Because it has implications for Southwest Colorado, there is reason to pay attention to the race for the at-large seat on the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents and support Alice Madden.
The university maintains four campuses, including the Anschutz Medical Campus, and serves 65,000 students per year. With 30,000 staff, CU is Colorado’s third largest employer and is a leader in scientific research. Regents make decisions on its $3.8 billion budget, choose its president and other oversight.
A Democrat, Madden is running on a platform to cut costs, reduce tuition and increase graduation rates. As regent, Madden plans to expand shared grants that currently benefit Fort Lewis College, increase pre-collegiate programs that invite seniors to campus and augment college readiness classes that help with student retention, especially among minority students. She believes the current board is not doing enough for lower-income and middle-class students to afford and access college.
Because schools like Fort Lewis, Mesa and Adams State cannot double tuition as CU has done, Madden says she will not sit on the sidelines like the current board and will fight for state funding for higher education. Approving use of the hospital provider fee is an issue she will take on as regent.
Madden knows CU. She was an undergraduate and law student, graduate instructor at CU Denver, and instructor and alumni director at CU Law. She held CU Denver’s Tim Wirth Chair in Sustainable Development where she worked to increase minority student and women’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) majors.
She has served in the statehouse and as Gov. Bill Ritter’s climate change advisor and deputy chief of staff. Madden is the current director of CU Law School’s natural resources, energy and environment center, a post that, contrary to some claims, does not conflict with serving as regent.
Madden’s opponent, Republican Heidi Ganahl, is founder of a successful national pet care franchise “Camp Bow Wow.” She graduated from and has served on CU Leeds Business School board and is a current CU Foundation board member. A business leader and entrepreneur, Ganahl has financial expertise to contribute to the board of regents, but Madden’s vision and experience is broader and what is needed at this time.
Vote Alice Madden for CU regent.
HHHThe Colorado State Board of Education is charged with general supervision of Colorado’s public schools. The board is responsible for hiring an education commissioner and making rules, not laws, for legislation passed by the Legislature.
This distinction is an important one and why we support Republican Joyce Rankin, the incumbent and former teacher and principal from Carbondale, as board member to serve the 3rd Congressional District and its 116,000 students.
Rankin, the only member with K-6 experience, has proved beneficial to the board. She has traveled the district from Gateway to Grand Junction and Pueblo to hear school superintendents’ challenges first-hand.
Her opponent, Christine Pacheco-Koveleski, is a Democrat, native of Pueblo and semi-retired lawyer. She is a first-generation college graduate who seeks to add more diversity to the seven-member board that currently has one female Latina member. Pacheco-Koveleski, by training, is an advocate and “lawyering” is not what this board does.
Rankin believes America’s future depends upon well-educated citizens. Though we do not agree with her position on school choice and firmly believe public funds should fund only public schools, Rankin enthusiastically supports the type of schooling best for the student, is motivated and in position to address funding inequities and failing schools in this next term.
Vote Joyce Rankin for the State Board of Education.