Montini: UA kids want condoms; UA prez takes cash

A group of disaffected students at the University of Arizona recently drew up a list of demands that included free tampons, menstrual pads and condoms in school restrooms and those of us in the media went nuts.

Come on – condoms? Tampons? Who’s not going to read that story?

Meantime, the president of the university, Ann Weaver Hart, who has a compensation package worth $665,500 this year decided to take a position on the board of the for-profit DeVry Education Group (which is being sued by the feds) for $70,000 a year plus $100,000 in stock and we…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nothing.

Crickets.

And we had the nerve to say students were acting immaturely?

On the same day that Hart took the DeVry position the chancellor at the University of California-Davis, Linda Katchi, accepted a position on the same DeVry board.

All of this took place only a few weeks after the Federal Trade Commission decided to sue the DeVry Group – parent company of DeVry University – for allegedly deceiving students.

In California there was an immediate negative response to the chancellor’s move.

Students wanted the her to resign. Taxpayers, politicians and other university officials questioned the wisdom and ethics of taking such a position.

After only a few days the chancellor resigned from the board.

But not the UofA’s Hart.

Our state’s university president is standing pat. Raking in the 70 grand and all that stock.

Her excuse is that she wants to “work toward assuring that higher education is available to a segment of Americans who will never be able to attend universities like the University of Arizona.”

Tim Steller, the excellent columnist for Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star, spoke about Hart’s decision with Jim Finkelstein, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. Finkelstein told him, “Personally I don’t think it passes the smell test that there can be any possible benefit to the president’s institution…The primary beneficiary of serving on that kind of board is the president of the university.”

Exactly.

To people like us, getting paid $665,000 of the taxpayers money to run a state university should be a full-time job. You’d think that such a job would demand the university president’s complete attention. And there wouldn’t be – or shouldn’t be – any time left over for cash to improve the profits of some for-profit education outfit.

And yet, the president of the state Board of Regents, Eileen Klein, sided with Hart.

She said, “I do not question Dr. Hart’s commitment to the University of Arizona. It is strong and the university’s brand or status hardly will be undone by her decision.”

Really?

Having the president of the University of Arizona on the board of DeVry doesn’t hurt UofA’s status?

And it’s okay, somehow, for the top dog at one of the state’s premier educational institutions to moonlight for private company?

And doesn’t that make Hart’s $665,000 taxpayer-funded position at UofA a … part-time job?