Name: Sarah T. Dowling
Position: Chairwoman, state Board of Governors for Higher Education
Backround: Partner with the law firm of Adler, Pollock & Sheehan P.C.
since 1991; legal counsel to the governor from July to December of 1990;
director of policy for the governor from 1989 to July 1990; partner with
Adler Pollock & Sheehan Inc. from 1985 to 1989. Also former chairwoman
of the Rhode Island Criminal Justice Oversight Committee and Rhode
Island Supreme Court Ethics Advisory Panel. Also former chairwoman of
Trinity Repertory Co. and trustee of Moses Brown School.
Education: Wellesley College, BA, political science, 1963; Northeastern
School of Law, 1977; LLM (Taxation) Boston University School of Law,
1982.
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Family: Married, four children, five grandchildren.
Age: 57
Residence: Narragansett
PBN: What are your first priorities as the new chairwoman of the board?
Dowling: The first priority has to do with maintaining access to higher
education. In the 21st century as I see it, and as the board sees it,
education is not only going to be a luxury, higher education is going to
be essential. And that people who know and study these things tell us
that to get a job of any kind you’re going to have to have at least two
years of education.
So if we restrict this to only people who have the
means and we out-price ourselves we’re going to be in trouble. So I
would say that the first priority continues to be access. We’ve
maintained a level tuition at Community College of Rhode Island for the
last three years and again we just voted another year of no increase in
tuition at the community college. That’s the first priority.
What are some ways you can do that?
Well, access certainly had to do with affordability, doesn’t it? You can
make sure the tuition’s low. You can provide programs for people.
Increase scholarships. You can continue to work with industry as we have
been and finding ways where industry can take advantage of higher
education by funding tuitions.
For example, there are some workforce
programs now at CCRI where businesses fund scholarships for students so
they pay the way for the student, the student then goes to work for them
for a couple of years.
Another one (priority) that’s really important to me is advocacy. If
we are not going to be advocates for higher education, who will be? That
is really our job. Although the board of governors owns all of the real
estate on which higher education sits, they are dependent on the
Legislature for money. So we have to be very strong advocates. We were
fortunate that we just had the bond issue (that) was very successful —
that’s for capital projects. But every year we have to go back to the
Legislature, that’s a key point. You have to educate people about why
they should give us a lot of money.
The other (priorities are) academic excellence, which goes without
saying. We’re very fortunate that we have very good institutions in
Rhode Island, known all over the country. Probably known less in Rhode
Island than they are throughout the country. The final (priority) is
accountability. We’re public institutions. And public institutions use
public money and therefore should be accountable.
What are your views on teacher testing?
Actually, our teachers at Rhode Island College do very, very well on the
test. As you know, they are required to take it to graduate from Rhode
Island College; they are not required to take it to teach in Rhode
Island. So the pass rate at Rhode Island College, which produces the
majority of teachers in Rhode Island, is very, very high. So we’re very
proud of that.
Do you think campuses should use affirmative action in their admission
policies?
Personally? Absolutely. You’re looking at a mid-fifties (woman) who came
up when there weren’t any women in law school. You’re not going to get
an argument from me on that one. Personally, Sally Dowling firmly
believes in affirmative action.
There are a lot of people who are attacking affirmative action
Especially Derek Bok’s new book (“The Shape of the River: Long-Term
Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions,”
by Derek C. Bok and William G. Bowen) is probably what you’re thinking
about. Every time somebody gets in and somebody doesn’t there’s an
argument. And I think a lot of white men are cross because other people
are being given preferences. What the Bok book says, according to the
book review — and I can’t wait to read the whole thing — is that it is
working. And that it is making more people of color important in our
society. It goes to access. It’s our first priority.
You mentioned that Rhode Island schools are probably better known
outside Rhode Island than they are in state. What can the board of
higher education do to help keep the best students in state?
Eighty-three percent of the students in our institutions are from Rhode
Island. That may shock you. But what we’re really proud of is the
Centennial Scholars program at the University of Rhode Island. That is a
program which seeks to attract very very bright students in Rhode Island
high schools. It’s a full scholarship. And what’s different about this
scholarship is that it’s not needs-based, it’s brain based.
As a result
of this program the average entering SAT scores have risen. And I think
it’s well known that in a college/ university, you don’t only learn from
your teachers, you learn from other students. And if we’re able to
attract and retain in Rhode Island our best students I think it will be
better for the health of the university and the colleges as a whole.
Are high schools producing graduates that are at the level they should
be when they enter college?
That’s certainly the most popular talked-about subject in education
today, isn’t it? And I’m not an expert in elementary and secondary
education, but I do know that we’re talking a lot in this state about
teacher testing, we’re talking a lot in this state about how our
students should be prepared — there have been complaints in the past
that remedial work had to be done at the university level. So, I think
the way the educators are thinking about this today, is that they don’t
just see kindergarten through fifth grade, fifth through seventh, eighth
through 12th. They really are talking about K through 16 when they talk
about education, and the complete continuum.
You’ll see a lot of work is
starting to be done on that.
Should colleges offer remedial programs for students?
I think they do.
But should they?
Well, what’s the alternative? That goes to access. We have all these
principles and concepts there sort of bumping up against each other. You
can say, ‘Yeah, don’t take ’em. We’re going to say that no one can come
to one of our institutions unless they have 1300 SATs.’ We’re going to
have a very small institution. We’re not going to be serving the people
of Rhode Island who are paying $155 million a year out of general
revenue for higher education. I don’t think they’d be very happy with
that. And I don’t think we’d be doing the state or business (any good).
Businesses want a ready workforce. They want us to supply them with a
ready workforce, a knowledgeable workforce, so I think it would be
counterproductive.
As chairwoman of the board, how much influence can you have on any one
school?
Actually that’s a very good question. The board has 15 members, the
members are selected by the governor and approved by the Legislature,
they have staggered terms so they don’t turn over all at once. They have
a commissioner who heads an office of higher education which is 20
employees. And they have oversight over the three institutions:
University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and the community
colleges. That’s 37,000 students, 3,850 employees; it’s a total budget
of about $455 million, of which I said before $155 million comes from
the general revenue.
And the real estate — it’s a big job. Our job is to
make sure the system works — the system being the integrated system of
higher education. We try very hard not to favor one institution over
another. And people often ask me how you can do that, and I say that the
best preparation is that I have four children and five grandchildren,
and if you have multiple children you know how to balance that.
So, you
ask me how much we could influence one institution? Well, certainly the budgetary process, the institutions prepare
their own budgets. And they are reviewed by the office and voted on by
the board. If there is a programmatic change to be made the university
or the college will come to the board of education, our staff will
analyze it, board committees will analyze it, and the board will vote.
So I’d say we certainly don’t do micro-management. That was one of the
things I said when the governor nominated me and I went before the
Senate. It’s very important to put people in place and give them the
power to do the things they have to do. But, we also have to review.
Certain things are entrusted to the board, such as budgets and
programmatic changes.
What are some of your long-range priorities?
The board adopted in 1997 a strategic plan which has to do with
technology; we’re about halfway through that program right now. And
that’s a big change. All the dorm rooms in both RIC and URI are wired
for computers, certainly a change since my children went to school, let
alone when I went to school.
And as we go on, information technology is
going to be the most important thing that we have available to us, and
indeed the businesses are demanding it. They need skilled workers. They
work with us to develop programs so that when the students graduate
they’ll be ready for the workforce. That can happen in a couple of ways.
For example, a lot of businesses hire CCRI to train their workers. Or it
can be done by working with the curriculum committee to develop
programs. I know that Fidelity (Investments) is very interested in
working with the business school for financial management skills, I know
that a number of companies, especially foreign companies have been
working with URI in the international engineering program
Why am I so excited about this? It’s because it is looking toward the
future and being proactive rather than reactive. It is analyzing what
skills are going to be needed in the future. And certainly as our world
literally shrinks because of the global marketplace we have to have our
students be prepared, and that’s a wonderful way to do it. I hope that
we will have nexuses in this way. You have to be sort of a futurist in
higher education to figure out what people are going to need to know.
Our statute says that we’re entrusted in figuring out what our students
need to know how to do to prepare them for their lives as productive
citizens in the workplace. So that’s a pretty big assignment.
