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Tennessee universities still divided on TBR/UT merger

Votes by university faculty senates across the state highlight a deep division over whether the Tennessee Board of Regents and University of Tennessee systems should merge, much less how.

Five of 10 faculty senates statewide have endorsed a Tennessee University Faculty Senates (TUFS) white paper on the matter, while a sixth endorsed the concept but called for more evaluation of the particulars outlined in the proposal.

However, the president of the East Tennessee State University Faculty Senate said he believes all faculty senators are doing what they think is best for students and higher education.

“A majority of the people approved it (the concept of merging),” David Champouillon, 2009-10 ETSU Faculty Senate president, said Thursday.

ETSU’s Faculty Senate endorsed the proposal 34-10.

In TUFS’ white paper proposal, each institution would have its own local advisory board. The document recommends the universities create a common core curriculum, coordinate their academic calendars, pool library resources, have interconnected information technology systems, and centralize employee health benefits.

After an article in Thursday’s Kingsport Times-News on the merger votes, TUFS President John Nolt of the University of Tennessee – Knoxville and University of Memphis Faculty President Jeffrey S. Berman, president-elect of TUFS, e-mailed their concerns that the Times-News story did not emphasize strongly enough that the Memphis Faculty Senate went on record with unanimous support of the idea of merging, although that language appeared in the story.

“We called for careful evaluation,” Berman, a professor of psychology at Memphis, said Friday.

Since TUFS and individual faculty senates don’t have money to do a study, Berman said either the research arms of the governor’s office or legislature should see if the merger would save money, not the TBR, UT or Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

Without such information, he said the group did not feel it could endorse the white paper.

Memphis President Shirley Raines has formally requested of Gov. Phil Bredesen that the school have a separate governing board, in effect separating from the TBR, but Berman said that at the Sept. 15 Faculty Senate meeting she did not give the senate her opposition to the white paper or its objective.

“There was no suggestion at the meeting we were voting in defiance of university administrators,” Berman said.

John Morgan, deputy to the governor, in a May 4 letter to TUFS in response to a letter from TUFS, said Bredesen and “key legislative leaders will be conducting a continuing dialogue. TUFS had asked about getting appointees on a commission to study higher education, but the response was no such group would be formed.

“The focus of this conversation will be identifying the role(s) that public higher education should play in fulfilling the public agenda in Tennessee.

“Once those roles are identified, the discussion will turn to structure, i.e., how should the public higher education enterprise in Tennessee be organized in order to best fulfill the state’s needs.

“Throughout this process, the input from all relevant interests will be sought and thoughtfully considered. Your input, and those you represent, will be critical to our success.”

Nolt said that since then, he’s heard that a TBR-UT merger is not high on the governor’s agenda.

“What I’ve heard from the governor’s office is that he’s not leaning in this direction,” Nolt said.

Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker could not be reached for comment Friday.

Champouillon said TUFS members should “move on past the concept of the vote” and get on with the discussions that may help shape the decision on a possible merger or other changes coming in higher education.

“You can have one system and it be good, or you can have one system and it be bad,” said Champouillon.

Some, like North Carolina, have one system with divisions. While others, like Kentucky, have one system.

“If combining of the systems improves things for students, that’s a good thing,” he said.

Champouillon said since every TBR and UT school has positive assets for students to utilize, he hopes any reorganization will allow schools to continue bringing those assets to students. He said those include research that goes on at ETSU and Memphis, as well as things like allowing ETSU to go forward with a pharmacy school after it got non-state funding and an under way effort to start a doctoral program in sports physiology.

Nolt said he is compiling statements from faculty senates that voted against the position paper for inclusion in a report to Bredesen.

“The whole point is there be some faculty input into this,” Nolt said.

Faculty senates voting in support of the white paper were ETSU, Austin Peay State University, the University of Tennessee – Chattanooga, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Memphis and Tennessee State University.

The faculty senates at UT-Knoxville — which is co-located with the current UT system headquarters — Tennessee Technological University and UT-Martin voted against the proposal, while the UT Health Science Center Faculty Senate did not address the proposal

Although the UT Health Science Center Faculty Senate declined to vote following a recommendation from its Executive Committee, Nolt said he counts that as a no vote, although it could be seen as an abstention. He said at many schools the vote was almost unanimous, one way or the other.

“The system we’ve got is a political creature. It’s not something somebody set out to create,” Nolt said of UT and TBR with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

TUFS approved the position paper in August. Nolt said he plans to present it to Bredesen around Oct. 1.

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