The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Michael A. Chihak
Where is the Arizona Legislature on the University of Arizona’s financial fiasco and the lack of governance by the Board of Regents?
Where are the Senate and House appropriations committees and the education committees?
Legislators are quick to call hearings when other important — and sometimes unimportant — issues arise. They also are quick to criticize just about anything emanating from Tucson.
An issue both important and arising from Tucson is at the fore: The UA is in a $240 million hole from President Robert Robbins’ mismanagement and the regents’ neglectful oversight.
Robbins reported on Nov. 2 that campus cash flow was underestimated by that $240 million.
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“We just overshot,” he said, a dismissive shrug evident in his demeanor.
Regents’ chair Fred DuVal shed any pretense of a demand for accountability, writing in an Arizona Daily Star guest column: “President Robbins enjoys the full support of the board as he makes the tough decisions this situation requires.”
DuVal had the audacity in that Nov. 14 column to minimize the UA’s problems by saying other universities are experiencing similar financial travails.
He then went from audacity to mendacity at the Nov. 16 Board of Regents meeting to thank speakers who were highly critical of Robbins “for your powerful and impactful comments.”
Impactful? What a joke. The impact was that DuVal and the rest of the regents continued business as usual, supporting Robbins in his error-riddled, feckless oversight of the university.
Watch for the regents’ obsequious responses when by Dec. 15 he presents his plan to fix the financial problems, likely including spending cuts for academic programs that had nothing to do with his mismanagement.
This is at least the fourth major blunder by Robbins, the cardiac surgeon turned university administrator. Let’s hope he wielded a scalpel more precisely than he has his responsibilities at the university.
In 2019, he muffed the controversy over Border Patrol agents on the campus of his “Hispanic serving institution,” mocking journalism students who asked him at a regents’ meeting if he would resign as Latino students demanded.
In 2020, he engineered UA purchase of the legally and fiscally troubled Ashford University, a private online institution. That purchase and subsequent unexpected expenses might well be contributing to the UA’s current money problems.
Last spring, he took “full responsibility” for security problems after a professor was shot and killed in his campus office in October 2022. “Full responsibility” included criticizing the faculty for an accurate report on safety and forcing the provost and campus police chief to resign over the safety issues.
Legislators, it’s obvious that Robbins and others who should be leading the university are doing a poor job of it. Time to step in.
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Michael A. Chihak is a retired newsman.
He lives in Tucson.
