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Oregon Higher Education Stands to Get Powerful New Overseer
Higher education in Oregon is about to get new leadership in the form of a much-more-powerful Higher Education Coordinating Commission, or HECC.
The House Higher Education Committee and Gov. John Kitzhaber's education adviser, Ben Cannon, spent more than an hour Friday discussing their plan to remake the landscape of higher education. House Bill 3120, which is still being written, would remove power from at least four governmental bodies, including the Legislature, to put a single entity in charge of funding and coordinating public higher education.
Architects of the plan, Gov. John Kitzhaber chief among them, say having a single board look out for the interests of students and the state will lead to greater efficiency. At present, about 40 percent of Oregonians earn college credentials, a figure Kitzhaber and the Legislature would like to see double by 2025.
HECC would oversee (1) the Chancellor's Office, (2) the Department of Community Colleges (and Workforce Development), and (3) the Office of Student Assistance.
If approved, lawmakers will no longer make funding apportionment decision. Rather, they would make a single allocation to higher education and HECC would make such decisions.
Oregon already has a similar kind of committee in place now.. Set up as a low-profile panel in 2012, it would essentially be empowered in July 2014.
The State Board of Higher Education would be repositioned into a panel directing (four or five) of Oregon's public universities. It would no longer control funding or program approval. Most of its changes would be enacted through Senate Bill 270, which creates independent boards to run the University of Oregon and Portland State University. Oregon State University also has the option to switch to an independent board if and when President Ed Ray should decide to opt in.
Both bills are expected to get their first committee votes this week, just under the wire of Thursday's deadline for bills to advance out of committee.House Higher Education Chairman Michael Dembrow said given passage, the governor would likely appoint membership as early as this fall so they can hit the floor running..
The HECC Executive Directorship would be set up in addition to two other new appointed education posts in Oregon: (1) Deputy Superintendent of Instruction (Rob Saxton) runs the Oregon Department of Education to oversee preschool and K-12 education, while (2) Chief Education Officer (Rudy Crew) oversees education from preschool through college.
Sounds like quite a bit of overlap, doesn't it? One of HECC's missions is to "make a lot more sense of this higher education soup" said Cannon The Oregon Student Access Commission (overseeing student financial aid) would be disbanded and the Oregon Board of Education would no longer oversee community colleges.
"For the first time, you have a single board responsible for the entire post-secondary system, including fund distribution," Cannon said. "You go from having a jumble of boards to having a single board for all of higher education. This establishes that funding is done by the HECC, which is a big deal."
Representatives of the Oregon University System, the State Board of Higher Education, the Oregon Student Access Commission the UO, PSU and the community colleges all testified effusively in favor of the proposed changes.
-- The original story has been edited for clarity
Original story here: http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/04/oregon_higher_education_stands.html
Higher education in Oregon is about to get new leadership in the form of a much-more-powerful Higher Education Coordinating Commission, or HECC.
The House Higher Education Committee and Gov. John Kitzhaber's education adviser, Ben Cannon, spent more than an hour Friday discussing their plan to remake the landscape of higher education. House Bill 3120, which is still being written, would remove power from at least four governmental bodies, including the Legislature, to put a single entity in charge of funding and coordinating public higher education.
Architects of the plan, Gov. John Kitzhaber chief among them, say having a single board look out for the interests of students and the state will lead to greater efficiency. At present, about 40 percent of Oregonians earn college credentials, a figure Kitzhaber and the Legislature would like to see double by 2025.
HECC would oversee (1) the Chancellor's Office, (2) the Department of Community Colleges (and Workforce Development), and (3) the Office of Student Assistance.
If approved, lawmakers will no longer make funding apportionment decision. Rather, they would make a single allocation to higher education and HECC would make such decisions.
Oregon already has a similar kind of committee in place now.. Set up as a low-profile panel in 2012, it would essentially be empowered in July 2014.
The State Board of Higher Education would be repositioned into a panel directing (four or five) of Oregon's public universities. It would no longer control funding or program approval. Most of its changes would be enacted through Senate Bill 270, which creates independent boards to run the University of Oregon and Portland State University. Oregon State University also has the option to switch to an independent board if and when President Ed Ray should decide to opt in.
Both bills are expected to get their first committee votes this week, just under the wire of Thursday's deadline for bills to advance out of committee.House Higher Education Chairman Michael Dembrow said given passage, the governor would likely appoint membership as early as this fall so they can hit the floor running..
The HECC Executive Directorship would be set up in addition to two other new appointed education posts in Oregon: (1) Deputy Superintendent of Instruction (Rob Saxton) runs the Oregon Department of Education to oversee preschool and K-12 education, while (2) Chief Education Officer (Rudy Crew) oversees education from preschool through college.
Sounds like quite a bit of overlap, doesn't it? One of HECC's missions is to "make a lot more sense of this higher education soup" said Cannon The Oregon Student Access Commission (overseeing student financial aid) would be disbanded and the Oregon Board of Education would no longer oversee community colleges.
"For the first time, you have a single board responsible for the entire post-secondary system, including fund distribution," Cannon said. "You go from having a jumble of boards to having a single board for all of higher education. This establishes that funding is done by the HECC, which is a big deal."
Representatives of the Oregon University System, the State Board of Higher Education, the Oregon Student Access Commission the UO, PSU and the community colleges all testified effusively in favor of the proposed changes.
-- The original story has been edited for clarity
Original story here: http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/04/oregon_higher_education_stands.html
