New op-ed: “Keep Politics Out of University Governance”

A new opinion piece from Yes to Higher Ed co-chairs Dick Ackerman and Mel Levine ran in Fox & Hounds on May 2, 2016.  Here’s a excerpt:

The University of California is arguably the finest public higher education institution in the world and one of this state’s premier assets. The last thing we need is to politicize the governance of UC, but that is exactly what would happen under an ill-conceived legislative proposal to impose term limits on the UC Board of Regents.

SCA1 would ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment to reduce the terms of Regents from 12 years to four years and to effectively purge the Board of its most senior members. Lawmakers should know better considering the track record of legislative term limits in California. Maybe it is because so many legislators are relative newcomers to the process that they sometimes fail to grasp importance of the University’s relative independence from the rough and tumble of the political arena.

Read the complete article, “Keep Politics Out of University Governance,” on the Fox & Hounds website.