The law was created last year by House Bill 2504 and requires higher education institutions to “establish uniform standards for publishing cost of attendance information, to conduct student course evaluations of faculty, and to make certain information available on the Internet.” This requires:

• A detailed syllabus listing each course requirement, recommended textbook, test and lecture topic for every undergraduate classroom course.
  
• A curriculum vitae for each professor, which includes post-secondary education, teaching experience and professional publications.
• A departmental budget report of the department under which the course is offered, from the most recent academic term it was offered.
• Cost-of-attendance information.

It takes effect in the coming fall semester.

Sounds like implementing the law would be easy, given the advanced technology at universities.

But there has been some push back, as Keener notes in the opinion piece published by the Odessa American.

Particularly vexing is the comment of Murray Leaf, speaker of the Faculty Senate at the University of Texas at Dallas, who told the Dallas Morning News that the law displays  "an insulting mistrust of higher education faculty."

Another academic, Don Davison, a faculty member at Galveston College who serves on the Texas Faculty Association's governing board, told the Houston Chronicle the new law "takes away from our core mission, which is spending time with students."

The bill was authored by Republican state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, a member of the Texas Conservative Coalition. In order to implement the bill at the state level, four staffers will have to be added at a cost this year of $286,585, primarily for salaries and benefits, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation was behind an initial move for this transparency and a member of the group testified in favor of the bill.

Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org.

Photo of a college class by flickr user Brunel University, used via a Creative Commons license.