"One of the baffling problems of
contemporary democracy is the diffi-
culty of seeing through the maze of
government to find who is responsible.
With constitutional autonomy the will
of the people acting through the leg-
islature and the governor would set
the goals and see if the goals have
been reached; the governing board
would be responsible for overseeing
the state colleges in the public interest.
The problem that now exists is that
officials for a variety of state agencies
can make decisions affecting the day-
to-day operations of the institutions.
Therefore, responsibility is determined
by a number of officials who are also
responsible for a variety of programs
other than governing state colleges.
We feel that the Board of Trustees
and the five institutions for which
they are responsible suffer from this
situation which makes it very difficult
for them to carry out their mandate.
11. CONSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY AND
EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
"Our second contention is that pro-
viding constitutional autonomy for
the state colleges would lead to more
effective and efficient management of
this highly important public respon-
sibility.
"The state colleges in the next
years will complete their transforma-
tion from status as single-purpose
teacher-training institutions to a
major segment of a broadly expanded
state system of higher education.
When these institutions were a small
division of the State Department of
Education, they needed much help in
planning even routine operations.
The five colleges individually and
collectively were not equipped to
make the kinds of decisions alone that
could be made by a large institution
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with the staff to plan and coordinate
its own affairs.
"In 1962 the Curlett Commission
recommended that the state colleges
be placed under their own governing
board which 'should be charged with
the single task of governing these
institutions.'2 The Commission also
recommended that governing boards
be granted independence and auton-
omy. On this matter the report stated
that the Commission 'regards the
right of any board of trustees to gov-
ern the internal affairs of an aca-
demic institution under its jurisdiction
as essential both to the freedom and
the efficiency of higher education.
For it is through freedom that higher
education attains its highest level of
performance in the tasks of conserv-
ing, disseminating and advancing
knowledge.'3
"Thus the basic recommendation
in favor of autonomy is not new. Jus-
tification for it may be found in ear-
lier studies such as the two reports
by The Committee on Government
and Higher Education, The Efficiency
of Freedom and The Campus and the
State. Both make the point that
efficiency and freedom for higher
education are interdependent and
that to withhold the power to govern
themselves from the institutions and
their governing boards is a handicap
not only from the point of view of
higher education but for efficient gov-
ernment as well.
"On the extremely important prac-
tical application of the role of the
Executive in allocating the state's
2 commission for the expansion of pub-
lic higher education in maryland, public
higher education i n maryland, 1961-
1975, at 45 (June 1962).
3 Ibid.
277
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