Restore institutions of higher education

To the editor:

In Iowa, process at all levels has been replaced by politically motivated appointments and decision making. How can a house built on sand stand the test of time? How can the University of Iowa president choose to serve under such conditions? Touted 'shared governance” requires that the Regents have necessary expertise and integrity, requisite humility, and respect for the expertise of the faculty, with whom they share governance. Neither is true.

People used to understand that a liberal arts education teaches critical thinking, essential for participatory democracy. Then, the corporatists claimed that the only value of the UI is as 'job mill” for economic development. Regrettably, university leadership bought into that and commoditized education was implicitly accepted.

The cause of higher tuitions is not inefficiency, but diversion of public funds from higher education to corporatists' pet projects. Without state appropriations, the only viable source of revenue is higher tuition. Yet corporatists have succeeded in claiming that higher tuitions are a consequence of bad management; that the faculty members are idle, spoiled slobs (whereas they are excellent, committed teachers!); that accordingly the UI requires a 'business man” at the helm; and that consequently a flawed search process, which was the only means by which this outcome could have been achieved, is acceptable. It is high time that our hijacked institutions of higher education be appropriately funded and restored to the people of the State of Iowa whom they are intended to serve.

Gerhild Krapf

Iowa City