A break from MA-05 madness … I can't say I'm terribly surprised by this:
Governor Deval Patrick, determined to exert control over the University of Massachusetts system, is undaunted by his failed bid last month to remove UMass board chairman Stephen P. Tocco and is still planning his ouster, according to administration officials.
Patrick aides have been testing sentiment among UMass trustees and said they expect the governor to have sufficient support to remove Tocco in a matter of months.
Patrick was publicly stung when his allies on the board could not muster enough votes last month to force out the influential Tocco, who is an appointee of Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, but has strong ties to Democratic leaders [like my US Rep. Ed Markey].
Remember that Tocco had something of a major role in the goofiness that led to UMass Amherst Chancellor John Lombardi leaving for stickier climes at LSU. We didn't heard much from the Governor during all that — perhaps Patrick felt it would be wise to keep his hands out of that particular tank of pirhanas. But it certainly didn't reflect well on UMass President Jack Wilson, or Tocco. I can't imagine Patrick was too amused by the whole thing.
And let's also remember that for all his cross-party friendships and connections, Tocco is head of one of the most powerful lobby shops in the Commonwealth. Is that really the guy you want as chair of the UMass board — someone whom you really want to have a noble, Big Picture vision for the system? Someone who can administrate fairly and impartially? Are those qualities lobbyists are known for? Should a lobbyist be head of our university system? Just askin'.
Tocco should take the hint and depart as gracefully as he can. And Patrick should appoint someone with a sterling, visionary, incorruptible reputation from well outside of the political sphere.
Tocco and Romney’s role in destroying the chances of having an affordble, public law school for Massachusetts at UMASS Dartmouth. Suffolk, Northeastern and BU kicked and screamed and the Board not only ended up voting the law school merger down, but they did it twice… and then went to work in sacking each and every board member that supported a UMASS law school.
The article states that Tocco and Patrick’s relationship is cordial.
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Why doesn’t Patrick work with Tocco instead of trying to oust him? What does Patrick gain by getting “control” over the chairmanship?
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Nothing in that article seems to point out any major policy differences between the two men other than the law school. Is Patrick that power hungry?
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IMO, this doesn’t reflect well on Patrick.
The law school is the only public difference. As I’ve indicated, there are other reasons to be rid of Tocco, like his role in the Wilson/Lombardi contretemps.
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“Is Patrick that power hungry?” Yes. He’s governor. He’s allowed and expected to be. And for instance, I hope his consolidation of transport agencies under the exec branch passes. With that power comes responsibility and accountability for him and future governors, which I think of as generally good.
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Did you support Romney’s attempts at consolidation of power when he was Governor?
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He wanted to combine transportation agencies and IIRC he wanted control over the Pike board too.
predated BMG. By the time we started the blog, Romney had lost interest in pursuing it (and anything else not directly related to the presidency) — until the Big Dig collapse, when everyone finally agreed it was a good idea.
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We’ve been over this before.
The Court declined to hear the case, as there was ‘no pressing interest’ in having the governor gain control of the Board, which he would be able to fill with his own appointees in the fullness of time.
Elections have consequences, and sometimes that means that someone you don’t particularly like will control the agencies. But the only thing worse than being subject to political pressures is not being subject to political pressures.
Patrick has APPOINTED his DOE picks. The idea is that the University should not have to change with every administration – remember?
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This is like the Senate thing, isn’t it? When you thought Kerry would win, you stripped the Governor of the power to appoint the Senator to fill the unexpired term. Now, if Ted’s aortic adventure HADN’T gone well, and he had died of a stroke, you’ve also prevented DEVAL from making such an appointment.
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Do you want to create the precedent that the Governor can fire the Board of Trustees at will? BTW, Deval should have a little talk with Jane Swift about Jordan Levy and Christy Mihos – he actually has money if Tocco gets a judgement against HIM.
….”with a sterling, visionary, incorruptible reputation from well outside of the political sphere”?
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His appointments to date would not indicate that was the case.
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He’ll just ask himself Who Would Hillary Appoint once again.
Thomas Cole was previously president of Clark Atlanta University — he seems to be a reasonable choice. He came out of retirement to become interim, so he has no long-term ambitions.
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Any addition of academics, or even people who understand academics, to the UMass board would be an improvement. At least a couple of Patrick’s recent appointments were in that direction, though the board is still pretty ignorant on the whole.
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The search for a permanent Amherst chancellor is being chaired by Jennifer Brandaras, a Romney appointee to the board who has some reputation as a rightie ideologue. We’ll see how that goes. We are no longer hearing much about the One Campus Plan here, which suits us fine.
Should a lobbyist be head of our university system? Just askin’
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The primary job of the president/provost/high muckty-mucks of a university system is fund raising. That’s particularly true of a high muckty-muck of a private university, but it is also true of a public university.
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So, yes, it is not particularly problemmatic that a lobbyist be head of a public university system. Presumably, a lobbyist knows how to shake the money out of the money trees. The university system can hire people to manage the academic stuff.
But the chairman of the board of trustees isn’t the guy you want begging for the money trees to fall on them.
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The President of the University, yes, but not the Board of Trustees.
Don’t be taken in by Mr. Bulger. The PRESIDENT of the University should be concerned with academic affairs, student experience, excellence of faculty, etc. The trustees EXIST to raise and apportion money.
Actually, in practice, the President has not been very involved with that stuff.
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The responsibilities of the different parts of the universities chief administrators is laid out in the Wellman Document (although when it comes right down to it, this is not a constitution and has no more authority than anything else the board does, so they can simply make new policy and say “previous board decisions non-withstanding”.)
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It turns out that the Board of Trustees actually is the body that approves programs, awards degrees, grants tenure, and really holds all of the power. Although the President is the chief academic officer of the University, in fact they mostly act as the point of contact among the press, government, board, and campuses. Most academic decisions are made at a campus level, which eventually is approved by the Board of Trustees, which actually holds the power.
Not only wouldn’t I have said it better, but I probably couldn’t have. The UMASS Board of Trustees isn’t a weak board.
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Back in the day, I actually ran a (losing) campaign to be elected as the student representative to the UMASS Board of Trustees. Long story, that one… but suffice it to say, it was like a mini congressional race. I swear, one of my opponents spent at least a thousand dollars.
…but she does have a point.
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“Student experience” can be administered through a Dean of Students, an employee.
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Excellence of faculty is handled by the academic departments themselves, by controlling granting or denial of tenure. In point of fact, tenure has little to do with teaching ability, and some excellent instructors never get tenure, but they are kept on staff because they are excellent instructors.