Print Column: Forget a Better Governance Model for Higher Education, Maybe We Just Need Better People
MINOT, N.D. — A recent meeting of the State Board of Higher Education illustrated why we have such chronic problems with governing our state’s 11 public campuses.
The subject of University of North Dakota President Mark Kennedy’s boneheaded personnel decisions came up.
One board member, Dan Traynor of Devils Lake, took Kennedy to task for giving his personal assistant a promotion and a $30,000 per year pay raise just before he arranged for her to have a $25,000 per year allowance to commute to work in Grand Forks from Texas.
This in addition to a personal friend of Kennedy’s getting over $17,000 per month to work part-time (no more than 80 hours per month) as the interim director of one of UND’s institutions.
Oh, and he got to commute too. From Boston. UND paid him nearly $30,000 in travel expenses.
