[The Montana Professor 16.2, Spring 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
March 11, 2006
Governor Brian A. Schweitzer
Office of the Governor
Montana State Capitol Bldg.
P.O. Box 200801
Helena, MT 59620-0801
Dear Governor Schweitzer,
I am writing to gently point out your truancy, suggest a homework assignment, issue you a challenge, and advise you of my imminent departure from the Board of Regents. Now I know I have your attention.
One of your duties as set forth in the Montana Constitution is to serve as an ex-officio member of the Board of Regents. You have failed to attend a single meeting. It is not my intent to criticize your enthusiasm for national self promotion, synfuels, or the calculated sound bite of the day, but rather to simply ask that you consider making a similar commitment to the students, faculty, and staff of the Montana University System.
Here is a homework assignment for you: study and verify for yourself three facts about the Montana University System. First, despite your partisan fixation on past funding, since you became Governor the ratio between state support and tuition shows that students shoulder a greater burden under your watch than at any other time in the history of our state. Second, the cost of educating a student in the Montana University System is well below that of any comparable System or institution. Third, the existing funding formula used by your budget office with each budget cycle automatically increases the percentage of the cost of education paid by students and decrases the percentage paid by the state. Your attacks on Republicans of the past are boring, dishonest, mask the reality of your own behavior, and have done nothing to change the trend that has resulted in the shift of the cost of education from the state to the students. For example, when I retired as Speaker of the House in 2000, the state paid 50% of the cost of education. After you first budget, the state now pays only 38%, the lowest in our history. Given your very strident criticisms, you should be embarrassed.
I challenge you to advocate and work to implement a budget for the Montana University System where the state pays at least 50% of the cost of education. It would seem you could do at least as well as I did. If you value higher education as you say you do, you will fund it.
Finally, effective midnight tonight, March 11, 2006, I resign as a member of the Montana Board of Regents. My heartfelt thanks and affection go out to the hardworking family known as the Montana University System. I wish the students, faculty, staff, administrators, Comissioner stearns, and fellow Regents past and present the very best. Citizens of Montana, I gave it everything I could for as long as I could.
Governor, not coal, not land, not fleeting moments on the national stage...but rather students are our most valuable resource for the future of this state. At the very least, give students the same amount of your attention and considerable energy.
Sincerely,
John A. Mercer
Chairman
Montana Board of Regents
[The Montana Professor 16.2, Spring 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]