By  Steve Urquhart
Senate Chair of Higher Ed Approps

As always, I can’t wait to start the session!!!

This year, we are going to do amazing things in the Higher Education Appropriations Committee. As I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog, we will change the world by better preparing Utah students for college, we will give our faculty a bit of a bump in pay, we will better align concurrent enrollment with future college success, and we will figure out how we will fund our public institutions on the basis of excellence instead of mere growth. In other words, we have much work to do!

We already do what we do and know what we know. Thus, I don’t want to take up too much committee time talking about what we already do. Instead, I want to use the skill and expertise of my wonderful committee members, the great people at the Utah System of Higher Education, the students, and the public, to discuss what we need to do in order to do things even better. So, here’s what I envision.

We will start with Innovators’ Week (or 2). First, we’ll hear from outside innovators, like Clayton Christensen, Burck Smith, Ellen Siminoff, and Erik Frank. They will tell us about the direction of higher education, the ability to provide excellence in an affordable manner, affordable individualized college preparation, and open textbooks.

Then, as part of Innovators’ Week (or 2), we’ll hear from innovators within our system. And, I want to highlight that point; innovation doesn’t necessarily mean cool stuff that’s going on elsewhere. We tend to make that mistake as policymakers. (Or, maybe I should own it and confess, I tend to make that mistake). Some of the greatest innovations we will ever find come from our own people who know our system, our unique challenges, our personnel, and our opportunities. I do not hold anyone in higher regard than many of the fine people within Utah’s higher education system who are dying to do things better. They lead me and inspire me.

Next, I would like to handle budget recommendations early – well before our last meeting, so that we can grapple with important policy issues.

Lastly, you guessed it, we’ll deal with those important policy issues – concurrent enrollment and performance-based budgeting.

I’ll lay this out to committee members on Tuesday. So, if you don’t like it, let me and my committee members know about it. In any event, come reason with us, and help improve this system and the lives of our students.

Opportunity knocks!

[Also posted on Senator Urquhart's most magnificent blogsite.]