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Bruce Benson puts some skin in the game

Contributed by: Fran Miller on 2/15/2008

Every week I try to write an article, hoping that it will be applauded by the staff at YourHub. But, what can you write about that tops the decision by the high school to perform the play - Urinetown? Bruce Benson and the Republic of Boulder is the best I could think of.

Now, this upcoming week, good old Mr. Benson, minerals magnate, will get the final vote by the Board of Regents at the University of Colorado. He'll either get the throne or thrown under the bus. The faculty and the students have already put clothes pins on their noses, so the result is predictable.

Now, you probably think it's because he is too conservative, too old, under-educated and other rational factors. Let me tell you the real story behind all of this; but, I have to do it by way of metaphor.

Several years ago two things happened to me, that at the time seemed disconnected, but now appear as serendipity. At that time I was serving on the Board of Fellows of the University of Denver. They had this chap, Maurice Mitchell, who was the epitomy of a fine college president. But, the hockey team couldn't win games and the professors wanted more money and lighter teaching loads and the roofs leaked. Even though they had recruited lots of students from Saudi Arabia, they still couldn't raise the fees enough and the Legislature wouldn't bail them out. So, they were as upside down as someone with a jumbo loan on a McMansion that needs to be refinanced in a market where prices are falling.

About that time, I hired a woman marketing director for my business, primarily because my wife told me I was a chauvinist pig and a middle-aged male who didn't get it. Well, I recruited not one, but two women. Darned if both of them weren't friends and turned out to be lesbians. I'm not kidding about this. You might see why the DU situation and my hiring slip-up didn't seem at all related at the time.

Well, anyway, my new marketing director, when we were having one of our hostile co-dependency chats one afternoon, made the comment that it was the opinion of her and her friends that any man could be seduced by any woman willing to open the kimono and show a little skin. The lesbian world-view appeared to be that men had subconscious urges that made them vulnerable to manipulation and control. (I think they picked it up from Jay Leno) It didn't matter if it was Cybil Sheperd or a transvestite. Men could be seduced and led around like they had a ring in their nose if they thought sex was involved.

Well, back to the drama at DU. As our little Board of Fellows who had jumped in to save DU from imminent collapse were putting up flip chart paper around the room at a strategic planning retreat, a board member walked in. He announced that they had hired this guy, Dan Ritchie, an old ARCO oil and gas man, who would be the next president.

We never met again. Dan Ritchie came in, got Bill Daniels the cable magnate to donate a chunk of his inheritance and Richie-Ritch put up a ton of cash himself. DU is now a thriving university.

So, what does the lesbian and the business mogul have to do with Bruce Benson and the University of Colorado?

My theory is that university people can be seduced by money more easily than sex. All you have to do is show them a briefcase filled with bills and they can be led around like they have a ring in their nose. They won't ask whether it came from fossil fuels extraction or selling drugs. If it allows them more salaries, earlier retirement, lighter teaching loads and better facilities, they are like lemmings with their nose glued to the rear-end of the lemming just ahead of them.

So, when they were casting about for a new president did they try to find some guy or gal in the prime of their life who had a vision of what a great university should become in the 21st century? NO!! They jumped at the chance to bring in a guy who would come up with the bucks and be able to get those nay-saying Republicans off their backs.

The little dance that the faculty has been doing with Benson over the past couple of weeks is designed to paint him into a corner before he gets hired. They want him to go on the record saying he won't mess around with tenure or academics. He will leave everything up to the deans and the chancellors, which is precisely why there has never been any serious attempt at efficiency improvement and getting rid of the deadwood within the university system. Oh, and, the students want him to agree not to mess around with their party calendar or grade inflation.

The decision to circumvent the hiring process and sole source this thing to a guy who brings nothing to the table but money demonstrates how big a hole the university system has dug for itself. That the legislature plans on solving the supposed fiscal crisis of funding by taxing oil and gas revenues on the Roan Plateau, the heck with environmental damage, only adds more cruel irony to the situation.

If the regents hire this guy, they begin the germination of the seeds of internal self-destruction for the system. No amount of money can rescue an institution that takes 100,000 employees to teach 200,000 students.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Fran Miller

Parker , CO

Fran Miller has posted 106 stories and 14 comments since joining on 9/28/2007. Fran Miller 's average story rating is 4.78.
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