University of Puerto Rico governing board president opposes university reform bill
University of Puerto Rico Governing Board President Mayda Velasco objected on Monday to Senate Bill 172, the proposed university reform, because it would alter governance structures and put at risk UPR’s accreditation, she said.
The legislation was recently defeated in the island Senate but is expected to return to a vote. Velasco said in a statement that she believes that if the bill is approved as it is written, it would disrupt critical aspects of the governance structure that would be inadmissible under the criteria and standards of regulatory and accrediting entities, thus endangering the accreditations that the university has maintained or recovered with notable efforts.
Despite the fact that the governing board expressed itself in a document issued in February of this year, neither then nor now has it been consulted as part of the process of consideration of the legislation, Velasco said. In this sense, the bill does not have the input of all university sectors, she said.
“Although on the one hand the declaration of the UPR as an essential public good as proposed by Senate Bill 172 is favorable, the bill disfigures the most fundamental governance structure and distances itself from what is required by the accrediting agencies,” Velasco said. “Likewise, substantively, the bill ignores or disregards aspects of public and operational policy at the same time that it violates the authority and autonomy required for healthy governance.”
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