Chancellor Hagerott’s Job 1: Look into NEA claims

Grand Forks Herald
If the new chancellor of the North Dakota University System wants to hit the ground running, he quickly should follow up on Sunday’s news about the system’s noninstructional staff.
You see, “North Dakota has far more non-teaching jobs at its public colleges and universities per capita than any other state,” a Forum News Service story reported.
And it’s “a gap that’s growing, according to a recent National Education Association report.”
So, is that the case? And if it is, does it mean that the system’s “tooth to tail ratio”- the military term that describes how many people it takes to support a combat soldier - reveals an ungainly creature with a squirrel’s teeth but dragging around a brontosaurus tail?
Those are the questions that incoming Chancellor Mark Hagerott should answer as soon as he takes the system’s reins in July. The National Education Association report makes some unflattering claims about the North Dakota University System. Well, let’s see if those claims are accurate - and if they are, if the situation is one that the state’s colleges and universities should correct.
That’s exactly the kind of oversight North Dakotans want the chancellor and his staff to exercise. And if Hagerott’s first move is to call for a close and impartial look at the NEA’s findings, North Dakotans will be favorably impressed.
On balance, North Dakotans remain proud of the state’s higher-education system. That support shows up in many ways, including November’s statewide vote against doing away with the North Dakota Board of Higher Education, and the support the system gets from the governor and Legislature year after year.
The fact that so many young people vote with their feet by choosing NDUS schools also is significant. If North Dakota’s is a failing system, nobody seems to have told the system’s 48,000 full- and part-time students, whose willingness to not only spend but also borrow money to secure an NDUS education shows their faith in that education’s value.
But serious doubts linger, which is why the anti-board measure made it to the ballot in the first place. Issues include the colleges’ unimpressive four-year and six-year graduation rates, the uncertain “chain of command” from the presidents to the board - and, importantly, real concerns about whether the institutions are spending too much money on administrators rather than faculty.
The latter question now has been posed by the NEA report. Hagerott should accept the challenge, determine whether the NEA’s claim is, in fact, the case - and if it is, take strong action across the system to address it.