Testimony on Higher Education Opportunity Act at the Negotiated Rule Committee Hearing, September 29, 2008
Timothy E. Leshan
Director of Government Relations and Community Affairs
Brown University
Good morning. My name is Tim Leshan, and I’m the director of Government Relations and Community Affairs at Brown University. I’m here today to speak to you about the impact of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008 on our university, and to urge the Department of Education to use the regulatory process to take advantage of existing reports and mechanisms to promote efficiency for both institutions and the public who access the information we provide.
Brown University thanks the Department of Education for having these meetings to seek feedback on the implementation of the HEOA. We would like to comment generally about some provisions of the law. Brown was supportive of the effort to reauthorize the HEA, in part because the law has many helpful elements, and because it has been years since such a reauthorization had moved through the legislative process. At the same time, we are concerned about the burdens some of the provisions of the law pose on institutions.
Reporting Requirements
From our perspective, at the same time that universities are being urged to control costs to ensure access to higher education, this law adds myriad costly new reporting requirements with no federal funding to offset the expense of these mandates. Detailed new reporting requirements have now been imposed in such areas as: campus crime, fire safety, textbooks, net price by income, peer-to-peer file sharing, and receipt of gifts from foreign donors. We support greater transparency through participation in projects such as the UCAN, but at the same time we hope that as the Department works to develop implementation regulations around this new law that it will funnel these new reporting requirements through existing reporting structures to the fullest extent possible. Doing so will benefit both the institutions that are educating the next generation of students as well as consumers.
I will provide just a few examples of our concerns to help illustrate these points.
Campus Safety
The law requires institutions to notify students "immediately" of a dangerous situation on our campus. We, at Brown, believe the safety of our student is paramount. We have taken many steps since the tragic events at Virginia Tech to further enhance our effort to notify students when emergencies occur such as adding a MIR3 mass communication system and a campus siren in coordination with the city and neighborhood. But we are concerned about compliance with the “immediate” requirement. Some clarity around what is meant both by "immediately" and "significant campus emergency" in the rule making process would be helpful along with, most importantly an acknowledgment of the flexibility and deference to the professional expertise and judgment of campus law enforcement professionals who have to determine when to deploy these communication devices. The word "immediately" brings to mind a timeframe of seconds or minutes that in most situations is unrealistic and could lead to false alarms or other mistakes given the fluidity of emergency situations. We suggest that the Department work closely with the appropriate professional organizations and experts in the field to come up with something that is both practical to implement and comply with, and serves the ultimate goal of protecting our students, faculty, staff and visitors.
Peer-to-Peer file-sharing
We are also concerned about the provisions in the HEOA on illegal peer-to-peer file sharing especially Section 493, related to combating infringement on our campus network and to offering alternatives to unauthorized content distribution. We were disappointed that the HEOA singled out higher education institutions with regard to illegal downloading of files, as most of that activity does not occur on our campuses. That said, the detailed rules for this section will have an impact on the operation of our networks, in terms of staff time, cost, and network stability. It's important that the Department get it right by avoiding a one-size fits all approach. There are also significant implications for legal exposure, privacy violations, and other unintended consequences, such as limiting access to legitimate content. As was stated in the report language accompanying the law, institutions require a great deal of flexibility in how they deploy technology to combat infringement and offering alternatives. We urge you to allow for that flexibility. Brown has been attempting to address the issue of illegal down loading of files by our students for many years and we will comply with these new requirements, but a one-size fits all approach to the negotiated rulemaking process could be costly and difficult to meet.
Student Aid
While Brown was pleased with many of the student aid provisions in HEOA, the law does make some changes to programs that may cause some problems. An example is seemingly simple date changes on the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) and SMART Grant programs from January 1, 2009, to July 1, 2009. Under the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA) it also changed the basis of tracking progression from "academic year" to "year." While we generally welcomed the expansion of student eligibility as soon as possible, the mid-year effective date for the change from "academic year" to "year" for grant level progression may cause problems. As the Department issues guidance about these changes we urge it to allow for an orderly transition to the new dates in a reasonable fashion.
Conclusion
In my testimony I have tried to outline a few examples of the impact of the HEOA on institutions like Brown. My main point is that we urge you to take into account the many new requirements of this law and the impact it will have on our diverse institutions across the county. While we will, of course, fully comply with the law and we think many of its provisions are good, it does impose a burden, and we hope you will try to create regulations that are efficient and based on common sense. The goal in implementing this law should be to enhance higher education for all students. Thank you.