Years ago, faculty members at North Dakota universities groaned when a fellow professor retired. That's because the money for every new or replacement hire had to be approved by the Legislature, and the process could take as long as two years.
Let's not do that again.
Voters and lawmakers rightly are furious about recent findings of slipshod higher ed oversight. Three North Dakota State University officials have resigned over the findings, and a number of construction projects remain on hold. Tough reforms are vital to make sure the abuses don't happen again.
But throughout the reform process, lawmakers must guard against the human tendency to overreach. It's probably true that with the Roundtable reforms of 2000, the pendulum swung too far toward university independence. But that's not the danger today.
The danger today is that lawmakers will push the pendulum too far back, undoing the Roundtable and re-exerting heavy-handed legislative control. That would be a mistake. The Roundtable's pluses far outweigh its minuses, as independent observers have confirmed and every North Dakotan can see.
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So, target the abuses, especially the weak oversight shown toward privately funded or public/private construction projects. Learn from officials' mistakes.
But don't turn the clock back to the bad old days. Don't undo one of North Dakota's most progressive reforms in decades -- a reform that has contributed mightily to the unprecedented prosperity in the state.
The Roundtable, of course, was the 61-member group -- more than half of them legislators or private-sector leaders -- that met in 1999 to chart a new course for higher education. The members shared a deep sense of the problem: North Dakota's university system was cautious, defensive and micromanaged by the Legislature, with no sign of the dynamism that had transformed, among other places, the universities anchoring North Carolina's Research Triangle.
The solution? "Remove barriers, and let the college presidents lead and be accountable for results," as it has since been described.
The results quickly were noticed. In 2002, the Roundtable reforms won the Council of State Governments' Innovations Award. In 2006, they were cited as models by the National Conference of State Legislatures' Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education. In 2005, North Dakota leaders were among the featured speakers at a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conference on the economic impact of higher education.
And no wonder: The Roundtable "has redefined the role of our universities in the public and economic life of North Dakota, garnering great benefits for our citizens and national honors for our state," Gov. John Hoeven has said.
"By granting our colleges and universities greater flexibility and asking them to be more accountable, we have made education a genuine force for economic development in the new century."
Granted, the Roundtable called for flexibility in return for accountability -- and on the accountability end, the system broke down.
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But note: The lapse was narrow, not broad. The accountability call originally referred to the universities' impact on economic development. On that foundational requirement, the system has delivered.
Now, though, North Dakotans have realized that that's not enough. Stronger financial oversight also is necessary. Someone's got to watchdog the now-more-independent presidents, and that's where the system needs reform.
Even here, reformers shouldn't overreach. The state Office of Management and Budget already oversees all new construction projects that are paid for by state dollars. Construction managers on such projects carefully dot every i and cross every t.
The breakdown came on projects that were paid for with private or foundation dollars or through a mix of public and private money. That's where more oversight is needed, and that's where lawmakers should focus their reforms.
North Dakota is a different, better and wealthier state than it was in 1999. That's due in part to oil money, but other states have oil. It's due in part to farm prices, but other states have farms.
It's also due in part to the university system's transformation -- and that's one place where North Dakota stands out. In their understandable efforts to reform the system, lawmakers shouldn't put that transformation at risk.
