The power struggle between Gov. Steve Beshear and the Council on Postsecondary Education has ended just the way the governor hoped it would: With the council contracting with an outside firm to conduct a nationwide search for new president — a search that does not include Cowgill, a council’s first choice to be its new president, as a candidate for the state’s top official in higher education.
The power struggle came to a sudden end Tuesday when Cowgill, who served as budget director for former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, announced his resignation just two days before he was to become the permanent successor to former CPE President Tom Layzell, who retired. Cowgill, an attorney and registered Democrat who was once employed by the same law firm as the governor, had been interim president since September, but when the council in early April voted to remove “interim” from Cowgill’s title, the governor loudly protested.
Attorney General Jack Conway added to fuel to the fires of controversy by authoring a nonbinding opinion that the CPE may have violated state law by not conducting a nationwide search for its new president.
In announcing his resignation, Cowgill said it would have required “excessive time and effort” to defend his appointment and may have also led to a legal showdown with the governor.
“I have no desire to wage a battle with the governor over this matter,” Cowgill said in a statement. “It would unduly harm Kentucky’s postsecondary education reform efforts and the positive momentum that has been achieved to this point.”
He’s right. Cowgill’s appointment was threatening to distract from the far more important challenges facing higher education in Kentucky, with the primary one being doubling the number of college graduates in the state by 2020. That’s one of the goals of the Higher Education Reform Act of 1997 — one that the state is falling far short of achieving. The state’s postsecondary schools also are faced with the challenge of meeting their goals with less money from the state.
Part of the controversy surrounding Cowgill’s appointment was pure politics. The governor who denied Fletcher a second term as governor obviously did not like one of the key aides of his predecessor serving as the state’s top administrator in higher education. The fact that a majority of the members of the Council on Postsecondary Education are Fletcher appointees only added to suspicions that Cowgill’s appointment has as much to do with politics as his abilities.
However, putting politics aside, Cowgill was taking on a position that outranks the presidents of all the state universities without having any experience in higher education beyond formerly serving on the advisory board of a community college. Beshear said he wanted the next CPE president to have a national reputation in higher education, and Cowgill certainly didn’t have that.
“I appreciate Mr. Cowgill’s decision, which puts an end to a very difficult situation for everyone,” Beshear said in a statement. “I trust that the council will now move forward with a nationwide search for a permanent president.”
That’s what the governor has wanted from the start. Beshear won this battle.
Editorials
Cowgill quits — 05/01/08
Governor gets national search he wants for next president
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On the increase
It’s certainly good news that a new report by Kentucky’s Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet has found the economic impact of tourism grew by 5.2 percent in eastern Kentucky in 2012, outpacing the overall statewide growth rate. However, we would be more excited bout the report if we had more confidence in how tourism spending is calculated by state government.
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After the crash
Like thousands of other Kentuckians, we remember well May 14, 1988, when a drunken driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton struck a church bus returning home to Radcliff after day at King’s Island, causing one of he most deadly vehicle accidents in this nation’s history. The horrific crash killed 27, many of them teenagers, and injured 34 others.
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High price tage
Much has been said and written about the rapid and dramatic decline of air passenger service at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. Much less has been said and written about the tremendous economic impact the loss of air service has had on the entire region.
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Return of pencils
It is a question asked by all of us whose lives and jobs are dependent on computers with email and Internet access, fax machines, cellphones and other other electronic essentials of this modern age: What do you do when the electronic devices fail?
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Banned
If you live in Boyd and Lawrence counties and are thinking of burning trash, wood, leaves or other debris outdoors, here’s a word of advice: Don’t even think about lighting that match. If you do, it could cost you dearly.
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Few citations
When the 2011 Kentucky General Assembly approved a bill banning texting while driving and cellphone use for drivers younger than 18, there was widespread public support for both restrictions.
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Booming times
Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergran Grimes has launched a statewide tour to gauge public support for allowing more voters to cast their ballots before Election Day. While other states have enacted laws to allow early voting, the biggest obstacle to the proposal in Kentucky is the state’s history of widespread voter fraud.
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Step backward
We agree with Larry Brown, the lone member of the Ashland Board of City Commissioners to oppose a motion requesting City Attorney Richard “Sonny” Martin to draft an ordinance changing the time for all commission meetings to noon
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Booming times
While coal mining in eastern Kentucky has declined sharply in the last year, not all the economic news in the state is bleak.
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Chance to speak
It is unlikely public meetings the Kentucky Public Service Commission has scheduled for May 14 in Louisa and May 15 in Whitesburg and Hazard will have any impact on Kentucky Power Co.’s plans to retire at least one of the two generators at the Big Sandy Power Plant near Louisa in 2013. But it may be the last chance for this region’s elected leasers, civic and economic development leaders and ordinary citizens to express their concerns about the tremendous economic impact the closing or downsizing of the coal-fired plant will have on the economy, not just of Louisa and Lawrence County, but of the entire region.
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