Colorado governor-elect announces Skaggs as higher ed choice

BYLINE: By Richard Valenty, Colorado Daily; SOURCE: U. Colorado

DATELINE: BOULDER, Colo.

The responsibilities facing any new executive can be staggering, but a top-notch team can help distribute the weight -- and Governor-elect Bill Ritter announced a big-name Cabinet choice last Thursday.

Ritter named former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs as his choice for executive director of the state's Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, although the Colorado Senate must still confirm Skaggs' nomination.

It's safe to say that the Senate won't make Ritter look for another nominee -- based on Skaggs' resume alone.

Skaggs was elected to Colorado's House of Representatives in 1981 and was elected to the U.S. House in 1987. He served 12 years as the representative from the state's 2nd Congressional District. He has also earned a law degree from Yale Law School and practiced in Boulder, Colo., served with the U.S. Marine Corps, taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado and served on numerous national-level boards and advisory councils.

But on Friday, Skaggs told the Daily that he will spend his next weeks and months like a student -- learning the strengths, weaknesses and desires of the entities that he will oversee.

"I want to spend a good deal of time with the leadership at CU-Boulder, the other CU campuses and the other schools around the state just to hear from them about how they see the current environment, financial and otherwise," said Skaggs.

He said on Friday that he hadn't had a chance to spend time talking with CU President Hank Brown about his potential new job, in part because Ritter just announced the nomination Thursday and the Front Range got hit with another big snowstorm Thursday evening.

"It is definitely at the top of my list to have some time with President Brown, and I hope with the CU Board of Regents, to get a full briefing on their needs and hopes," said Skaggs.

Skaggs also made it very clear that he intends to devote his efforts in proper proportions to all of the state's public institutions of higher education despite his strong ties to Boulder -- ties that include having a building named after him at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) complex in Boulder.

Also, the DHE position includes oversight of five other departmental agencies besides CCHE, including the Colorado Council on the Arts and the Colorado Historical Society.

"I think those are going to be interesting additional duties for me, since most of those operations, as with all of the institutions of higher education, have their own separate governing structures," said Skaggs.

But there is one general factor common to virtually all, if not all, of the entities that Skaggs will be working with -- the need for adequate funding.

Skaggs said money from the 2005 passage of state Referendum C offers "relief" to the state's higher education system, but said it's also "limited relief" because Ref. C sunsets early next decade and other state entities have ideas for how the money could be used.

"We're going to be scrambling to try to make the case with our friends in the Legislature, and as part of an (Ritter) administration that's got to look at a lot of competing interests, we're going to try to make the case for bolstering higher education," said Skaggs.

And it might take the knowledge that Skaggs gained while serving in other capacities not yet listed here to help him make the case.

Skaggs has served on the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1964. He served on a host of committees in Congress that required him to know the various forms of federal programs and support for higher education and research.

Also, he just completed six years on the Board of Trustees for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which he called "an interesting sort of hybrid higher education research governing body" that manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Skaggs also said that he will be studying in attempts to get a better handle on what he called an "unusual structure" of higher education in Colorado -- a structure that includes numerous and varied governing arrangements, lines of authority and responsibilities.

"It seems to me that trying to get all of that to work in some kind of coherent and rational way is as much of a political challenge as one that requires higher education expertise," said Skaggs. "So, I'm counting on the fact that having served 18 years in elected office -- and I hope developing a little political finesse in the process -- will serve me in this job as well."

(C) 2007 Colorado Daily via U-WIRE