Wednesday, November 19, 1997
Regents misrepresent UC’s diverse people
LEADERSHIP:
To correct the power imbalance, term lengths and appointment
process need alterationIn a public university of over 166,000
students and 136,000 faculty and staff, policy-making power lies in
the hands of an elite few  the regents. And within the Board
of Regents, the power is centered around one man  Gov.
Wilson. As a result, the students, faculty and staff members are
left without adequate representation.
The Board of Regents, the governing body for the UC system,
establishes and maintains all academic, financial and
administrative affairs of all nine campuses across the state.
The board is comprised of 26 voting members, seven of whom are
ex-officio members. They include the governor, the lieutenant
governor, the speaker of the Assembly, the superintendent of public
instruction, the president and vice president of the alumni
associations of the university, and the UC president. In addition,
one student regent is appointed by a committee of regents. The
remaining 18 regent seats are left for one person to appoint Â
the governor.
The power to appoint over two-thirds of the board should not be
entrusted in one person’s hands. The regents’ constituency is far
too diverse for one man’s appointments to represent.
In addition, the 18 members appointed by the governor serve for
12 years, which is too long a term. This long term makes for too
much consolidation of power. Yet, cutting the term too short would
make for inconsistency.
Among the governing Board of Regents, students and faculty have
virtually no representation. All matters of policy decision and
selection of regents are out of our hands, and left to Wilson. This
drastic misrepresentation of power needs to be changed immediately.
Power within the UC system should be spread out in order to better
reflect the interests and concerns of the constituents. The
students and faculty are more cognizant of the needs of the
university than the political partners with whom the governor
chooses to ally.
In addition, the Board of Regents does not reflect the ethnic
and economic diversity of the students who attend UC campuses.
Students do not make an average annual income of $700,000 like the
regents do. And the board, of which only a few members are of
minority ethnicities, hardly gives an accurate representation of
the multitude of minority students and faculty at the university.
The regents also need to make sure that the board is able to
reflect the needs of future UC students, not just those currently
enrolled.
The best way to correct the misrepresentation is to change the
appointment process. Allowing faculty from each of the nine
campuses to have a voice in electing a regent who represents their
campus is the only way help diversify the board.
Other membership changes should include increasing the number of
student regents to three, and extending their administration to two
years as opposed to the one year the single student regent serves
now. The UC Students Association, a council of the external vice
presidents of each of the nine campuses, should preside over
selection of student regents. Another three seats should be
reserved for alumni of the university, elected by alumni
associations from each UC campus.
The governor, rather than making 18 appointments, should thus be
allowed only two, while the lieutenant governor and Assembly
speaker should also be given two appointments.
Such a broad distribution of power is essential for the Board of
Regents to be able to reflect the diverse student body of the
University of California. Faculty and students from individual
campuses must be given more power to deal with the administrative,
financial and academic policies which affect them most.