John Morgan

The new head of the Tennessee Board of Regents, which oversees higher education in our state (except for the University of Tennessee, tucked safely in its own sinecure), spoke to our Faculty Senate the other night. (We'd heard from his predecessor in October.)


Mr. Morgan's appointment had been controversial, since he's not himself an academic but was a close deputy of former governor Bredesen (who appointed him).

I'm pleased to report that he doesn't have horns, he's personable and intelligent. Most reassuringly, he says he "gets it" that higher education is not just about training the state's workforce and creating jobs. He says people like Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (who has spouted off about tweedy academics who only work part-time) and other anti-intellectual types in state government, understand it too-- or at least they understand it better than they let on in public. 

But, Morgan adds, "jobs, vocational training, outcomes-assessment, retention" (etc.) is the language we all have to speak, in public, if we want to get even minimal funding from the legislature. We should anticipate continued funding appropriation cuts of 1 to 3% in the foreseeable future. We can't hope to get back to 2008 funding levels before 2014, by current projections. 

And he says we have to all just understand, it's a "given": Tennessee is a "fiscally conservative" state, will always rank close to #50 in state revenues dedicated to education. The pie won't be getting bigger. Nonetheless, he says the new governor is pro-higher ed, and not just pro-UT. We'll see.

Maybe he does "get it," but it still bugs me that the head of TBR can speak so casually of students as our "customers." I'm grading exams: trust me, the customer's not always right. But he's a business & finance guy, that's the language he knows.