TSU's Griffin out; new regents on the way in

former Chairwoman Belinda Griffin. No, really. Griffin, who turned in her resignation on Friday — but not really — actually resigned once and for all yesterday, paving the way for Perry to appoint five new regents to lead the school, with a fast track to legislative confirmation.

The plan to appoint new regents seems to be a sea change for Perry, who called for a state-appointed conservator to lead TSU in mid-April. The power of the Board of Regents would have been concentrated in a conservator, who would have had the temporary ability to make financial decisions including hiring and firing employees and changing administrative structure. But that idea didn't sit well with some black state legislators, who said a conservator would jeopardize TSU's accreditation; they introduced a bill Friday that would allow the governor to appoint a reform-minded board when necessary instead of using a conservator. The Chronicle reports that "some lawmakers are concerned that the bill would give unnecessary powers to the governor," but that's a little hard to understand — the regents of all state universities now serve at the pleasure of the governor, and the governor has the power to appoint a conservator to lead a state agency, so Perry would have been within his rights to remove all the regents and appoint a conservator. If anything, the new bill simply seems to be giving the governor another tool to use in dealing with situations like TSU's.

In any case, the new regents — who are expected to include Richard Salwen, a former Dell executive who was a member of Perry's TSU advisory commission — could be confirmed as early as next week, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "This is an important step to move forward to restore Texas Southern University to the high quality school it can be again and to hold TSU accountable to all the taxpayers," Dewhurst said. As for the bill that would give Perry the ability to appoint the reform-oriented interim board, it's likely to get a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on Monday. "Our goal would be to suspend the rules and pass it out as quickly as possible," Dewhurst said. "We are going to want to move the bill out of the Senate as quick as we can and get it to the House."