We have written how delighted we are with the leadership displayed by Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino, as well as by Representative Tom Young and Governor Mike DeWine, in bringing Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, along the path toward becoming law. SB 1 will do a great amount to depoliticize Ohio’s public higher education system, strengthen intellectual diversity, and restore its accountability to Ohio policymakers and citizens. This law will invigorate higher education in Ohio and serve as a model of educational reform for the whole nation.
We also our grateful to the role played by the leadership and members of the Ohio Association of Scholars (OAS)—above all, OAS President George Dent, Richard Vedder, and Hal Arkes, but to many other of its members as well. OAS, the National Association of Scholars’ (NAS) Ohio affiliate, has done exemplary work in making SB 1 possible. OAS members have testified in favor of SB 1 and its predecessor Senate Bill 83, written op-eds, appeared on TV shows, and done outstanding work to inform policymakers and rally public opinion in favor of higher education reform in Ohio. NAS’s state affiliates are meant to take the lead in connecting NAS’s ideals to state-level reform; OAS has been a model both to its peers among our state affiliate and to state-level policy reform organizations in general.
OAS’s achievement is all the greater because it was amateur, in the best sense of the world. NAS Central consists of paid staff, for whom such work is their day job. OAS, as all our affiliates, is run by professors, whose day job is in the classroom. When our affiliates labor for the good of their state, they do so outside of their day job—they volunteer their time. This is a sacrifice we in NAS Central do not have to make. OAS’s achievement is all the greater because it was done as a labor of love.
OAS’s contribution also is that of citizens of Ohio—and we are keenly aware how important it is that Ohio citizens themselves make the argument for education reform. When NAS Central makes the argument for education reform laws, we know that we must necessarily be making the argument as outsiders to a state. State citizens and policymakers will always listen more attentively to arguments to change their laws when they hear them from fellow citizens of their state. OAS argued more persuasively than NAS ever could, because they were Ohioans seeking the best for their friends, their neighbors, and their children. And, since they are professors in Ohio colleges and universities, they also could make the argument persuasively: Yes, SB 1 is necessary to reform Ohio’s academic institutions.
NAS has been blessed to have so sterling a state affiliate as the Ohio Association of Scholars.
Photo by Hannah Wernecke on Unsplash
