Littwin: Higher ed needs Brown - and a miracle

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 20, 2007 at midnight

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The consensus is that Hank Brown has pulled off a minor miracle in his all-too-brief tenure as CU president.

You've seen the results: In less than two years on the job, Brown has helped rescue CU from scandal and incompetence and, just possibly, the chance of ever having another winning football season.

The problem is that higher ed in Colorado doesn't need a minor miracle. It needs a major miracle - loaves and fishes and, even harder to come by, loads of cash.

According to a just-released state study, Colorado higher education is so underfunded that state colleges need an additional $832 million in support just to become average. Imagine how much it would take to become what all Americans strive to be - above average. Imagine how hard it is here in TABOR-land to come up with that kind of dough.

This is a different kind of scandal - and one that's even more dangerous.

So, who could rescue CU this time? You would need, say, a Republican widely known as a fiscal conservative as an advocate. You would need someone who, when he says he's cut the fat, has actually cut the fat. Maybe an ex-U.S. senator with experience as a university president. A Republican who joined with Bill Owens in promoting Ref C, thus helping to save the state's junior colleges.

You would need, well, the soon-to-be-departed Hank Brown.

Or, as a disappointed Michael Merrifield - the Democratic chairman of the House education committee - put it: "There's nobody better situated to get the job done. I wish he would stay."

So why, in the midst of a crisis, is the man who has just given us a crash course in crisis management walking out on the job?

It was only last April - just nine months ago - that the regents promoted him from interim president. He was named after the search committee located him sitting behind a desk in the CU president's office. If Brown was going to leave, why didn't he say so then? He could have stayed as interim president and let the committee go back to work. I think he'd get the pension either way.

The only Brown I know who leaves a job this quickly is Larry Brown. And yet, Hank Brown will be gone in a year. Think about it: He'll be gone, and Ward Churchill will still be there.

Brown explains his decision by saying you should measure college-president years in dog years. He's only half joking. I don't know why he's leaving. Maybe he's burned out. Even taking Betsy Hoffman's limo - and Brown's more likely to be seen in a snow plow - the job can be a tough ride.

When he made his announcement, he insisted he was leaving because his job here is done. Of course, it's not even half done. And when I get him on the phone, he admits as much.

"People just don't know how far out of line we are," he is saying. "In K-through-12, we're at 97 percent of the national average (in funding). Three points off, that's not bad.

"But CU-Boulder is at 22 percent of the national average compared to state funding for peer schools. CSU is just over 30 percent. You can make up the difference with higher tuition, or you can make up the difference with lower expenditures. But there comes a point when we're short-changing ourselves."

Brown is anything but an alarmist. If he says the sky is falling, buy an umbrella. Here's what he says about the CU medical school: "The state needs to make a decision - close down the medical school or raise the tuition to a level that pays for the cost of education." That level, he says, would be around $65,000 a year, effectively eliminating anyone but children of the wealthy.

A state as enriched as Colorado can't afford not to have a university system to match. And yet, Brown says CU's world-class departments are basically limited to those subsidized by the federal government.

"The physics department in Boulder has three Nobel laureates," he says. "You almost have to win a Nobel to get tenure. It's phenomenal. The way we keep these people is that they win federal grants for research."

So, what's to be done? Brown does some throat clearing. He tells you how much he supports TABOR. And then says that the people will have to decide. This, he says, will take time and effort and persuasion.

"You have to prove to the voters that students will learn more here and at a lower cost. If people believe that, I think they'll vote for funding."

He's saying we need a Ref C-like consortium. Yes, and I can see Jon Caldara clutching his chest now - and also his wallet.

This is not a one-year task. It will take time. It will take leadership by Bill Ritter. It will take Republicans and Democrats working together to fix what they've broken.

Merrifield says it would take someone like Brown to pull it off. And where will Brown be by then?

Merrifield says: "I'm waiting for someone of Hank's stature to say to the state, 'We have put ourselves in an untenable situation. We have made mistakes.' Someone is going to have to admit that mistakes were made." Brown could start by admitting one mistake: That he's ducking out of a job at least one miracle short.

littwinm@rockymountainnews.com

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