November 3, 1996
The resignation last week of University of Minnesota Regent Jean Keffeler will delight militant members of the U faculty. Elsewhere, Keffeler's departure must raise concerns about the readiness of the university to pursue excellence while adjusting to hard new financial realities.
Keffeler had long been the most insistent voice for change and tough choices on the Board of Regents. Over the past year, she had led the board to press for more flexibility in the university's tenure code. To focus resources, she argued that the university needs authority to lay off tenured professors should it find it necessary to close programs.
For this proposal, the board -- and Keffeler especially -- has been extravagantly vilified by the faculty, which has also voted to hold a union election, thus freezing action on tenure.
Weary of the abusive, counterproductive battle, Keffeler has now resigned. Regrettably, the message her surrender sends can only be that attempting to promote serious change at the University of Minnesota is often a lonesome, formidable, punishing endeavor.
It's hard to be optimistic that Keffeler's defeat will help the regents recruit a candidate of stature and passion to replace university President Nils Hasselmo, who will retire next year.
Many things have gone wrong to produce this unhappy situation. Not least, the regents included some misguided provisions in their tenure proposal which might have genuinely threatened real academic freedom -- and which certainly made it more difficult for supporters to speak out in defense of the regents' position.
Still, there was abundant room for compromise, had the faculty been interested in compromise, and had the regents received more support. The failure of political leaders to back the regents in this confrontation has been dismaying.
Only last week, Gov. Arne Carlson called for resolution of the tenure dispute without any hint that he supports the regents' direction or believes the faculty should become more flexible. It amounted to a call for the regents to surrender. Yet only three months ago, the Carlson administration had scolded the regents that a modes faculty proposal for tenure changes was wholly inadequate, and bolder change was needed.
Simultaneously, of course, the governor and other political leaders regularly wax eloquent about the importance of enhancing excellence at the university.
That's nice. But unless Minnesota's political leaders are prepared to provide many hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars every year, sustained excellence at the U will require exactly the kind of tough, discomforting change so few Minnesota leaders have had the backbone to support this year.
Jean Keffeler was one of the few, and she will be missed.