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Thursday, October 15, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
MARGIN OF EXCELLENCE
Officials say Margin of Excellence needs the support of KU students
By BRAD ADDINGTON Staff writer
Students at the University of Kansas must make themselves heard if they want the Kansas Legislature to support the Board of Regents Margin of Excellence proposal, state legislators and KU administrators said yesterday.
The officials spoke last night at a panel discussion sponsored by the Associated Students of Kansas at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. About 35 people attended.
The panelists were David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs; Tom Rawson, KU director of budget and fiscal affairs and architect of the plan; Del Brinkman, vice chancellor for academic
affairs; State Rep. John Solbach, D-D Lawrence; State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-D Lawrence, and State Wint. Wint Jr., R-Lawrence.
Margin of Excellence is the Regents' three-year plan to raise state university faculty salaries to the average of peer institutions, which are universities similar in size and location. We also raise the budgets of state universities to 95 percent of peer institutions.
Amber said, "This program, I believe, will be successful only if students and their parents show support for it."
Brinkman agreed that it would not be enough for just Regents, university faculty and administrators to lobby for the plan.
"We're public servants at the public trough when we go and talk about it." Brinkman said.
Brinkman said that under the plan, KU for the first time would earnarm money for hiring new faculty. He said $1.7 million would be set aside for hiring new faculty in fiscal year 1989.
Winter said the proposal's increased financing request would appear exceptionally high to legislators and requests of other interest groups.
"We have to tell the governor and the legislature why it is we have to make that exception," Winter said.
Winter said plans such as the Regents proposal also would provide the nation with a margin of
competitiveness.
"We simply can't be competitive in the year 2,000 by training people to flip hamburgers and repaint cars." Winter said. "We will only be able to compete with brain power."
Branson said the legislators who spoke last night would support the plan.
"we might be able to sway a vote or two on the House floor and on the Senate floor," she said, "but it hardly matters." The states' courts can do that.
Branson was referring to ASK's Higher Education Rescue Operation, or HERO, a student lobbying campaign in support of Margin of Excellence.
Stephen Wade/Special to the KANSAN
State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence, urges about 35 KU students to voice their support for the Kansas Board of Regents Margin of Excellence proposal. Winter spoke last night in Alderson Auditorium.
Private
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ment Association added $23 million to that to support KU. The Endowment Association is an independent organization.
KU would not be what it is today without private support, Budig said. Some library acquisitions, scholarships, fellowships, research projects and other University expenses depend on grants and gifts.
Some examples of private support are things such as the Hall Center for the Humanities, which supports research and scholarship. Ted Wilson, director of the Hal Center for the Humanities, said that he has supported $100,000 in support and always had depended on private money. The center operates on about $150,000 a year, he said.
"Without private money the center would not have been created," be said.
And although the state pays for the vast majority of the library collection development at KU, private money allows the libraries to buy special collections and other materials to purchase but buy otherwise, said Richard Ring, director of library collection development.
Carolyn A. Cross, director of the office of Research Support and Grants Administration, said that private money didn't pay for most research. But she said she would be happy to work with the institution if it was more flexible than federal money, which usually had strings attached to it.
"Private money is a relatively small part, but it gives nice balance," she said.
Budig spend four or five days a month soliciting money for Campaign Kansas from contributors such as wealthy alumni, corporations and others who want to donate to KU. He said that he would receive some from some of his other duties but that it was very important and had to be done.
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the state Board of Regents, said last week that private money could be a safeguard for public universities.
"We have found in recent years that the better universities can protect themselves, insulate themselfs some way, from the roller coaster effect of economic activity affecting the public section by securing greater support from private sources." Koplik said.
But he also said the state had
primary responsibility for public universities.
"The success of many private efforts are dependent upon the donors seeing that the state is fulfilling its commitment," Kopfik said. "Donors don't want their money to replace money which they believe is the primary responsibility of the state."
KU isn't the only large public university that must raise money privately to supplement state funding. The institutions are in the same situation.
Peer institutions are similar in scope, size and mission to KU. KU's peers are the University of Oklahoma or Georgia or the University of North Carolina, the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa.
David Dierks, director of
planned major gifts at the University of Iowa, said that in the future, the Iowa Legislature might cut money to the university because of a belief that private money could replace state money. But it's not a problem yet, he said.
"Private funds are the frosting on the cake — the pure bone and muscle of running the University he came from the state." he said.
Ron Winkler, treasurer for the University of Oklahoma Foundation, said, "We feel that private funding should only be used for over and above what the state should provide."
Not everyone thinks less state support is bad.
Joe Farmer, annual fund director for the University of Oregon Foundation, said that he thought universities should become more
dependent on private money. In the last 10 years, state support has been cut, but that has educated the public about higher education and led to more enthusiastic donors, he said.
"Education for the public is important to understand how institutions depend on support to offset tuition increases," he said.
But Jim Martin, director of educational fund raising for the KU Endowment Association, said that it would be unfortunate if KU felt the need to be dependent on private money, which in his opinion, could quickly dry up.
"Donors wish to support academic enhancement beyond what the state should rightly do," he said. "The state should provide education. Private support should help provide excellent education."