Over the course of his or her service on the North Dakota Board of Higher Education, a board member will meet with the other members dozens of times.
But one of those meetings will stand out. It will dwarf all the others in importance. In fact, the outcome of this meeting will influence all of the other meetings that follow.
It’s the meeting at which the board chooses a new chancellor.
And it’s not a meeting that the Legislature should be eager to close.
But the North Dakota House now is considering a bill that would let this meeting - the meeting - take place behind closed doors.
“The North Dakota Board of Higher Education wants discussions on the hiring and firing of a university system chancellor to be held in secret,” The Associated Press reported last week.
“The board is pushing legislation that would hold such discussions in executive session unless the chancellor or candidate being considered asks for the discussion to be public.”
The House should reject the proposal.
The chancellor is the top-of-the-pyramid position in higher education. And higher education, of course, is one of the biggest and most important responsibilities of state government.
North Dakotans - taxpayers - deserve to know what factors get considered in that executive’s hiring.
After all, across the chancellor’s tenure, it’s exactly those factors that will influence the state’s colleges and universities again and again.
Why should the meeting that outlines those core duties, responsibilities and expectations be secret?
Moreover, North Dakotans also should get to hear each board member discuss those factors at this, the most important board meeting those members will attend.
Over the past 15 years, the North Dakota University System has grown tremendously in stature and importance. The change stems from the Roundtable Reforms of 2001, which recognized the system’s potential as an economic engine, and unleashed the campuses to foster innovation and growth.
Throughout this time, North Dakotans have been reminded of the chancellor’s crucial role. It’s the chancellor who either runs the system as a system, or who defers to the presidents and lets them run their campuses as the presidents see fit.
As North Dakotans know, that basic philosophy on the chancellor’s part will be the source of countless news stories over that executive’s career.
Again, why would North Dakotans want the discussion that lays down those basic parameters to take place in a soundproofed room?
The Minot Daily News, among others, agrees. “If recent history has proven anything, it is clear the public needs to know more, often a lot more, about potential chancellors before they are hired,” the newspaper editorialized.
Furthermore, “the Board of Higher Education has been slapped on the wrist several times in recent years for violating the open meetings law,” the Daily News noted.
“Instead of working to regain the public trust by becoming more open, they want to close off public access. It’s a bad idea, bad government and should be soundly defeated.”
Chancellor candidates are grownups and can survive their strengths and weaknesses being talked about in public. Let’s recognize the healthy value of sunshine in public life, then bring this crucial discussion out in the open where it belongs.
The Grand Forks Herald’s Editorial Board formed this opinion.
