3 TSU regents refuse to resign

The Chronicle reports on the latest developments in the TSU saga today: Three of the school's regents are resisting Gov. Rick Perry's call for their resignations, and an accrediting agency says Perry's plan for state conservatorship could endanger TSU's accreditation. "I'm not going to resign because that would be an acknowledgment of doing something wrong," Regent David Diaz told the Chronicle. "I haven't done anything wrong."

Diaz, the Rev. Robert Childress and Belinda Griffin had not submitted their resignations as of Wednesday, five days after Perry called for them to step down as part of a plan to concentrate the regents' power in a state-appointed conservator who could turn the troubled university around in a short time. The conservator would take charge of TSU's spending, could hire and fire personnel and could change the school's administrative structure. Diaz said the regents "[have] done a lot of good," noting that they reduced the campus workforce amid a budget shortfall, proposed cuts in academic programs and fired former President Priscilla Slade — but didn't they only get rid of Slade after discovering that she had allegedly misspent millions of dollars in public money, apparently with lax oversight? Oh yeah, that. A fourth regent, Bill King, has not resigned but has said he won't stand in the way of Perry's plans — though he wonders if they're the best way to go about things. "Clearly there is some need of dramatic, drastic action, but I kind of agree with the Black Caucus on conservatorship," King said. "We need to find a better solution." (For the record, five of the board's nine positions are now vacant.)

Meanwhile, there's the question of how TSU's accreditation would be affected by state conservatorship. Perry's spokesman Robert Black told the AP that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board had spoken with several accrediting agencies, who told the board they would, in Black's words, "welcome a strong, decisive action by the state." But Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools — the regional accrediting body for Texas and 10 other states — indicated that's not the case because SACS requires multi-member boards of regents for universities. "It's a matter of checks and balances," Wheelan told the Chronicle. Without accreditation, TSU would lose federal financial aid for students; nearly two-thirds of students there now receive federal grants. State higher education commissioner Raymund Paredes said the university wouldn't be at any more risk with a conservator than it is now, considering its administrative and financial problems. "TSU is vulnerable right now," Paredes said. "It's clear that the issues at the university have tripped a wire, and the accrediting agencies will be watching closely."