Regents Debate College Overhaul

PHOENIX (By Judd Slivka, Arizona Republic) June 3, 2007 — Today is the day a radical renovation of Arizona's universities gets started or gets stopped cold in its tracks.

The state Board of Regents meets at 9 a.m. at Arizona State University to discuss a proposal that would add two more public universities to the state by breaking parts off of ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.

Significant public reaction is expected at the meeting, which has been moved to the Arizona Ballroom in the Memorial Union to hold more people.

Gov. Janet Napolitano, who serves as an ex officio member of the board, will be there as well, attending the third regents meeting of her tenure.

"We can't get to the year 2015 and say, 'Oh, by the way, now we have 100,000 more students; what are we going to do with them?' This needs to be talked about and discussed in a very public, very thoughtful way now," Napolitano said.

The proposal has ignited controversy, especially at ASU-West, where talking points have been circulating among faculty who plan to attend the meeting. The concerns on campus since the plan was released on May 23 include attracting faculty to a regional university.

The proposal

Under the proposal, ASU-West would become the free-standing Central Arizona University; UA-South and NAU-Yuma would combine to become Southern Arizona University; and CAU and SAU would join NAU as three regional schools focusing on undergraduate- and master's-level classes, while ASU and UA would remain large research universities.

The centerpiece of today's meeting will be a presentation by David Longanecker, executive director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, based in Boulder, Colo., which will look at other reforms in the West.

The board is expected to ask Longanecker to do a yearlong feasibility study to see if reforming the system is possible. If the board approves — and all indications are that it will — then the regents will vote to authorize the feasibility study at the board's June 24 meeting in Flagstaff.

"In the modern era, there have been very few radical departures from the traditional system. Most systems have evolved incrementally," Longanecker said.

Other states have systems that can serve as guides for Arizona.

Colorado has a system of regional and state universities. California has the University of California schools, which in many ways are world-class, and the California State University schools, which stand favorably against most state systems in the country.

Nevada, like Arizona, has a growth rate outpacing its ability to give students college educations. And its large, existing universities have been hampered in their efforts to become research universities by a mandated mission to be everything to everyone.

In 2002, Nevada State College opened its doors to students. Located in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, the college ran through a succession of presidents and flirted with closure by the Legislature.

But in the past two years, in a rented building without a campus, the university is up to more than 750 students. It's projected to have nearly 900 this fall. By 2025, Nevada State is projected to have 25,000 students.

Making a ripple

The college, which is strictly undergraduate, has already made a ripple.

By Nevada State offering accessible lower-priced undergraduate degrees, the two larger universities, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and the University of Nevada-Reno, are able to grow and upgrade.

"The universities have been able to raise their admission standards, which they are doing rapidly," said Kerry Romesburg, the college's president. "They wouldn't have been able to do that politically without the college's existence."

Something else the Arizona proposal will probably borrow from Nevada: different tuitions at different schools.

Nevada State's tuition is pegged at the halfway spot between what the community colleges charge and what the two universities charge.