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University Aims for 2-Tier System
PHOENIX (By
Judd Slivka,
Arizona Republic) May 23, 2004
- Arizona's university system
may be about to undergo a drastic, historic change.
A proposal put forward by the state Board of Regents president would have the state gaining two new public universities and would set up a regional university system in which tuitions could be lower, classes would be smaller and the faculty's main job would be to teach, not do research. The proposal,
presented by President Chris Herstam and developed by the presidents of the
state's three universities, looks like this: Regional schoolsUnder the new proposal, Central and Southern universities would go toward the NAU model: smaller classes taught by tenured faculty.If a student in the Phoenix area wanted to stay close to home and didn't want to attend ASU at its Tempe, Mesa or downtown Phoenix campuses, the presence of Central would provide a new option. It's a little more complex when it comes to Southern. Both UA-South, a 600-student university, and NAU-Yuma, a 650-student university, are "2+2" programs. Students complete their first two years at local community colleges - both UA-South and NAU-Yuma are on community college campuses - and then complete their degrees with two years of university classes. The proposed Southern Arizona University would have neither the students nor the infrastructure to be a full-time residential university right now. "But I can envision, years down the road, needing to build up those facilities," Herstam said. Most of Southern's growth probably would be at its Tucson facilities. "The world is going to change overnight for them once UA reaches 40,000 (students)," Herstam said. By contrast, ASU-West already has a residence hall and offers four-year classes. It is, in many ways, ready to become its own university. What remains to be seen is whether the community at large would support it. "I think ASU-West wants to be . . . I think people in the community want to see a freestanding university," said Regent Gary Stuart, who will take over the board presidency in July. "I think there are people out there who want to see it become a large, freestanding public university that's not part of the system, though. I wonder if they'll support this." And then there is NAU. In 2002, under a systemwide program known as Changing Directions, NAU began returning to its roots as an undergraduate-focused university. In April, university President John Haeger announced a restructuring plan in which the university's 10 colleges were consolidated into six colleges. The faculty at NAU has typically had a testy relationship with the president. For the statewide restructuring plan to work, the faculty would have to buy in. Faculty members may not accept a plan that makes NAU answer to a system president rather than directly to the regents; it rings, intended or not, of NAU becoming a second-class school. It's something Herstam hopes won't happen, but in this, he's battling perception as reality. "In no way is this redesign a demotion for NAU," Herstam said. "NAU has already made the decision, with the regents' blessing, to return to it roots." Haeger will be checking his voicemail and e-mail today, waiting for faculty and staff reaction. "There are going to be some people whose first reaction may be, 'It's change, and that worries me,' " Haeger said. "But I think there's a lot of substantial advantage to NAU in a system like this. We'll be the flagship, we're larger, we've still got a research mission." But there are other hurdles besides institutional ones. For instance, how would the university system keep from becoming one in which minority students wound up at the lower-cost regional universities. The universities use a class rank formula for admission: Arizona students who graduate in the top half of their high school class are guaranteed admission to an Arizona university. In 2006, that guarantee will cover only students in the top quarter of their class. "Using class ranks is great because at a predominantly minority high school, there are the same guarantees of admission as there are at a predominantly White high school," Herstam said. "I've been told by the education experts I've talked to that even with 25 percent, it still will be a large enough pool." But, Herstam said, the presidents of the universities are going to have to remain vigilant about maintaining diversity at the two research universities. Different objectivesHerstam's comment about the state's research universities being all things to all people rings painfully true at all three universities, mainly because it's a model that hasn't worked all that well.ASU at one time projected having 90,000 students for itself and billing itself as a major research university while still providing accessible undergraduate education. With ASU-West broken off to become Central, ASU's projections for 15 years out would be closer to 70,000 students. UA, which for years has wanted to be more selective in its admissions standards, has had its hands tied by the "top 50 percent" admissions policy. It has been growing painfully close to the maximum number of students whom the campus can physically handle. Under this plan, as under the regents' Changing Directions plan, which directed each university to take its own path, UA's growth would be capped at 40,000 students on campus. In the case of NAU, a move in the mid- and late 1990s toward becoming a research university has given the school an identity crisis. Although some research still would be done at the university, the new plan would continue NAU's refocusing on its core strength: quality undergraduate education. Under the Changing Directions plan, released in 2002, all three schools were free to pursue their own paths. UA decided to increase its research potential and cap student growth. ASU opted to continue to grow and invest nearly a billion dollars in its research infrastructure. NAU decided to head back to its roots: a residential university that focuses on undergraduate education. If the feasibility study is approved, it probably will be conducted by David Longanecker, executive director of the Boulder, Colo.-based Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Longanecker is a former assistant U.S. secretary of Education. He has been the top higher-education official in Colorado and Minnesota. "I'm glad we're doing the feasibility study and taking the time to really look at this in-depth," NAU's Haeger said. "We need to look at this. . . . Nevada is going through this, and Colorado is going through this. A lot of people are asking a lot of really hard questions about higher education, and we can't, in Arizona, say, 'Well, we're not going to ask those at all.' " If the feasibility study panned out, realigning the university system would be the most significant event in the system since 1966, when Arizona State College at Flagstaff was given university status and renamed Northern Arizona University. Having regional universities is not a new idea. Many states already have them, although they're not exactly like Arizona's would be. Greater college optionsASU President Michael Crow calls it a "long-range design problem." Look around the West, he says, and see all of the states that offer greater college options than Arizona."I knew that Arizona was 30 to 40 years behind the question of how to build a university system that would account for demand," he said. "Look at LA. There's no Occidental (College) here. There's no Pomona (College), no Claremont-McKenna (College). There's no Cal State-Fullerton or Cal State-Northridge. "There's no alternatives or capacity." In 1999, UA President Peter Likins suggested to then-ASU President Lattie Coor and then-NAU President Clara Lovett that ASU-East, ASU-West and UA-South join NAU. He called it "quite frankly a second tier" of schools dedicated to undergraduate education. Coor didn't want to give up the political leverage of the east and west campuses. Lovett didn't want her school in a second tier, Likins said. "It was," Likins said, "a conversation that went nowhere." Five years later, it has gone somewhere. If the feasibility study comes out in any way, shape or form to be positive about the idea, a restructuring will probably look a lot like what has been suggested. "If you asked 10 different university presidents around the country how they would restructure the university system in Arizona, you would get 10 plans very similar to this," Likins said. "Once you open the door to change, there's something of an inevitability of this structure." TuitionHerstam calls it "the result of low-cost models." That is a complicated way of saying that with the regional universities not having to subsidize faculty research, costs should be lower.In Michigan, for example, there are 15 public universities. Three of those universities, the University of Michigan, Michigan State Universityand Wayne State University, are large research universities. Michigan and Michigan State have tuitions above $7,000 and $6,000, respectively, while Wayne State has tuition more in line with the state's regional universities, about $5,300 a year. In Colorado, the University of Colorado at Boulder charges in-state undergraduate tuition of $4,020 a year. The University of Northern Colorado, a regional university, charges $3,205. |
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