The state of higher ed: in a Q&A, CSU President Larry Penley weighs in on funding new governor's 'promise'

ColoradoBiz, March, 2007 by Robert Schwab

Colorado State University President Larry Penley knows the political fire is hot for reform of higher-education funding, and he knows the coffers for the state's colleges and universities, despite passage of Referendum C in 2005, are still relatively bare.

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But Penley sees promise in the state's college students, and he sees ways to make sure those students' promise is fulfilled.

The entire editorial team of ColoradoBiz--Publisher Bart Taylor, Editor Robert Schwab, Managing Editor Mike Taylor and Online Editor Keith DuBay--interviewed Penley at the Downtown Denver offices of the CSU board of regents on Jan. 24, two weeks before Penley unveiled one of the new ways he wants CSU to ensure that promise.

The interview was conducted to explore the opinions of the leader of one of the state's leading research universities regarding what the Colorado business community has made a priority of the state's new governor: bringing Colorado colleges and universities back from the brink of a figurative bankruptcy. Education funding for higher education in the state is in a poor state.

But on Feb. 8, Penley and other Colorado State officials revealed one method by which they hope to boost funding for CSU.

They announced the establishment of a CSU venture fund, to be funded with $2.4 million over this fiscal year and next, to create a series of academic and business "superclusters" to help bring more commercial products to market that result from CSU research.

Penley said the university will be looking for private investors to contribute to the fund, which would provide CSU with a new revenue stream to pay for the transfer of new technology developed by the school to the marketplace. Following is the edited ColoradoBiz interview:

CB: What can be done in Colorado in terms of funding higher education?

P: Part of the issue is unless we make some fundamental changes, not much can be done about the funding of higher education, and that's part of the challenge. If you look at the (current) 6 percent limit on (state) growth and expenditures, the way we use the money above that level, primarily for our transportation needs and capital expenditures, makes it very difficult. Further, when you have other elements of our budget going up well above 6 percent, and that's true in a whole set of areas, that puts higher education kind of in the back seat, relative to any new revenue. And it makes it very hard to really climb out of the bottom of the fourth tier, which is where we are at this stage in Colorado in higher-education funding.

CB: Along those same lines, how much do you see the plight of CSU and of CU being the same? Do you have different funding challenges, or are you in the same boat as CU?

P: In some ways, I think the plight is the same for all of Colorado higher education, whether it's CU, CSU, Metro State or Adams State. We all are subject to the same strictures in regards to funding. On the other hand, because CSU and CU are research universities, they face some special challenges by virtue of the high cost of certain programs. CSU is the leading institution in the state for undergraduates in science, technology and engineering degrees. We've got 30 percent at CSU of all those undergrads; CU is somewhat under that but not far. Together we've got 60 percent. So when it comes to the high cost of laboratories, the high cost of engineering faculty, both of us are confronting that.

I think there are some differences between the two schools, however, in that CU has completed a successful capital campaign relatively recently, and CU has added differential tuition that is much higher at this point than CSU's. For the most part though, I think you're talking about all of higher ed, not just CU or CSU.

CB: You have collaborated with CU Boulder on some projects. Otherwise do you view CSU and CU as competitors?

P: It's not unlike Hewlett-Packard and Intel. Hewlett-Packard and Intel are competitors. On the other hand, two years ago if you were to have walked around among the research engineers' desks at Hewlett-Packard, you would have seen big signs: Intel cannot go beyond this point! Because Intel and Hewlett-Packard are working together here.

So that's not unlike CSU and CU in certain areas. The National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, which is the one (working with) extreme, ultra-violet light: We're the lead university and we have two partners, Cal-Berkeley and the University of Colorado at Boulder. You really need those three partners, and that's been part of the way those centers have been designed: partner universities and partnerships with the business community. The new science and technology center that we have in cloud research also has support from CU-Boulder. So, when we met with the NSF team to try to convince the NSF team that we were worthy of the science and technology center, you'd have seen Boulder faculty in the room with us that day working in collaboration with us to convince National Science Foundation that CSU was worthy of that. In some areas, you get that kind of collaboration, and that's perfectly reasonable when you've got two really good research universities in the state.