General Assembly Update: Bill filed to lock in UL- UK games

– In what may be the first KSR post on the 2012 session of the Kentucky General Assembly, Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D- Louisville, pre-filed SB45:

AN ACT relating to governance responsibilities in postsecondary education.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 164 to specify the common governance responsibilities of all boards of trustees and boards of regents of the Commonwealth’s public postsecondary institutions; require each public university to submit to the Council on Postsecondary Education a plan to increase the number of students earning a bachelor’s degree; require the council to collect specific data on each freshman and transfer student entering each university and thereafter track students until degree completion; report annually to the Legislative Research Commission on the number of students who complete bachelor’s degrees and the average time to degree completion for full-time and part-time students; report to the Interim Joint Committee on Education annually on an institutional profile for each university and a composite system profile which provides current and six-year trends on a variety of student and institutional measures; require the board of trustees or regents of each public university to include bachelor’s degree completion data trends as part of the annual evaluation of the institutional president; require the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville to play each other in football and men’s basketball each year.

– Sen. Shaughnessy represents Senate District 19 which is in central Jefferson County. According to the Senate Democratic Caucus website, Sen. Shaughnessy graduated from the University of Louisville but has been a champion for each public institution of higher education.

– Jake Payne from PageOneKentucky.com posted about the bill earlier today. The Legislative Research Commission indicates that the bill was introduced to the Senate on the opening day of the session (yesterday) and it was assigned to Senate Committee on Education.

– We’ll try to update you on this bill as it moves through the legislative process, but if you want to express your opinion on it, reach out to the Members of the Senate Committee on Education.