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Regents of the University of California
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Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university system in the U.S. state of California. The Board of Regents has 26 voting members, the majority of whom are appointed by the governor of California to serve 12-year terms.
The regents establish university policy; make decisions that determine student cost of attendance, admissions, employee compensation, and land management; and perform long-range planning for all UC campuses and locations. The regents also control the investment of UC's endowment, and they supervise the making of contracts between UC and private companies.
The structure and composition of the Board of Regents is laid out in the Constitution of California, which establishes that the University of California is a "public trust" and that the regents are a "corporation" that has been granted the power to manage the trust on the public's behalf. The constitution grants the regents broad institutional autonomy, giving them "full powers of organization and government." According to article IX, section 9, subsection (a), "the regents are "subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds and compliance with the terms of the endowments of the university".
Section 11 of the Organic Act establishing the University of California begins with the following sentence: "The general government and superintendence of the University shall vest in a Board of Regents, to be denominated the 'Regents of the University of California,' who shall become incorporated under the general laws of the State of California by that corporate name and style."
The Organic Act described three groups of regents: six ex officio regents, eight appointed regents, and eight "honorary" regents. To expedite the formation of the university, the Organic Act authorized the governor to unilaterally select the eight appointed regents after the end of the current legislative session and allowed them to assume office immediately without the consent of the state senate. Governor Henry Huntly Haight announced his selections in May 1868. On May 23, a notice was published in the San Francisco Examiner of a meeting of the regents scheduled for May 28, but no record was made of this meeting. On June 9, 1868, the first two groups of regents gathered together in San Francisco for the first recorded meeting of the Board of Regents, where the appointed regents drew lots to determine the lengths of their initial terms, and then the board proceeded to elect the eight honorary regents. The "honorary" regents enjoyed the same authority and privileges as the first two groups of regents; the term "honorary" referred only to their method of selection.
As required by Section 11, the Board of Regents proceeded to form a corporation denominated the Regents of the University of California on June 12, 1868, and filed the certificate of incorporation on June 18, 1868 with the California Secretary of State. The corporation's official name today is still the Regents of the University of California. Today, it is unusual for universities (or any other kind of corporation) to incorporate in the names of their boards, but it used to be a common practice among American universities. For example, Harvard University is still legally incorporated as the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Incorporating the university under the exact same name as its board was just as confusing in the 19th century as it is today. In an 1894 wrongful death case, the plaintiffs did not understand this; they sued 16 regents individually, which forced the Supreme Court of California to analyze Section 11 and the June 18, 1868 certificate to hold that the original members of the Board of Regents had properly formed a corporation as a legal entity distinct from themselves. Therefore, the current members of that board could not be held liable in their individual capacities for the torts of the corporation.
The current Board of Regents is a "policy board," as a result of reforms unanimously adopted from 1957 to 1960 at the instigation of UC President Clark Kerr. Before Kerr's reforms, the regents operated as an "administrative board" (in Kerr's words) for almost a century. The board met 12 times per year and its finance committee (with full authority to act on behalf of the board) met an additional 11 times, and the university budget was excruciatingly detailed. The result was that the board collectively supervised every aspect of university affairs—no matter how trivial or minor. One sign of the regents' unusually extreme level of micromanagement during this period was that it was seen as a major milestone when acting UC President Martin Kellogg gained the power in 1891 to independently hire janitors (as long as he reported on what he had done at the next meeting of the regents). Another example is that until 1901, replacements for lost diplomas required the approval of the regents. At Kerr's encouragement, the Board of Regents cut down on the number of meetings, delegated powers and responsibilities to the university president and the campus chancellors, delegated more power to the Academic Senate, simplified the UC budget, and greatly reduced the amount of detail that flowed upwards to the regents.
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Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university system in the U.S. state of California. The Board of Regents has 26 voting members, the majority of whom are appointed by the governor of California to serve 12-year terms.
The regents establish university policy; make decisions that determine student cost of attendance, admissions, employee compensation, and land management; and perform long-range planning for all UC campuses and locations. The regents also control the investment of UC's endowment, and they supervise the making of contracts between UC and private companies.
The structure and composition of the Board of Regents is laid out in the Constitution of California, which establishes that the University of California is a "public trust" and that the regents are a "corporation" that has been granted the power to manage the trust on the public's behalf. The constitution grants the regents broad institutional autonomy, giving them "full powers of organization and government." According to article IX, section 9, subsection (a), "the regents are "subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds and compliance with the terms of the endowments of the university".
Section 11 of the Organic Act establishing the University of California begins with the following sentence: "The general government and superintendence of the University shall vest in a Board of Regents, to be denominated the 'Regents of the University of California,' who shall become incorporated under the general laws of the State of California by that corporate name and style."
The Organic Act described three groups of regents: six ex officio regents, eight appointed regents, and eight "honorary" regents. To expedite the formation of the university, the Organic Act authorized the governor to unilaterally select the eight appointed regents after the end of the current legislative session and allowed them to assume office immediately without the consent of the state senate. Governor Henry Huntly Haight announced his selections in May 1868. On May 23, a notice was published in the San Francisco Examiner of a meeting of the regents scheduled for May 28, but no record was made of this meeting. On June 9, 1868, the first two groups of regents gathered together in San Francisco for the first recorded meeting of the Board of Regents, where the appointed regents drew lots to determine the lengths of their initial terms, and then the board proceeded to elect the eight honorary regents. The "honorary" regents enjoyed the same authority and privileges as the first two groups of regents; the term "honorary" referred only to their method of selection.
As required by Section 11, the Board of Regents proceeded to form a corporation denominated the Regents of the University of California on June 12, 1868, and filed the certificate of incorporation on June 18, 1868 with the California Secretary of State. The corporation's official name today is still the Regents of the University of California. Today, it is unusual for universities (or any other kind of corporation) to incorporate in the names of their boards, but it used to be a common practice among American universities. For example, Harvard University is still legally incorporated as the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Incorporating the university under the exact same name as its board was just as confusing in the 19th century as it is today. In an 1894 wrongful death case, the plaintiffs did not understand this; they sued 16 regents individually, which forced the Supreme Court of California to analyze Section 11 and the June 18, 1868 certificate to hold that the original members of the Board of Regents had properly formed a corporation as a legal entity distinct from themselves. Therefore, the current members of that board could not be held liable in their individual capacities for the torts of the corporation.
The current Board of Regents is a "policy board," as a result of reforms unanimously adopted from 1957 to 1960 at the instigation of UC President Clark Kerr. Before Kerr's reforms, the regents operated as an "administrative board" (in Kerr's words) for almost a century. The board met 12 times per year and its finance committee (with full authority to act on behalf of the board) met an additional 11 times, and the university budget was excruciatingly detailed. The result was that the board collectively supervised every aspect of university affairs—no matter how trivial or minor. One sign of the regents' unusually extreme level of micromanagement during this period was that it was seen as a major milestone when acting UC President Martin Kellogg gained the power in 1891 to independently hire janitors (as long as he reported on what he had done at the next meeting of the regents). Another example is that until 1901, replacements for lost diplomas required the approval of the regents. At Kerr's encouragement, the Board of Regents cut down on the number of meetings, delegated powers and responsibilities to the university president and the campus chancellors, delegated more power to the Academic Senate, simplified the UC budget, and greatly reduced the amount of detail that flowed upwards to the regents.