Voltaire once remarked (paraphrasing) about Prussia, “most countries have an army; Prussia is an army that has its own country.” The same can be said about Arizona’s #1 state budget item, “many cities have a University; the University of Arizona has its own city.”
If ever there was a hometown university that dominates its 1.1 million population metro (not some dinky college town out in the boonies) on multiple levels, it’s UA-Tucson.
Its non-education dominance is pervasive: competing healthcare at every level in nearly every specialty, competing real estate speculation, competing finance, competing advertizing, publishing, sports & event marketing, funding dozens of charitable organizations, funding & influencing municipal policy directives for a menagerie of overlapping (& largely ineffective) groups.
UA gives its absurdly-compensated CEO absolute rock-star status for every whiny PR venue in Tucson, the company town. Talk about overexposure. Meanwhile, who’s minding the store? Answer: legions of middle level edu-crats.
UA’s previous Prez, the money-grubbing Diva, Ann Weaver Hart, had no qualms with self-enriching side jobs. The “little people will never know” …until they did. It nearly killed their local aircover rag, the RedStar, to have to report. “Oh God! We might lose all their advertizing!”
On a much bigger scale, UA may have long ceased to legally fulfill its original Federal role as Arizona’s sole, official Land-Grant University, per the Morrill Act (1862). From the Civil War era to the present (17+ Federal statutes, all or part), it’s a program to boost America’s economy with a network of Ag & Tech universities. A national cadre of educated problem-solvers in fields with practical agriculture, engineering & other tech applications for the states.
What percentage of UA’s graduates now fulfill this role? (you’re kidding, huh Bill?)
This last point is critical, because if UA thinks it has problems now with the NCAA over a gigantic bribery & payola scandal in its basketball program …that’s nothing compared to a horde of U.S. IGs (Inspector General) forensic auditors descending on 1401 E. University Blvd.
The various Morrill & subsequent related acts, which originally predates UA’s opening by nearly 30 years, and provided a ton of early funding, goes to the very heart of what the University of Arizona should be doing. To wit:
#1. UA needs to focus on becoming productive; that means doing MORE with LESS. No more celebrity hires like world-class socialist fossil, Noam Chomsky, so that sinecured UA departments can virtue-signal to uber-liberal peers. (“But we have Noam Chomsky!”)
It means ignoring the geriatric hippie clique led by local shakedown artist, Bonnie Poulos, and yes, sell the antiquated 1909 UA farm property (160ac) deep in north-central Tucson, while extracting maximum value for Arizona taxpayers (it’s a $9-figure tract). Maybe use those monies to fund expanded agricultural (remember: land-grant university?), operations elsewhere for a mid-century Planet Earth of some 10+ billion hungry people?
Figure out how to desalinate nearby Baja seawater with the new supermaterial graphene, powered by a 300 MWe small modular reactor (SMR), the size of a McDonalds. And really “let the desert bloom”; what an incredible biz-model to export for Arizona. And a genuine ‘land-grant’ endeavor.
Stop squandering capital funds on stuff like $80+ million for a nebulous 4 building renovation, a realty anchor-tenant inspired, “Student Success District”. C’mon people, does AZ State government have to officially change UA’s motto from “Bear Down” to “What Were They Thinking” ??
Replace Centennial Hall, UA’s piece of decaying architectura from the Age of Steam, and the one facility that outside Tucsonians [are forced to] actually use for the performing arts. Maybe put Centennial’s replacement off-campus in a municipal location, where people WITH MONEY can actually access and enjoy? That alone will pay UA dividends for the next 100 years.
#2. Streamline the administration, jettison the redundant, and regain business control of the whiners, union organizers, RedStar shills, peepsters, and above all—the utterly worthless degree programs & bureaucracy. What a grave disservice to your customers: the kids, parents, and taxpayers of Arizona!
Let ‘em go to a willing community college to learn about grievance studies like “Modern Misogyny and the Bisexual Marriage”. Send the overly degreed fakirs teaching this psycho-babble-bilge to the unemployment line.
And this is just for starters. What’s coming after 2025 will demand performance on a scale not seen since the Civil War ended; it will be like Back to the Future meets the Howard Hughes bio-pix, The Aviator. The University of Arizona, as the creation of a lackadaisical Arizona Legislature, badly needs to shape-up.
Related pieces: The Tucson Beast Eating Arizona’s Budget, and UA is the Tucson Left’s Milkcow
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization