BSU and CWI... A Legislator's take...

Were we are...

It seems we (legislators) have been on a whirlwind ramp up to the upcoming session that starts Jan 7th. Meetings scheduled across all subjects with state, federal and business to review their concerns that "might be" considered in the upcoming session. It's good for us all to attend as many as we can to gain insight on everyone's perspectives.


We had a meeting this morning with the president of BSU, Bob Kustra. The president gave us a great overview of where the funds from last session were spent along with concerns for BSU and Idaho colleges in general.

... My "take-aways"

We tend to get grants from many sources like Micron or the federal government to "cost share" or develop programs, but those grants never seem to be perpetual. We (our state) seems to readily start a number of these types of programs only to end up enduring the long term maintenance and operations costs after the grants fade away...


Don't get me wrong, we've started some fantastic programs at BSU, U of I and the ID State and as the President says, not only do our students gain a great opportunity for education, but the return on investment (ROI) for the state and community is tremendous...


We have a "market share" issue with only ~26% of our Idaho high school grads going to college, we've asked for a parsing out of where the rest of the 74% of our HS students are going...


We always have opportunities to improve things, like a better focusing the Intellectual Property (IP) regarding patents and manufacturing processes that are developed at our State Universities. We need a better statewide focus of the commercial opportunities of this IP, I believe we are "leaving money on the table" after some of these efforts or the IP just floats away.


The U of I has a non-profit foundation that manages the IP developed there, BSU doesn't have a formal program from what I left the meeting with today and I'm not aware of an ID State program to manage IP.


This IP, sometimes developed through grants from agracultural developers, companies like Micron or HP and the federal government where a formal sharing of the IP should be contractually decided as part of the grant agreement. It seems that this process is not well developed, marketed nor is consistent across our State's higher level educational institutions that are likely to develop State IP.


I have communicated with both the colleges that have programs and some grant providers, and again, I believe there is opportunity for improvement for both parties.


Instead of having a non-state manager for the commercialization of this IP, should we consider management by a single state organization? Consider the charter of the Department of Lands, where they are responsible for ensuring the use of a state asset (in this case lands) profits for the benefit of our states education.


Should we have a State IP manager for the same function? Would the Department of Lands be a good fit as an oversight organization to ensure that any financial gain from royalties or the selling of patents gets rolled back into our education system?


Most corporations these days, now have high level management teams to manage corporate IP as an "asset" of the organization and maximize it's return to the company. I believe Idaho could benefit from the formation of such a statewide oversight unit.

CWI...

A surprise today came with president Kustra's discussion regarding the College of Western Idaho, our newly approved Community College system.


BSU has currently leased some floor space to CWI in the BSU western campus building and BSU will continue to positively consider future expansion requirements for CWI on the BSU western campus. The president is focused on maintaining that campus for it's intended use by those that provided the property and building to BSU.


Many of us were under the impression there would be a transfer of property that would allow CWI a step up to make lower cost community college credits available, it appears that was and is not the case.


The president indicated to us that he clearly believes that CWI will have to increase their levy rate in order to manage the infrastructure required to get the community college going and for ongoing maintenance and build out of that infrastructure.


I believe the voters of Ada and Canyon counties expected that there would be a transfer/sharing of State assets and curriculum from BSU to CWI while keeping the community college levy rates low in order to make more affordable classes available in the Treasure Valley.


It's important that we all work towards that end to meet those voter's expectations.


A Good Brief...


For the short time scheduled and the number of legislators attending, president Kustra and his team put on a very good brief of the state of BSU and issues they are focused on resolving. It's great to see the concentration on our ability to better educate our students in math and science.


As a citizen of Idaho, I take comfort in the president's concern and aggressive actions to correct past issues and attention to issues on the horizon...


We seem to have so many of these types of meetings, it was nice to get down to the details quickly, review the data and have the opportunity to ask questions and ask for more detailed information off-line.



Your thoughts?