Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan to split up the Tennessee Board of Regents has been approved by the state legislature — a decision that means six state universities will soon have new leadership.
The state Senate voted 31-1 to send House Bill 2578 on to Haslam for his signature. The plan will to give each four-year university in the TBR system its own board of trustees.
The proposal responds to longstanding calls from some TBR schools — particularly the University of Memphis — that they be given their own trustees.
Supporters of the proposal, known as the FOCUS Act, argue these newly independent schools will have more freedom to develop their own blueprints for the future. The measure will also leave TBR to focus on technical and community colleges.
Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, called passage of the bill “history in the making,” because it will make all the schools in the TBR system more effective and unlock economic growth.
“We still have tens of thousands of jobs that are available and unfilled because we still don’t have the skilled workforce we need to fill those jobs,” Norris said during the final debate.
The plan will affect four Middle Tennessee schools: MTSU, Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech and Tennessee State. Some worry they’ll have less power individually than they had collectively.
The historically black TSU, in particular, fears it’ll get short shrift once it has to fight on its own for its share of the state budget. The Haslam administration moved to soothe those fears last week, when it announced TSU would get an additional $1 million for research and agricultural programs.
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