ustxtxb_obs_1965_03_05_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

55 \( s A 0 e, “Section 1. This Act shall be known as the Higher Education Coordinating Act of 1965. Its purpose is to establish in the field of public higher education in the State of Texas an agency to provide leadership and coordination for the Texas higher education system, institutions and governing boards, to the end that the State of Texas may achieve excellence for college education of its tilization and concentration of all dart promise o “Se ‘tion 11 followin the effective date of this Act and thereafter once each_vear on dates designate b the Board a co.lnrehensive list b dear -. division and uisites of all such courses that will be ualsL1121Aurazision of said year. The Board may order th d r consolidation of an cours so su mitted after givin due notice with reasons therefor and after providing a hearing i one is requested by e governing board involved. The Texas Observer MARCH 5, 1965 A Journal of Free Voices A Window to The South 25c THE MYSTERY OF SECTION 11 Section 1 and Section 11 of House Bill 1 as It Was Passed by the Texas House and Senate Austin “Section 11” of the governor’s superboard billwhere did it come from, how was it nobody noticed it when it passed the House, what do its terms portend for the colleges and junior colleges and universities of the state? Here is the text of it : “Each governing board shall submit to the [coordinating] Board immediately following the effective date of this Act, and thereafter once each year on dates designated by the Board, a comprehensive list by department, division, and school of all courses, together with a description of content, scope, and prerequisites of all such courses, that will be offered by each institution under the supervision of said governing board during the following academic year. The Board may order the deletion or consolidation of any courses so submitted after giving due notice with reasons therefor and after providing a hearing if one is requested by the governing board involved.” In other words, this section gives the new superboard the right to vetoto order stricken from the curriculumany of the 22,000 courses now .offered by the state’s institutions of higher learning. Section 11 stands alone in the new law and is not qualified by any other language. The superboard’s authority is not limited in the law by any statement of reasons which should guide its policy in striking out a course. It can delete whatever courses it doesn’t like. How did this section get into the bill? It was not in the House Bill as introduced by Rep. R. S. Dick Cory of Victoria, the governor’s sponsor of the legislation House-side. Section 11 in the bill as Cory introduced it and as the House committee approved it stated: “Each governing board shall report to the [coordinating] Board forthwith its approval of the proposed addition or deletion of any course with sufficient description of such course to indicate its content, scope, and prerequisites. In the event the board determines that a proposed course is in fact the initiation of a new degree or certificate program or results in undue duplication, fragmentation, or proliferation of courses in the indicated subject matter, it shall so notify the governing board, and may order the consolidation or elimination of any such course.” The original Section 11, therefore, differed from the one in the bill as passed in these vital respects: 1 It limited the superboard’s authority over specific courses to those that were being proposed for addition or deletion to the existing curricula. It excluded from the superboard’s authority, therefore,