Student board member will take office at a time when the new board majority is trying to mend fences with the faculty.

The volunteer board that oversees one of the largest community college systems in the country includes people with backgrounds in real estate, state government, business, teaching and college administration. 

Now, for the first time, the seven-member Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board plans to add a student. 

The board recently announced its intention to add a student member to serve a one-year term, beginning July 1. 

Board President Linda Thor said she worked with student board members — also called student trustees — at California community colleges. She found their input valuable. 

“They bring a different perspective to the conversation,” she said. 

The Maricopa governing board sets policies for a 10-college system that enrolls about 196,000 students in credit and non-credit courses. Board members, who are elected by voters in Maricopa County, also set tuition rates, approve the budget and hire the chancellor. 

The student board member will be chosen by other student leaders. The board member will be able to ask questions and make comments at meetings and can also request that items be placed on the board’s meeting agenda for discussion.

Unlike the other board members who are elected by the public, the student will have only an advisory vote, which would be cast before the board officially votes. The student also won’t be able to take part in executive sessions, which can be used by law under narrow circumstances and are closed to the public. 

The decision to add a student, which will be official after the board votes in April, was welcomed by students such as Hailey Hardy, a sophomore at Mesa Community College. She called it “an important step for student participation.” 

She suggested, though, that the board consider increasing the stipend for the student board member from a proposed $500 a semester to at least cover full-time tuition, or about $1,500 a semester. The student board member will be required to take at least 12 credits per semester and have a minimum 2.0 grade point average at the time of nomination. 

Board member Dana Saar, who has been on the board for nine years, said members have previously discussed adding a student. But the proposal has never gotten this far because the board wanted to get the requirements right. He urged other board members to add a student board member now. 

“It’s a start,” he said. 

Common at U.S. public institutions

A survey of the governing boards at 195 public institutions found a majority had at least one student member. The 2010 study by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges found 50 percent had at least one voting student member. Another 28 percent had at least one non-voting student member.

In Arizona, state statute defines the number of people on a community college district board. The Maricopa college board doesn’t have the authority to increase that number beyond seven. However, district spokesman Matt Hasson said the board can inform its decision-making in a variety of ways, including having a non-voting member.

The Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the three state universities, has had student regents for years. The regents added a non-voting student regent in 1978 and granted the student voting privileges during the 1989-90 term. 

A second, non-voting member was added in 2000. 

Regents Executive Director John Arnold said student regents bring a unique and invaluable perspective to board deliberations. 

“They hear things on campus that sometimes we just don’t,” he said. 

The regents don’t get tuition reimbursement or pay, though they are eligible for a per diem of $30 when they attend board meetings, up to a maximum $500 a year. 

The student regents serve two-year terms; the first year in an advisory role and the second as a voting member. 

Like other regents, the governor nominates the student regent, who then must be approved by the state Senate.  

“I almost hate the moniker ‘student’ regents, because they are regents,” Arnold added. 

The student member of the Maricopa colleges will take office at a time when the board’s new majority is trying to mend fences with college faculty. Three new board members took office in January. One of the new board’s first decisions was to undo an unpopular vote taken in February 2018 that ended a long-standing process used to negotiate faculty pay and benefits called “meet and confer.” 

Other struggles

The district also has struggled to solve a payroll-software problem that resulted in large numbers of employees being repeatedly overpaid or underpaid. 

More recently, the American Association of University Professors released a report in March about the college system that examined the process the board used to end meet and confer in 2018.

The group said it found evidence, obtained through public-records requests, that strongly suggested the board’s motivation for ending meet and confer was “union busting,” or mischaracterizing the Maricopa Community Colleges Faculty Association as a collective-bargaining group and then attempting to destroy it. 

AAUP added that after it shared its report findings, it was pleased to learn that the board’s new leadership had rescinded the decision to end meet and confer. 

Michael DeCesare, professor of sociology at Merrimack College, who is chairman of the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance, said in a statement that the governing board has moved in a positive direction, but still has a way to go.

“The board has taken some promising first steps, but the Committee on College and University Governance will continue to monitor the situation to ensure the faculty’s governance rights are fully restored at Maricopa,” he said. 

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8072. Follow her on Twitter @anneryman.

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