September 11, 2019
Governor Gavin Newsom
1303 10th Street, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
Re: Support AB-130 – The Higher Education Performance, Accountability, and Coordination Commission
Dear Governor Newsom,
We write to you to ask that you support AB-130 and to sign it should it finish its journey in the legislature. The Master Plan for Higher Education, since its creation nearly 70 years ago, has called for a coordinating agency to insure rational development and to reduce redundancy and waste in higher education, with the added role of advising the Legislature and Governor, the Segments of higher education and the California public about issues in higher education. For years the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) filled these roles.
In 2011, Governor Brown defunded CPEC. Since that time the tasks that had been handled by CPEC have been parceled out to a variety of agencies resulting in a more ad hoc and less coordinated system. But more importantly, without an organization like CPEC that meets in the open, higher education policy has become more opaque and less democratic. We need public meetings, publicly posted data, and transparent, online, and comparative information about our higher education institutions.
An important feature of AB-130 is the creation of The Higher Education Performance, Accountability, and Coordination Commission (HEPACC) governed by a board without voting seats assigned to representatives of the institutions it is designed to oversee. The new HEPACC responds to criticism of the earlier CPEC while acknowledging the importance of on-the-ground experience by creating an advisory body that includes representative students and faculty who are in the best position to know what works and what does not, and can alert the commission to possibly well-intended but practically unworkable proposals.
For all of the above reasons, we urge you to support and, ultimately, sign AB-130.
On behalf of the Council of UC Faculty Associations,
Claudio Fogu, Vice President for External Relations, and
Associate Professor of Italian Studies, UC Santa Barbara