John McNay’s testimony was listed first in University Business’s daily overview of the most notable higher-ed news stories of the previous day

The UB Daily item links to an article by Karen Farkus in the C leveland Plain Dealer. Here are the opening paragraphs in that article:

“COLUMBUS, Ohio – College professors are taking a more active role as legislators discuss higher education issues and funding.

“While funding for public universities will increase slightly under Gov. John Kasich’s proposed two-year budget, Kasich and legislators want universities to reduce costs.

If cuts need to occur, reductions should not affect the educational mission or cost to students, says the  Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors.

“The organization, which represents about 6,000 faculty at both public and private institutions, recently issued its first report on public higher education.

“We plan to do this every two years around the budget time,” said Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the organization. “Over the last four years we have seen a lot of proposals put forth in the General Assembly that don’t tackle the real issues of higher education.”

“The report lists priorities including increasing state funding, requiring college boards of trustees to understand higher education instead of looking at it as a business,  reducing administrative bloat and limiting spending on athletics.

‘The not-so-funny joke is that Ohio’s public colleges and universities have gone from state funded, to state supported, to simply state located,’ the report says. ‘Ohio gradually has been abandoning its commitment to affordable and accessible public higher education over the last 30 years.’”

The complete article can be found here: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/03/college_professors_take_a_more.html