February 13,2005

Dear Colleagues:

As noted in the "Campus Insider" column in today's Boston Globe, a new Joint Committee on Higher Education has been established in the Legislature, with Senator Robert O'Leary (D-Cape and Islands) and Representative Kevin Murphy (D-Lowell) as co-chairs. Senator O'Leary is a faculty member on leave from the Mass Maritime Academy and maintains his membership in MSCA through part-time teaching there. On behalf of the MSCA, I offer Senator O'Leary and Representative Murphy our congratulations and I hope to meet with them soon.

On February 9th, a meeting was held with UMass President Wilson, the state and community college presidents, and the chairs of all boards of trustees, with Stanley Rosenberg and Steven Panagiotakos, the co-chairs of the Senate Task Force on Higher Education (see the January issue of the MSCA Perspective for further information). The senators asked for the presidents' and trustees' support for the recommendations of the Task Force, which should be released soon and will likely be the first order of business for the new Joint Committee on Higher Education.

When the recommendations become public, we will do our best to post them on this site.

I plan to attend Thursday's BHE meeting in Worcester but have notified the Chancellor that I will not be making a presentation at that meeting, nor is MSCA planning any action there. Our colleagues from MCCC will picket and I plan to support that action and hope other MSCA members will join us.

Pat Markunas

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