After 18 months of deliberation, Gov. James S. Gilmore III's (R) Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education has recommended that colleges and universities be more accountable to the state government in terms of academic performance.
Although each college and university across the Commonwealth conducts self evaluations in the areas of administration and academics, they are not required to release their findings to the public, Commission Chairman Edward Flippen said.
Right now "there isn't a lack of accountability, but it's all internal," Flippen said.
The lynchpin of the Commission's recommendations is the establishment of "institutional performance agreements" for every public institution. The agreements "provide for adequate, stable and predictable institutional funding" based on performance, the report states.
Flippen said the Commission found that in order to run their respective institutions effectively, school administrators "desperately needed" to be able to forecast accurately what their long-term budget would be.
Each IPA will provide a six-year budget plan instead of just a one-year plan, as is the current practice. In exchange for this financial predictability, public colleges and universities must allow the state to have greater power both to review and publicize the schools' academic and financial performance. But the Commission's recommendations do not intend to interfere with a college or university's specific operational decisions.
The recommendations state that each IPA should include a system to measure the school's performance across several fields. There would be specific goals for these measurements, and "financial and non-financial incentives and other specific consequences [will be] tied to [the school's] performance."
The Commission also included recommendations targeted at keeping tuition levels low. It called for the General Assembly to provide schools with adequate financial support and called for schools to actively seek outside sources of funding in addition to state funding.
University Rector John P. Ackerly III said the Board will "consider appointing a committee to consist of Board members and administration to study the recommendations and to advise the Board on how to proceed," and adapt to the recommendations.
English Prof. John Mikalson, Larry J. Sabato, a government and foreign affairs professor, and Board member Timothy B. Robertson represented the University on the Commission. Mikalson said he was pleased with the Commission's final recommendations.
"The final product of the Commission's deliberations has the potential of doing a lot of good for all the various kinds of institutions in Virginia," he said.
Sabato said he also was pleased.
"This is not the document we [the University] would have written. It's a document we can live with and might actually improve our institution of higher education," he said.
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