Is Perry-Powers Tension About College Rivalry, Policy?
Is this about Bill Powers or UT’s tower?
Tensions between Gov. Rick Perry’s administration and Powers, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, are rising, sucking up legislative time and pitting lawmakers, prominent alumni and higher-education critics against one another in a running argument over politics, rivalries and what a public university is supposed to be.
Start with a University of Texas System administration that had the gumption to deflect an embrace from conservatives who wanted to make over the academy.
The “seven breakthrough solutions” unveiled in 2008 were designed to bring some market-oriented changes to the state’s colleges and universities. A couple of those hogged the attention: rating professors, based on student assessments; separating teaching and research; and including revenue as one measure of whether a program or class should continue. Perry implicitly endorsed the idea by headlining a daylong conference where the ideas were unveiled, ensuring the attendance of top regents and administrators from the state’s public colleges.
More at http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/01/reasons-wont-be-obvious-until-after-fight/ .
