NASHVILLE, Tenn. ― Chancellor John Morgan is stepping down as head of the Tennessee Board of Regents amid Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s plans to grant more autonomy to the six four-year universities in the system.
Morgan said Thursday that he had originally planned to retire when he turns 65 next year, but instead moved the date of his resignation to the end of this month over what he called the governor’s “unworkable” proposal.
Haslam surprised Morgan and many others in the state’s higher education community when he announced plans last month to re-focus the Board of Regents on the state’s 40 community and technical colleges.
The governor’s plan calls for creating local boards for Austin Peay in Clarksville; East Tennessee in Johnson City; Middle Tennessee in Murfreesboro; Tennessee Tech in Cookeville; Tennessee State in Nashville; and the University of Memphis. Those boards would control budgets, tuition and the selection of college presidents.
The move is popular among state lawmakers who would be able to tout more local control over regional schools in their home districts. And the measure presents Haslam with the opportunity to pass a high profile measure after the last year’s crushing defeat of his Medicaid expansion proposal and current skittishness among fellow Republicans about a gas tax increase.
Morgan made no mention Haslam’s planned shakeup of the Board of Regents in his official announcement, but was more direct in a letter to Haslam first obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
“Given the announcement of plans to form separate boards for the six TBR universities, I cannot, in good conscience, continue as chancellor for another year,” Morgan wrote in the letter. “Simply put, I believe the path being proposed is the wrong one for many reasons.”
