(General Dentistry) Higher education leaders must be held accountable - Asbury Park Press
Over the past two years, investigations by state and federal authorities and the media including the State Commission of Investigation, of which I am chairman have revealed a wide spectrum of serious problems and weaknesses in publicly funded higher education governance. Scandals at one institution alone, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, have produced criminal indictments and put on display an astonishing array of waste, fraud, abuse and violations of the public trust. Similarly, the catalog of questionable practices at other state colleges and universities recently detailed by the SCI demonstrates the consequences of poor oversight, lax accountability and opaque transparency all across the board. Just as history has shown that the state’s disengagement in 1994 was a mistake, it would be unwise and reckless to turn back the clock and re-establish the sort of unwieldy and unnecessary bureaucracy embodied by the former Department of Higher Education, its board and chancellor. Make the Commission on Higher Education a Cabinet-level agency with authority not to control or dictate to colleges and universities, but to oversee their governance and to work with them to fulfill their potential and provide a voice for higher education at the highest levels of government. We owe it to the taxpayers and to all tuition-paying students and parents to fulfill its full promise and to move it to the next level. More Cosmetic Dentistry