On Television: Kirsten Diederich Resignation Is A Start To Fixing Higher Ed

After taking some time off I made a glorious return to Chris Berg’s 6:30 Point of View program last night. I apologize in advance for the cruddy audio. I didn’t have Skype set to pick up the right microphone, so instead of broadcasting my lapel mic Skype was picking up the audio from my radio mic just off screen.

Oh well.

Not surprisingly we spoke about State Board of Higher Education President Kirsten Diederich’s resignation earlier in the day. Berg asked me about the folks giving me credit for the resignation, but as I mentioned in a post yesterday all credit goes to the Senators who stood up to Diederich and Governor Jack Dalrymple.

But the larger point I made during the program is that Diederich’s departure doesn’t fix what ails the university system. We need Governor Dalrymple to engage on this issue and acknowledge that not all is hunky dory in higher education. We need to make it clear to certain universities presidents that they will be governed by the State Board of Higher Education, and that their institutions will be run to benefit the students and not some notion of personal or institutional glory.

I like that Diederich was forced to resign because it indicates that the Legislature is getting some backbone on higher ed issues. But we need more.