Reforming higher education in Tennessee is not a new concept.

A report by the Governor’s Council on Excellence in Higher Education outlined approaches to invest in people and commit to 21st century excellence. The date was May 1999. The governor was Don Sundquist.

The plug was pulled on the reform effort before there were concise recommendations, and no consensus formed among the various factions.

A Sundquist observer shared that the competing interests of the four-year institutions played a major role in sidelining the process. Traditional wars broke out between Upper East Tennessee and Memphis. Middle Tennessee State University desired flagship status, but the “Middle” part of the name was viewed as a hindrance.

While the higher education discussions were under way, another issue entered the legislative fray: a state income tax. With mounting pressure to scuttle higher education reforms, the Sundquist administration abandoned the effort, realizing that lawmaker support lost in the reform battle over colleges would spill over into the income tax debate. Gov. Sundquist was unable to achieve higher education changes, and the income tax became a millstone around his neck.

During the higher education discussions, brush fires were fanned into firestorms. A suggestion by former UT President John Shumaker to move the main administrative offices for the University of Tennessee from Knoxville to Nashville removed the remaining life support from a barely-breathing patient.

A review of the executive summary from the 1999 higher education initiative shows that in the following 10 years Tennessee made little if any appreciable gain in the key areas.

“Tennessee’s Twenty-first Century system of higher education should elevate the overall knowledge level of the state, open wide the doors to high quality advanced schooling for all Tennesseans, and motivate them to take advantage of this enhanced opportunity,” according to the 1999 report.

An examination of the governance structure focused on streamlined authority and a closer affiliation with K-12.

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission would set broad-based goals, distribute financial resources, establish lines of accountability, approve and terminate programs and manage with a chief operating officer. THEC would allocate annual operating funds, using performance as a basis for financial support.

The fundamentals were sketched out a decade earlier to improve faculty, fund more chairs of excellence, push to have a top-25 research institution, and graduate more students with a degree.

These points have the familiar ring of those outlined in early 2009 by Gov. Phil Bredesen.

Over the ensuing years presidents have come and gone at the University of Tennessee. Several dipped their toes into the reform pool, to no avail.

But facing rising costs that push higher tuition onto students, the 10-year hiatus may have been long enough to convince lawmakers and others that another decade cannot pass without higher education reforms.

To reach Tom Griscom, call (423) 757-6472 or e-mail tgriscom@timesfreepress.com.