The Board of Regents appointed new members and installed a new set of officers for the 2011 term at the Board’s first official meeting of the year Jan. 6.
The newly appointed members include Scott Ballard of Covington; Joe Wiley of Gonzales; Chris Gorman of Shreveport; and Joe Farr of Monroe. Ed Antie, of Lafayette, was the only re-appointed member.
The elected officers to the Board include Secretary Charlotte Bollinger of Lockport, Vice Chair Mary Ellen Roy of New Orleans and Chairman Robert Levy of Ruston.
Levy, who has worked for the Board since July 2001, told the Board it must conduct business differently as it moves forward, operating under what he called the “new normal.”
“One thing that needs to be different is the speed at which we assess our goals,” he said. “We need to expedite our efforts to drive higher performance and greater effect.”
Levy also said the Board needed to be more creative, more aggressive and work with a strong “sense of accountability.”
Levy outlined several of his goals for the Board, assessing both short-term and long-term initiatives to improve the state’s higher education system.
“We have to be transformative in a way that both meets the short-term needs of a significantly reduced budget but also produces a highereducation system that meets the demands of students and the work force across Louisiana for the long term,” Levy said Jan. 6.
Levy said he hopes his plan, which he referred to as the “ladder approach of productivity,” will lead to educational attainment.
“Our two legs, or twin pillars, will be a revised, performance-based budgeting formula on one side that is strategic, defensible, understandable and drives sustainable improvement, and on the other side an academic program review focused on eliminating low-completer and unnecessary duplicative programs,” he explained.
Levy said the steps of the ladder consist of initiatives like refining the LA GRAD Act, the transfer degree, the regional alignment of programs and the Regent’s Master Plan.
Levy said he would like to see these pillars and steps implemented as soon as possible, as it is the constitutional duty of the Board to restructure and address state issues.
“With budget constraints, we need to learn to be more productive with less money,” he said.
Levy said the state must strike a balance to do this — a balance between what the state must and can do and what the students must and can do.
Levy welcomed input from the students, noting the effort in December by the College Caucus to open communication with the Board.
The College Caucus has not been in any further communication with the Board since its appearance at the Dec. 2 meeting, according to Caucus member Leda Williams.
Williams, business junior, said the group has not formally met since the Board meeting because of conflicting holiday schedules but is planning to solidify the next meeting date and course of action soon.
“The next step [for the Caucus] will be to reach out around the state,” she said. “This means from the smallest town in northern Louisiana to the largest colleges and universities in New Orleans.”
Williams said the group plans to take this input and present it to the state boards as a representation of what the people hope to see in the future.
“We want them to hear us,” she said. “They want our input and we want theirs.”
 
 
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Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]