LICHTENEGGER TO FINISH STINT AS CURATORS HEAD

JACKSON -- For the past two years as president of the University of Missouri Board of Curators, attorney John Lichtenegger of Jackson has helped direct a major restructuring of the four-campus system.

But while restructuring has gotten most of the publicity, Lichtenegger believes the board's biggest accomplishment has been the hiring of the University of Missouri system's top administrators.

"During my tenure (as board president), and just a few months before, we assembled the entire leadership team that is in place in the University of Missouri system," he said.

That team includes university President George Russell and the chancellors of the Columbia, St. Louis, Kansas City and Rolla campuses.

Without them, none of the other changes could have occurred, said Lichtenegger, who will step down as board president at the end of this month.

The University of Missouri graduate has served two consecutive, one-year terms as board president, beginning on Jan. 1, 1992. Lichtenegger, who is completing his ninth year on the board, will continue to serve as a curator for one more year.

Fellow curator John "Woody" Cozad of Platte City believes Lichtenegger has done a good job as board president.

"It's a rare thing to find somebody who has a strong commitment to certain ideals, who has an agenda but is still fair minded.

"John has brought commitment and fairness at the same time, and that is not a combination that is easy to find," he said.

Lichtenegger himself prefers to dwell on the accomplishments of the board as a whole and the university administration. He has strong praise for university President George Russell, who was hired by the curators in November 1991.

In fact, the whole leadership team gets high marks from Lichtenegger. "They have done an outstanding job."

Said Lichtenegger: "I guess one thing my experience on the board tells me, if you do not have top quality, innovative people, you are not going to get much done."

The curators normally hold about eight meetings a year. Each meeting typically lasts about a day and a half.

But the curators met much more frequently over the past two years, the result of having to fill all those administrative positions. In addition to hiring the president and chancellors, the board made the decision to hire Dan Devine as athletic director at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"We spent a great deal of time on the selection of personnel to run the university," Lichtenegger said.

Having the right administrators led to the formation and execution of a "phenomenal restructuring" of the University of Missouri system as part of a five-year plan, he said.

The five-year, $125 million plan was adopted in the aftermath of the defeat of Proposition B. Voters in November 1991 overwhelmingly rejected the tax-hike-for-education measure.

Proposition B would have provided about $180 million annually in additional state funding for higher education. About half of that would have gone to the University of Missouri system, Lichtenegger said.

"That proposition failed miserably. The board took that very seriously ... as a sign to do everything we could within our means to produce top-quality education before asking the taxpayers for anything else," he said.

"We knew we were not going to get any more new money," said Lichtenegger, "so we decided to make some tough decisions on how to maintain and enhance the quality of the university."

The changes included cutting 1,300 employees from the payroll or about 10 percent of the university's workforce, more than half of them through an early retirement program.

Lichtenegger said no other university in the nation has implemented such massive cuts in personnel.

The University of Missouri system has also hiked tuition to help pay for various improvements such as improving salaries for teachers, making needed repairs to facilities and replacing obsolete laboratory equipment and computers.

"We are having a tuition increase that is about $200 a year above the inflation rate (for five years)," said Lichtenegger.

"It's significant because over a five-year period, the tuition rate goes up $1,000," he said. "We have gone to a policy where a student is actually paying one third of the actual cost of their education."

Lichtenegger believes the curators did a good job of explaining the need for the restructuring.

Communication, he said, was the key. "Without the support of the faculty and without the support of the students and the staff at the university, these plans could not have been implemented successfully."

Lichtenegger said the curators believe strongly in allowing people to speak up at the board meetings and voice their opinions.

"A university is truly a community," said Lichtenegger. "It's composed of students, faculty, administrators, alumni and taxpayers."

Decisions, he said, have been made by the board after much public discussion by curators as well as others in the university community.

"We are very open," agreed Cozad. "Oddly enough, I think that is partly a function that we have so many lawyers on the board."

Said Cozad, "You may be executed, but you have a right to be heard before you get executed."

Lichtenegger said not all university boards of curators or regents are as open. "Even though there is a sunshine law, I think there are lots of boards that have meetings before the meetings, either by telephone or whatever," said Lichtenegger.

As for Missouri's curators, he insisted they haven't made any decisions behind closed doors, except those related to matters such as personnel.

"I think I have matured a lot in this job because I have had to work with such a diverse group of people," said Lichtenegger.

"Everybody's working for the same cause, but maybe wanting to take 10 or 15 different roads to get there," he noted.

The board, however, must chart a common path, said Lichtenegger. "We have to stay focused on the future and have a fairly straight course to get there."