Governor’s hope for enlivened regents

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 23

Governor’s hope for enlivened regents

From JOHN N. HUTCHISON San Francisco The former ambassador to New Zealand, Mr John Henning, who sometimes scolds California’s Governor (Mr Jerry Brown) and sometimes defends him, has been named by Mr Brown to a prestigious position. Mr Henning has been appointed to the board of regents of the University

on the board is highly prized and carries a lot of responsibility. The university system has nine campuses, 125.000 students and an annual budget of SUS2SOOM nearly half of which is drawn from State taxes. The statistics alone are enough to sustain major attention to the institution and its governing body. The appointment of Mr

Henning, a powerful leader and lobbyist for most of the 2M plus trade unionists in the State, is one of seven made by the controversial and provacative Governor to a board of 25 members. Regents are appointed for varying terms, some of them' as long as 30 years and others for only a year. Mr Henning’s tenure will not end until 1983.

The university has long been noted and, to some, notorious, for its liberality and independence. But its regents have historically been drawn mainly from the wealthy establishment in California society. Some of them have been criticised as being too conservative or of being tools of the university administration. Once appointed, ,Mr Brown recently said, some of them “attend teas, sit on the 50-yard line (at football games), meet Nobel laureates and become advocates of the university.”

As an ex-officio member of the board, the Governor has several times raked the regents with censure. They fight back with vigour. But hi has made it clear that he hopes the new appointees will enliven them more.

Governor Brown’s choices are a mixed bag. Mr Henning is a relatively conservative but emphatically partisan representative of his labour federation who wields its power the way a rugby captain marshalls his side. Among his regent colleagues are a 26-year-old law student whose irreverent needling has ruffled older board members, a

Mexican-American woman attorney concerned with minority rights, an 80-year-old female psychologist who seeks justice for the American Indian. a veteran JapaneseAmerican social worker, and a sharp-tongued archeologist who once recited passages from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” at a board meeting.

The regents’ actions frequently attract press attention, sometimes on sharp issues of ideological conflict. The most recent of these has been over whether any of the university’s large endowments' should be invested in firms doing business in South Africa. Most of the board, including several who outspokenly oppose South African racial policies, finally agreed that withdrawal of investment in such firms would not benefit South Africa’s mjnwhites and might cause some unemployment among them. The board rejected the vehement pressure of anti-apartheid groups.

Mr Henning will not be lost in the company of the scholars, millionaires, academics, and social iconoclasts and politicians who, as regents, direct the policies of the huge and influential university. He is not only a redoubtable negotiator and powerful political force; he is a Shakespearean scholar, a sports historian, a gifted speaker and an expert at drafting legislation. He is likely, occasionally to fulfil Governor Brown’s hope for livelier meetings of the regents.