NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Senate Monday evening voted overwhelmingly for Gov. Bill Haslam’s legislation that restructures the University of Tennessee governing board of trustees, slashes its size from 27 to 11 members and creates “advisory” boards for each of the system’s four campuses.
The 27-3 vote came after spirited debate from critics over Haslam’s purposes, whether individual campuses such as UT-Chattanooga will have representation in the system and the impact his UT FOCUS Act will have in years to come.
“I just feel like this is such a major change and the University of Tennessee had a perfect audit,” said Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, who went on to allude to actions primarily at UT-Koxville that have inflamed the socially conservative GOP-controlled General Assembly in recent years. “I know we’ve disagreed with some of the decisions coming out of UT recently.”
Haslam, a Republican who leaves office next year, says the current board, most if not all of whose members he’s personally appointed, is too unwieldly with varying degrees of participation.
The bill slashes the number of trustees from 27 to 11, removing the governor and two of his commissioners, and it eliminates language from current law that specially designates appointments by congressional district and counties where there is a UT campus.