 70% were students from outside of the Permian Basin, 45% were hispanic and the age range of those graduating was between 20-65 years.
“Persistence and perseverance are the building blocks of earning a degree,” added Regent Cranberg, “Now is the hard part – going out in the world. Now is your moment to dream big…What starts here at UTPB changes the world.”
The Spanish convocation followed in the Multipurpose Room of the Student Union and honors graduates from Spanish speaking families.
By Liz Farmer
In an unprecedented decision, the UT System Board of Regents declined part of the University’s recommendation to increase tuition at a meeting Thursday, but did not do so for any other UT System institution. The regents froze tuition for in-state undergraduates for the next two academic years and raised tuition for all other students.
This concluded the second day of one of the six regular meetings that occur each year and is the latest the regents have set tuition since 2004. The regents approved a 2.1 percent increase for out-of-state undergraduates, instead of the proposed 2.6 percent increase, for the next two academic years. The regents approved a 3.6 percent increase for graduate students that followed President William Powers’ recommendation, but only for one year. In the plan, the University will still receive funds that the proposed 2.6 percent increase for in-state undergraduates would have generated. Regents Chairman Eugene Powell said the gap will be made up with funds from the Available University Fund, the investment income from West Texas oil lands that are managed by the UT System.
The University is the only UT institution that can use the AUF funds in this way, according to UT System Board of Regents press release. The endowment will provide an additional $6.6 million for each of the next two academic years. Powell said the University should not count on the funds for more than two years because they may not be available at that point.
The regents did not follow Powers’ recommendation to increase in-state undergraduate tuition by 2.6 percent each year for the next two academic years, and both out-of-state students and graduate students would have faced a 3.6 percent tuition increase each year for the next two academic years. The email Powers sent out yesterday inaccurately referenced the recommendations Powers proposed for out-of-state undergraduates in December.
Powers said the AUF funds will help to some degree, but it is not a recurring source of revenue like the revenue generated by tuition. He said recurring revenue is necessary to establish and maintain programs that the UT System desires.
“Every penny of it is needed and would be put towards student success,” Powers said. “I am disappointed that our very thoughtful proposal was not adopted. It was very carefully worked out in consultation with students.”
Powell commended programs aligned with UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa’s Framework for Excellence Action Plan that debuted Aug. 25, 2011, which aims to increase productivity and efficiency. However, he said the tuition rates that were approved will provide a bridge between implementing the programs and the cost savings that the programs will eventually produce.
“This has not been an easy process, but we want to continue our responsibility to have the finest institutions in America,” Powell said.
Powell said setting tuition rates is a delicate balancing act and a tremendous number of compromises were weighed and balanced in order to maintain tier-one research status and control affordability.
Printed on Friday, May 4, 2012 as: Regents decline tuition proposal
Public & Higher Education
A Colloquy About Higher Education Reform with UT Regent Alex Cranberg and UT Austin President Bill Powers.
Alex Cranberg is the chairman of Aspect Holdings, a Denver-based private energy investment and exploration company, and founded the Alliance for Choice in Education, which provides scholarships for private and parochial schooling for children from low-income families. In February, Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to the University of Texas System Board of Regents. Read the rest of this entry »
Alex M. Cranberg, Austin, Texas, was appointed to a six-year term on The University of Texas System Board of Regents by Governor Rick Perry in February 2011.
Regent Cranberg serves as a member of the Audit, Compliance, and Management Review Committee; Facilities Planning and Construction Committee; Finance and Planning Committee; and Technology Transfer and Research Committee.
Cigarroa receives wide support for reforms
Curt W. Olson
COlson@TexasBudgetSource.com
The debate that raged over the cost, productivity, and efficiency of higher education in Texas calmed swiftly Thursday with the announcement of a higher education excellence and reform agenda branded the “Texas Plan.”
“It’s visionary. Some might consider it radical,” said University of Texas System Regent Alex Cranberg, who served on the Task Force on University Excellence and Productivity.
And yes, some even see it as a model for higher education systems across the nation to emulate.
Dr. John Mendelsohn, now past president of the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, called it “a blueprint for the nation, not just Texas, after hearing the presentation from UT System Chancellor Dr. Francisco Cigarroa.
The Task Force on Blended and Online Learning proposed a $50 million investment for the Institute for Transformational Learning, which would utilize technology for more strategic instruction. It was embraced in Cigarroa’s Framework for Excellence Action Plan.
This was part of more than $240 million in expenses regents approved Thursdsay directed to implement the plan.
Cigarroa’s plan generated unanimous support from all sides of the debate over the future over higher education that has raged for six months — sometimes quite fiercely.
More than one regent described the situation as stressful at times.
“Texas finds itself at the epicenter of the national debate on the future of higher education,” Cigarroa said. “I also firmly believe no university system is better poised than the University of Texas System to lead the debate and offer solutions to benefit our students, faculty and staff.”
The debate over higher education fiscal accountability and affordability has generated vigorous debate.
One side featured the higher education establishment, confronting record college debt for students, higher tuition and, and the need for greater accountability and transparency for outcomes. Higher education leaders have multiple allies in the Texas Legislature.
Jeff Sandefer and Rick O’Donnell, who challenged higher education leaders to reform higher education’s model with some new ideas, led the challenge to higher education.
Sandefer wrote a paper for the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation titled “Seven Breakthrough Solutions.” Sandefer is a board member for the Foundation. O’Donnell has been a senior research fellow at the Foundation.
Sandefer, O’Donnell and the small-government, market think tank had allies who agreed that students were being forgotten and the primary mission of universities and colleges is to teach students.
Cigarroa explained the nine elements to his plan, including:
• Undergraduate student access and success
• Faculty/ administrators/staff excellence
• Research
• Productivity and efficiency
• Strategic information and infrastructure and investments
• Enhance philanthropic success
• Ph.D. programs
• The Health of Texas
• Expand educational and health opportunities in South Texas
Cigarroa challenged each institution in the UT System to increase the number of degrees conferred and to reduce the financial impact on students and families while doing it.
“One size doesn’t fit all,” Cigarroa repeated several times during his presentation to the board of regents Thursday morning.
He noted that in the past month UT-Austin President Bill Powers has established a task force to draft ideas. He said what works for UT-Austin may not work at other campuses, but each president is called on to do this.
The overriding goal is to reduce the time to a student earning their degree while reducing costs.
This is where information technology could prove pivotal for the UT System. The Institute of Transformational Learning will play a key role in improving guidance counseling options for students and generating other data useful to help a student and their parents.
The Institute will also generate information useful for measuring productivity with an interactive database — or dashboard — with information to help make decisions, Cigarroa said.
The UT System will conduct a search for a director for this new area.
The plan not only had the full support of the board of regents, but it also was supported by Dr. Tim Allen, leader of the faculty, and Melinda Hill Perrin, a member of the operating committee of the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education.
Perrin said no one supports the status quo.
She encouraged regents to give UT System leaders the freedom, flexibility and time to execute this plan.
“Wouldn’t it be a wonderful outcome, if plan—the Texas plan—could push the UT system to become the No. 1 system in the country?” Perrin asked. “Let’s work together to make that happen.”
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, and chairwoman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, praised the plan as aggressive and challenging, but quite feasible.
Cigarroa’s reforms also have support of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
“We especially appreciate the focus on improving four-year graduation rates. Improvements in academic advising and the expansion of online learning should help more students complete their degrees sooner, reduce student debt burdens, and increase the number of students able to attend UT System institutions.
“Chancellor Cigarroa’s action plan is the first step of many that will be needed for Texas public universities to achieve the important goals of greater transparency and accountability, improved use of resources, more world-class research and high-quality graduates, and reduced cost of higher education to students and taxpayers. Today’s positive presentation is the beginning of the reform process, not the end – but it is a very good start.”
Gov. Rick Perry also likes the Cigarroa plan, and the governor’s office released the following statement.
“The plan unveiled today reflects important steps toward both increasing productivity and improving academic quality in The University of Texas System, and I applaud Chancellor Cigarroa and everyone involved for their hard work in this effort. Moving forward, we need to continue focusing on efficient, innovative strategies to help make high-quality college degrees more affordable and attainable for all Texans. That’s a vital part of maintaining a world-class workforce, and continuing to attract employers and high-quality jobs to our state.”
Texas Budget Source is affiliated with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Read More http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/2011/08/cigarroa-receives-wide-support-for-reforms/
UT board approves changes. Plan aims to boost productivity, academics.
By Melissa Ludwig
mludwig@express-news.net
The University of Texas Board of Regents approved an action plan Thursday to raise quality and productivity at its 15 institutions in an era of declining revenues, fortifying the effort with $243 million in strategic investments.
After months of public squabbling over how best to reform academia, regents unanimously backed the framework created by Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa and said they would give him latitude to work.
“Chancellor, I think the ball is yours,” said Gene Powell, chairman of the board of regents and a San Antonio businessman.
The plan pleased higher education boosters and critics alike, including Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative Austin think tank that’s served as a brain trust for those seeking radical changes in the state’s higher education.
“The plan unveiled today reflects important steps toward both increasing productivity and improving academic quality in the University of Texas System, and I applaud Chancellor Cigarroa and everyone involved for their hard work in this effort,” Perry said in a statement.
Cigarroa said the plan is meant to set goals, not dictate how they are achieved. A deadline looms for defining and achieving each benchmark.
“One size does not fit all,” Cigarroa said. “The innovation, the creativity of how to address these issues … is dependent on the creative leadership of our presidents and faculty.”
Accountability steps
To help monitor the plan’s success, the system set aside $10 million to build a user-friendly “dashboard” that university presidents and citizens alike can use to access real-time productivity and success metrics at the system, university, departmental and even individual faculty level.
The dashboard will include salaries, number of credit hours taught and student evaluation scores of individual professors, data that kicked up controversy when they were first released to the public.
But unlike the previously released database, which presented a snapshot in time, the dashboard will include historical data to show trends over the years.
“You will be able to see the full contributions of (faculty), our greatest assets,” Cigarroa said.
It also could help provosts decide where to allocate resources and department heads make decisions about staffing, Powell said.
Faculty productivity has been one of the hottest topics of debate, with critics claiming many professors spend too much time on frivolous research and not enough time teaching.
The plan calls for strengthening post-tenure review, conducting outside audits of academic departments, and tweaking the pay structure to better reward performance. The plan also expands teaching excellence awards and allocates more money to recruit top-notch faculty.
Tim Allen, chairman of the UT System Faculty Advisory Council, said faculty “embrace the spirit of the recommendations.”
“UT can benefit from clear, unambiguous guidelines regarding, research, teaching and service,” Allen said. “Some despair that we are not capable of accurately measuring (those duties). It is not beyond our capacity.”
To increase student success, the plan calls for increased degree production, higher four-year graduation rates and tuition policies that reward students for graduating within that time frame. Speeding time to degree for Ph.D. students is a priority as well.
The plan also demands more careful enrollment management, which could mean higher entrance standards at regional universities, and asks universities to find ways to reduce student debt and issue financial disclosure statements to increase transparency.
Money for online
Recognizing that technology could revolutionize education, regents dedicated $50 million to create an Institute for Transformational Learning, which will dole out competitive grants to develop high-quality online and blended courses, and to use technology to improve learning outcomes in large, gateway courses.
The idea sprang from a task force on online and blended learning chaired by Regent Wallace Hall, who said UT must compete in the online sphere or risk being left behind.
UT’s online brand must be “synonymous with excellence,” Hall said.
Ideas from two task forces on online learning and productivity and efficiency were blended into Cigarroa’s framework.
Regent Alex Cranberg, who sat on the productivity task force, helped broker a $10 million deal with an Austin-based company called MyEdu to provide custom, private-label services for UT that include electronic advising, degree planning and cost calculators.
Some of the data collected by MyEdu, including grades issued for each class, will likely be incorporated into the dashboard.
In terms of research, the framework encourages institutions to collaborate more freely and for the system’s four emerging research universities, including UTSA, to formulate business plans for reaching Tier One status.
Because philanthropy will play a bigger role in a time of declining state revenues, the plan sets aside $9 million to beef up development offices with experienced fundraisers.
The plan also allocates money to improve technology infrastructure and computational power.
Part of the $243 million investment will boost health and science education in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who has openly criticized Chairman Powell for micromanaging and stirring up what she deemed “unnecessary controversy,” said she hoped the plan would unite stakeholders and calm the upheaval of the last six months.
“The controversy was unnecessary and a distraction,” said Zaffirini, who attended the meeting. “I hope the vote means regents will allow chancellors and presidents to do their job.”
Powell said he’s not bothered by the “slings and arrows” pointed at him. In his opinion, the debate churned up some great ideas.
“I would go through it all again,” Powell said.
Alex Cranberg and the UT Regents.
The Board of Regents, the governing body for The University of Texas System, is composed of nine members who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. Terms for Regents are scheduled for six years each and staggered so that three members’ terms will usually expire on February 1 of odd-numbered years. In addition, the Governor appoints a Student Regent for a one-year term that expires on May 31.
Throughout the more than 100-year history of the U. T. System, the Board has been composed of dedicated and distinguished Texans who have been strong advocates of excellence in academic programs, scientific inquiry, and responsible public service.
UT System Board of Regents doles out additional $20 million
Regent Alex M. Cranberg gives his opinion regarding budgeting for additional university structures during a Board of Regents meeting Thursday afternoon.
By Huma Munir
The UT System Board of Regents allocated an additional $20 million to UT from the Permanent University Fund during their meeting Thursday.
This one-time increase will be an addition to the $168 million the University received last year from the endowment, said Chief Financial Officer Kevin Hegarty.
“We haven’t decided how we are going to use it yet,” Hegarty said.
The endowment is made up of lands the University owns and leases to oil companies and other industries for grazing purposes, he said. The money generated is invested by the University of Texas Investment Management Company and split between UT and Texas A&M University.
The money will not be used for recurring needs because it is only a one-time endowment, but the University budget office will decide how to move forward with the money, Hegarty said.
“[The endowment] will provide UT with additional money that does not cover the shortfall but will certainly assist,” said the board’s chairman Gene Powell during the meeting.
He said revenue generated from the lands was more than expected this year, and the Regents have decided to help UT and Texas A&M with extra money that will pay for students services and other needs.
Read More http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2011/07/14/ut-system-board-regents-doles-out-additional-20-million
Alex Cranberg indicated a desire to find common ground regarding the UT debate over higher education. He has begun making inquiries about joining the recently formed Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a large group of prominent Texans who have joined together in response to the debate. Cranberg said he wishes to do his part to “inform their efforts and support their aims.”
“The Coalition will do its best work if it is well informed about what sorts of ideas are actually under consideration as opposed to those which are not,” wrote Cranberg, who has also expressed an interest to being a member of the group’s leadership committees. “It’s not a good use of time to fight over things we agree over.”
Alex Cranberg talks about his time at the University of Texas and his return to Austin.
http://www.cobizmag.com/embed/alex-cranberg-part-7/
A Lightning Rod on U.T. Board, Regent Is Not Deterred
On Feb. 12, Gene Powell, the chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, sent a note to Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the U.T. System, about the newest regents appointed by Gov. Rick Perry. The new members “all have extensive experience in higher education and all of them are hard core conservatives. And none of them are shy. We will see no ‘break in’ period from these individuals,” he wrote.
“If I read some of the stuff about me that I read in the paper, I’d be against me,” said Alex Cranberg, regent of the University of Texas System.
It was an early hint of the changes afoot at the U.T. board and the tense months — some of the most tumultuous in institutional memory, with the regents seemingly pitted against the flagship university in a highly public spat — that lay ahead. Of that new crop of board members, none have received more scrutiny than Alex Cranberg.
Sitting in the student center at the University of Texas campus in Austin in early June, Mr. Cranberg, the 56-year-old chairman of Aspect Holdings, a lucrative energy company based in Denver, said the time had come to “push a reset button” on the relationship between the regents and the leadership of the university.
Individuals who encountered Mr. Cranberg as an undergraduate student at U.T. — he received a degree in petroleum engineering in 1977 — remember him as a spirited debater who enjoyed challenging others and being challenged in return.
And it may not be what he expected, but he has certainly been challenged lately.
Suspicion has surrounded Mr. Cranberg from Day 1. First, there was the speed with which he became a regent — one of the most prestigious appointments a governor can bestow upon a Texan. Mr. Cranberg received the nod just two weeks after registering to vote in the state following a move from Colorado for personal reasons.
“Frankly, I’ve got a lot going on and would not have moved specifically for this job,” he said.
Then there were his associations. Mr. Cranberg is a longtime friend of Jeff Sandefer, the Austin energy investor who wrote a controversial set of seven proposals for changing higher education and has promoted them with Mr. Perry’s aid. “I don’t expect anybody to tell me what to do and have me do it,” Mr. Cranberg said.
Of all the regents, Mr. Cranberg was the one closest to Rick O’Donnell, a fellow former Coloradoan and an associate of Mr. Sandefer who had publicly questioned the value of academic research. The U.T. System’s hiring of Mr. O’Donnell as a special adviser to the board was one of the sparks that lit the statewide controversy. (Mr. O’Donnell’s employment was terminated after 49 days, during which he was “unfairly attacked,” Mr. Cranberg said.)
At the height of the debate, Mr. Cranberg was widely considered by critics in the Legislature and the academic community to be the ringleader of a bloc of regents who were influenced by Mr. Sandefer and others aiming to, among other things, stage an attack on academic research and coordinate an ouster of U.T.’s president, William Powers Jr. Most recently, after a request for extensive data on all the faculty members in the system, Mr. Cranberg was accused by the same groups of trying to micromanage the universities.
“If I read some of the stuff about me that I read in the paper, I’d be against me,” said Mr. Cranberg, who denied all the details of what he called a “caricature.”
When Mr. Cranberg heard that his data request was overwhelming the small staff at the University of Texas-Pan American, he asked the university’s president, Robert S. Nelsen, to write a grant proposal for him to personally finance. “It surprised me very much,” Mr. Nelsen said. “It was a very generous offer on his part.”
When asked if other universities shared concerns publicly expressed by many in Austin about the data, Mr. Nelsen said: “I know my faculty are concerned and my staff are concerned. We’re not worried, but we would like a better idea of what the data will be used for.”
Mr. Cranberg said that his grant offer, which ultimately was not accepted, was as symbolic as it was sincere. “I want to show that I’m willing to share the sacrifice,” he said. “I expect it to be symbolically understood that I’m not asking for stuff out of some arrogant desire to be given whatever I want.”
Mr. Cranberg has a long history of investing in causes he cares about. In Colorado, when a school voucher initiative he backed failed, he joined with others to create the Alliance for Choice in Education, a nonprofit group that provides scholarships to schoolchildren. An advocate of expanding pathways to citizenship for immigrants, Mr. Cranberg paid $10,000 to conduct a poll in his Colorado district just to confirm his belief that he was not an anomaly in the Republican Party.
“I’ve got two kinds of energy,” he said. “I’ve got my own personal energy inside my body, and I’ve got this stored energy that’s called financial resources or cash. I intend to use both up as fully as humanly possible by the time I die.”
Mr. Cranberg, the son of a prominent physicist, grew up in the world of academia, which he said influenced him greatly, as did work toward an M.B.A. from Stanford University. His stint on the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan State College of Denver, from 2002 to 2007, informs much of his behavior as a regent.
“I saw some things there that I wish I’d done differently, and I don’t like to ever look back on something I did and wish I’d done things better,” he said.
On the Denver board, he said, he learned of the “critical importance” of data, especially granular information that one can “slice and dice” different ways.
“That’s not micromanagement,” he said. “That’s just good analysis.”
His requests for data are not likely to subside, despite the complaints. He said he intended to ask for detailed data on faculty peer reviews. He anticipates that the request could be “burdensome,” but also informative.
Of a controversial, widely publicized study by Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University, which used unverified data to allege that U.T. functions inefficiently, Mr. Cranberg called the analysis “simplistic.”
Still, while the criticisms of the report resonate with him, so do Mr. Vedder’s concerns. Mr. Cranberg said he hoped to “win the hearts and minds” of those who still had reservations about his intentions as he sought to address those concerns. That the Legislature created a new higher-education oversight committee in response to the continuing controversy might indicate that he has a long way to go.
Mr. Cranberg said he welcomed the new oversight committee, which some conservative bloggers have strongly criticized, and said he believed that most of its members were aligned with his vision.
“I’m the one that’s been arguing for transparency,” he said, “so why should I argue about going before some legislative committee?”
The most important issue moving forward, Mr. Cranberg said, is which groups will rally together “post reset” to embrace the changes that he believes must happen. He added, though, that he and the other regents would not relinquish their responsibilities “just because they’re being critical, especially if they’re being critical of something we don’t even recognize as our position.”
See NYTIMES article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/us/12ttcranberg.html
I approved of Chancellor Cigarroa’s message, but warned against confusing prestige with achievements like advances in knowledge and student outcomes. The chancellor’s message reinforced the important reforms that the UT System Board must push forward to advance excellence at the University of Texas.
The Board of Regents, the governing body for The University of Texas System, is composed of nine members who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. Terms for Regents are scheduled for six years each and staggered so that three members’ terms will usually expire on February 1 of odd-numbered years. In addition, the Governor appoints a Student Regent for a one-year term.
Throughout the more than 100-year history of the U. T. System, the Board has been composed of dedicated and distinguished Texans who have been strong advocates of excellence in academic programs, scientific inquiry, and responsible public service.
The current Regents are:
Officers:
Francie A. Frederick, General Counsel to the Board of Regents
Members with term set to expire February 1, 2013
Members with term set to expire February 1, 2015
Members with term set to expire February 1, 2017
Student Regent with term to expire May 31, 2012
Each Regent’s term expires when a successor has been appointed, qualified, and taken the oath of office. The Student Regent serves a one-year term.
The 10th Chancellor of the UT System is Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D. He is the chief executive officer of the UT System. The Chancellor reports to and is responsible to the Board of Regents. The Chancellor has direct line responsibility for all aspects of the UT System’s operations.
The Chancellor is assisted by the UT System Executive Officers.
UT Regent Alex Cranberg asked for information for the 2009-10 academic year for the system’s nine academic campuses. The request was a follow-up to a previous request made by colleague Brenda Pejovich before the task force was created.
Regents who collect data are informed. There is obviously a big difference between asking for data that any non-Regent citizen can ask for under the FOIA, and using that data to micro-manage.
Oh I see an article about you in the Statesman today – good for you!!!!!!
Oh you’re such a “micromanager,” asking nosy questions like what are faculty workloads and what do their students think of them?
Can’t you just be a macromanager and ask vague questions that only require vague answers?
You seem to think students have credibility…. Horrors!!!
No one should be listening to the students. LOL”
The Chancellor’s message reinforced the important reforms that this Board must push forward to advance excellence at the University of Texas.
Among these are:
– A purpose that is relevant to society
– Recognition and rewards for great teaching (grad AND undergrad) as well as for great research
– Quantify and track with transparency with emphasis on outcomes
– Embrace and lead in learning technology
– Make sure that students achieve their degrees more efficiently
University of Texas System Regent Alex Cranberg is not shying away from previous statements criticizing professor accountability, weighing faculty’s “credentials” versus “achievements,” and praising the Acton School of Business, co-founded by Jeff Sandefer, architect of the controversial seven breakthrough solutions for higher education.
In a 2008 article about Acton that appears on InsiderOnline.org (PDF), Cranberg said, “There’s some accountability in higher education, but for what? … Professors are held accountable for how often they’re cited, or for the amount of research grant money they bring in. But there’s very little accountability for actual student achievement.”
In an email to The Texas Indepedent Thursday morning, Cranberg said, “Since 1998 [the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] has moved to make Student Learning Outcomes more relevant to its accrediting criteria, and accordingly more Universities are gathering this data. I am still learning now how much (or little) this data is used, or how useful the data actually is.”
In the 2008 article, Cranberg said, “Higher education’s infatuation with credentials has made it blind to opportunities to use professional people that are equally, or even more, impressive. We should be focusing on teachers with achievements, not just credentials.”
In the email, he said, “I believe excellence is related to diversity: faculty with outstanding credentials from a diverse array of experiences and backgrounds will be stimulating and useful to students, (and also provide important insights in a research setting).”
According to the article, “Cranberg believe[s] that higher education and its donors would be wise to adopt Sandefer’s approach.”
Cranberg also said in the article, “[A]nybody looking to support entrepreneurship would do well to look at traditional programs, understand why the Acton MBA is different, and learn from that comparison.”
In the email, he said, “Entrepreneurship is a unique and challenging discipline to actually teach. We should observe and learn from the best programs around the country, although not just copying anybody.”
Read more http://www.americanindependent.com/181386/ut-regent-cranberg-stands-by-prior-critiques-of-higher-education
Alex Cranberg - "I Am My Own Man
Recent controversy at the University of Texas System could hamper serious attempts for reform and taint the results of two task forces studying efficiency and online and blended learning, observers say.
“It is harmful for a bunch of false hysteria to be whipped up about what the board may or may not actually do,” said Alex Cranberg, a UT regent appointed in February.
Cranberg did not direct his comments at the task forces, one of which he sits on, but Richard Leshin, president of the Texas Exes, UT Austin’s alumni association, did.
“The genesis (of the task forces) is tainted, so I think it will continue to be tainted,” Leshin said about the group’s work.
The controversy sparked six weeks ago when UT regents hired Rick O’Donnell, a Colorado native, to staff two UT task forces on distance learning and efficiency. News reports linked O’Donnell to Jeff Sandefer, a wealthy entrepreneur whose “Seven Breakthrough Solutions” for higher education reform hold a lot of sway with Gov. Rick Perry, who made them the topic of a summit for university regents in 2008.
‘Insubordination’
Despite a chilly reception to the solutions, Perry continued to push behind the scenes for implementation at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas systems, according to internal emails.
Texas A&M carried out a couple of the solutions, garnering backlash from faculty and the public. UT held back.
Observers speculated O’Donnell was brought in to “bring UT to heel” to the seven solutions, and rumors surfaced that regents tried to fire Francisco Cigarroa, chancellor of the UT System, and Bill Powers, president of UT Austin, for “insubordination.”
Cranberg said Friday the rumors are untrue.
“Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or manipulating,” Cranberg said in an email.
Leshin, whose Texas Exes adopted a resolution this week supporting Powers, said he “has heard from some very good sources that the two were both considered at-risk.”
The Executive Committee of the Chancellor’s Council, which represents more than 300 donors to the UT System, issued a similar statement in support of Cigarroa earlier this month.
In the end, it was O’Donnell who got the pink slip.
His $200,000 a year salary and job description first raised alarms, prompting regents to reassign O’Donnell and made his job temporary. Emails later showed that Gene Powell, chairman of the board of regents, had settled on O’Donnell before even writing a job description.
Powell declined a request for an interview.
When it came out that O’Donnell had written a 2008 policy paper that deemed most academic research a waste of time and money, supporters of UT Austin feared a plot to destroy the flagship’s mighty research enterprise. An Express-News analysis later found two dozen citation and other errors in the paper, written for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
In letters and public statements, alumni, donors, students and lawmakers raised concerns that regents’ reforms were headed in the wrong direction.
On Monday, O’Donnell penned a letter to Regent Wallace Hall complaining that leaders at the system and the flagship campus had resisted his efforts to get data, which he said showed a growing share of tuition and tax dollars going to professors and administrators who did little teaching.
By Tuesday, O’Donnell was out of a job.
Like ‘Coca-Cola’
Charles Miller, former chairman of the UT Board of Regents, said he believes Powell fumbled O’Donnell’s hiring, but that UT stakeholders overreacted with their public statements and letter-writing campaigns, damaging the school’s reputation nationally and abroad.
“If you are Coca-Cola, you don’t let your brand be diminished,” Miller said.
The work of the task forces is critically important, he said. Technology, combined with dwindling budgets, is forcing a paradigm shift in higher education. Leaders must find a way to lower the cost of educating while teaching more students. Powell’s instinct to study online education and productivity was right on, he said.
But will the task forces lose credibility in light of recent events?
“That could happen if we don’t tone down the discussion,” Miller said.
Kyle Kalkwarf, UT’s student regent and a medical student at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, disagreed.
“I don’t have a problem with people speaking up because they are interested,” Kalkwarf said. “I think it’s good we are having an open, frank discussion.”
Cranberg, a Coloradoan who has known O’Donnell for years and Sandefer from the oil and gas business, agreed that change is imperative, but denied that he is doing Perry’s bidding by pushing Sandefer’s seven solutions as the answer.
“Gov. Perry is a man whose opinions I respect,” Cranberg said. “However, I am very much my own man. I’m too committed to making a difference based on the principles I believe in to try running my life according to someone else’s belief system.”
Cranberg said excellence comes from “a fearless willingness to ask hard questions, experiment and capacity to make sometimes uncomfortable change.”
“I hope and expect that each campus’ leadership will be fearless in the pursuit of excellence and will follow that trail wherever it leads.”
Alex Cranberg UT Board of Regents
Alex M. Cranberg, Austin, Texas, was appointed to a six-year term on The University of Texas System Board of Regents by Governor Rick Perry in February 2011.
Regent Cranberg serves as a member of the Audit, Compliance, and Management Review Committee; Facilities Planning and Construction Committee; Finance and Planning Committee; and Technology Transfer and Research Committee.
Alex Cranberg 