Rick Perry will no longer be governor January 2015. Rick Perry is not running for reelection. Either Greg Abbott or Wendy Davis will be governor. I'll go out on a limb and assume it will be UT alum Greg Abbott. I do not think Abbott will allow UT to become a community college. If Perry's goal is to turn UT into a community college, Perry has about 6 months to do it. It is not logical to assume this is a part of a Perry scheme to turn UT into a community college as Perry has insufficient time to complete that task.
The MAJORITY of the regents have supported Powers during the Perry administration. Every time attempts were made to remove Powers by a MINORITY of the regents, the MAJORITY of regents voted to keep Powers. Then a whistleblower came forward (according to news reports) and now apparently, though we will not know for sure until Thursday, a majority of the regents no longer supports Powers. It seems logical to assume if the regents were simply doing the political bidding of Perry, these regents would have voted Powers out long ago in the numerous opportunities they had to do so. It also seems logical that legitimate wrongdoing occurred for the regents to change their mind. However, while logical, these are only assumptions. I will add, that while logical guesses can be made, we will not know for sure whether legitimate wrongdoing has occurred by Powers or if this is a witch hunt until we see whatever evidence has been presented to the regents. However, Powers does not support open records. Under the closed records policy supported by Powers, we the taxpayers of the State of Texas would never be allowed to see the evidence against Powers. This brings me to my next point.
As far as the open records go, the regents only have one job. Their job is to manage the university. They should have access to all the records. The public should have access to this public university's records as well (other than things like employee health records as discussed by another poster). Being for Powers running the university without interference from the regents is like being for Rick Perry being able to run the state of Texas without interference from the state legislature. It's like thinking that a corporation's board of directors should be responsible for a company but have no power in hiring or firing the CEO or even seeing the company's financial statements. How ironic would it be if the regents fired Powers for wrong doing but refused to make their evidence public to Powers or anyone in accordance with Powers's own closed records policy?
I find it odd that so many posters concerned about the quality of UT's education seem to have not protested Bill Powers cutting programs in western civilization, numerous foreign languages and various other things like fencing. World class universities offer these things. Community colleges do not.
The Texas Exes is the alumni lobby and advocacy group. It is the job of the Texas Exes to advocate position of the majority of the alumni whether the alumni are for or against Powers. There is a apparently debate on this issue. I do not know what the majority of alumni think and will not speculate. Yes the Exes has events for sporting events. The Law School also has a tailgate for UT football games. I hope that one would not think that just because a law professor serves hotdogs before a UT football game as part of the tailgate, that he or she is not qualified to teach law.
It seems wrong that a poor student has to pay interest on loan money that goes to a student who was only slightly more poor and does not have to take loans. Taking from the poor and making them pay interest on that taking to give to the slightly more poor seems wrong to me. Hell taking from the middle class or ANYONE that has to take out loans to give to another seems wrong to me. At least just take from the rich! Taking from anyone who cannot afford school and needs loans is unjust. Another poster called it corrupt. Also yes, I do know students who could not afford school and had to take loans for everything but for some reason were not considered quite poor enough to qualify for the program discussed above.
Finally many have said that Powers does not deserve to be fired but deserves to go out on his own terms. Would Powers suddenly fire a longtime and previously successful employee, not allowing the employee to go out on his own terms, just because the employee was no longer wanted? Ask Mack Brown.
