University presidents, outspoken professors, even rebellious students—all have a knack for getting noticed. Yet, except in rare moments of acute controversy, the men and women who are technically at the top of the nation's huge state-university systems are the least known figures in academe's power structure. And the least rewarded. The state-university regents read reams of reports, worry endlessly over their university's business, scurry to meetings and ceremonies. In return they get only free campus parking, a few choice football tickets, and perhaps their names, in fine print, on a building plaque.
As states expand their higher-education systems, the role of the regents—some universities call them trustees, others governors—looms larger. They direct increasingly huge expenditures, decide where to build branches, determine expansion priorities, pick new presidents. When professors take unpopular stands or students protest, the regents are often squeezed between an angry public and a defensive university administration. One of the toughest tasks of regents today, says Florida Regent Wayne McCall, is to act as "a buffer between the academic world and the outside."
No Yes Men. The selection methods do not guarantee that a regent will be particularly prepared for this job. Most are appointed by state governors for long terms to minimize political pressures, and tend to be older men capping careers in other fields. University of Michigan regents are nominated by political parties, elected directly by voters for eight-year terms. University of Minnesota regents are elected by the state legislature for six years. The University of Alabama board selects its own new members for twelve years. Inevitably, the new regent takes years to get oriented. "Regardless of how much you study, you never get the grasp of a university the way you would of your own business," concedes Wisconsin Regent Charles D. Gelatt.
The first thing a regent learns, says former Minnesota Regent Robert Hess, an ex-labor-union official, is that a university "sure as hell isn't run like a corporation—university people simply aren't yes men." Another difference, notes Wisconsin Regent Kenneth Greenquist, is that "there is no balance sheet with a university—you could make a mistake and not know it for a generation." California Regent Edward Carter contends that what a regent really needs is a diversified "experience of life and the breadth of vision that comes from it, since by the time problems get to the regents' level they are pretty broad."
Regents vary on how deeply they delve into operational detail. Most try to confine themselves to setting broad policy and letting administrators carry it out. The California regents were long plagued by administrative trivia, once even had to pass upon the hiring of janitors. Authority has now been decentralized to the point where troublesome student behavior is a campus chancellor's problem, rather than the regents' or the university president's. On the other hand, Minnesota regents must still pass upon every clerical appointment and even $200 equipment purchases.