Volume 5, Issue 19 © Metropress February 9, 1983
l.J'1slafure demands an ex11.lanaflon
Memos resurrecr··merger issues by Richard Bellizzi
The long-debated issue of restructuring the administrative structure of Auraria institutions is once again being raised, this time because of controversy surroun1 ding two documents linked to the CU Board of Regents. The two memos recommend the regents work ~oward elimination of the Auraria Board of Directors and the establishment of a cluster college concept with MSC, only to then push for a UCD-MSC merger under the regents. Despite regents' denials of any ~ impropriety, angry legislators last week demanded a formal explanation of the origins and purpose of the memos. CU Regent Peter Dietze, ap: ~ pearing before the Legislature's Audit Committee, expressed his anger at implications the regents "are going around plotting and scheming, because we're not," Dietze said. • Despite Dietze's contention that the regents had nothing to do
with the memos, Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Schauer said the regents are responsible for whatever their organization does. Dietze agreed to make a report to the Audit Committee when it meets again in March. In observing developments from his position as AHEC executive director, Jerry Wartgow is able to make comparisons between the recent alleged attempts by the regents to force a merger and his and the Auraria Board's efforts in 1978. W artgow, who assumed his position that year, stressed how the Auraria Board went to great lengths to involve the public when it prepared what has become known as the Bain Report, which made recommendations concerning -changes in the administrative structure of the Auraria Higher Education Center. The report recommended rejection of proposals that MSC, UCD and CCD-A be combined into one institution, and also that the campus be decentralized, eliminating
AHEC and leaving the three institutions as separate entities. It did, however, recommend the adoption of a "Two Institution Model," which would have merged MSC and UCD under whichever governing board the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and the General Assembly deemed most appropriate. What they deemed most app rop ri ate, though, was a "Modified Status Quo Model," which called for consolidation of duplicative programs, both academic and administrative, as well as delegating authority to AHEC as the ultimate decision making body involving disputes between Amaria institutions.
memo which details a plan to abolish AHEC and eventually absorb MSC, said the plan makes no mention of benefits to or affects on students. W artgow said the disclosure of the memos "probably saved MSC from itself." MSC provided UCD a willing ear, Wartgow said, to what UCD knew would not · work. The Auraria Executives Committee, comprised of MSC President Richard Fontera, UCD Chancellor Gene Nordby, CCDA Vice President Myer Titus and Wartgow, will meet Feb. 9 for the first time since the memos became public. Nordby has already send Fontera a letter assuring him UCD had no secret plot to take over MSC, and Fontera has indicated his willingness to discuss the situation with Nordby.
"This is where I came in," W artgow said, referring to the controversy surrounding a possible merger. "The situation is the same, the 'players' are the same; but I like to think the Auraria Discussion of recent Board handled it with a different developments has been placed on style, with a touch of class." the agenda of the Auraria Board's Wartgow, commenting on the Feb. 14 meeting. 0