EVAN CARAVELLI/Arizona Daily Wildcat Gov. Janet Napolitano sat down with Arizona Daily Wildcat editors, news writers and columnists yesterday to discuss campus issues such as tuition raises and the proposed expansion of the UA School of Medicine to Phoenix.

Members of the Arizona Daily Wildcat opinions board and news and opinions desk had the opportunity to sit down with Gov. Janet Napolitano yesterday in the Wildcat newsroom. She facilitated questions on the upcoming tuition increase decision to be made by the Arizona Board of Regents tomorrow and Friday, her budget and financial aid. Below is the interview that transpired.

Wildcat: Student lobbyists from the three state universities have been pushing for a 2-to-1 match from the state into the Arizona Financial Aid Trust. However, with the Legislature, they are running into some problems with senators who said they don't support need-based aid, they only support merit-based aid. In addition, AFAT is being attached to other pieces of legislation that students don't support. Knowing this, would you support or veto a budget that did not include a significant increase in financial aid?

Napolitano: Well, I put a significant increase for financial aid in my proposed budget and I think it's premature to talk about signing or vetoing a budget - they don't have a budget yet. What happens is there's lots of individual senators or representatives who will say things, but we're a long way from a comprehensive budget that either they are ready to pass or I am ready to sign. I think the issue of student financial aid is open. I think it's important particularly if tuition is increased again, which it looks like there will be some increase coming down the pike, so I think I would tell the student lobbyists that they may think they are, how do I say this: We really haven't even begun the serious work with the budget. It is a long way from being decided.

Wildcat: Do you think that Arizona's universities are going to have trouble competing with their peer institution in the future, in light of the failure of Proposition 102 last year?

Napolitano: No. We would have liked to get 102 passed - obviously it was something that I supported - but we have other ways to accomplish technology transfer. We'd like to look again at a 102-like mechanism, because it's just an additional tool in the toolbox - it would be nice to have that tool, but we're going to be competitive in a number of different ways on the technology front. So while I'm disappointed that 102 went down, we have other mechanisms we can use, and again, I wouldn't say it's an impossibility that a 102-like measure is passed by the legislature and put on the '06 ballot again.

Wildcat: We want to ask about expansion of the UA College of Medicine. It's still unclear where the revenue is going to come from. Although leaders expect to get outside sources, what happens if the Legislature doesn't include the $6 million?

Napolitano: Well, the $6 million doesn't begin to start, that's just a small down payment. The medical school is an enormously expensive undertaking. We all know that. We also know that a state with our population, we need to quite frankly increase the number of people that are getting an M.D. education, who are getting degrees in the allied health professions, and that increase needs to take place up in Phoenix because that's where the population growth is. We're moving forward. The plan is to have the entering class start in '06. We just had a meeting on the Commission on Medical Research and Education that I appointed last night. We recommitted to that timeline; that is what everybody is gearing for. They have already started and will do the groundbreaking on the renovations in Phoenix. It will be the first basic science building and that's coming up in the next couple of weeks, so this project is moving.

Wildcat: Regents will be setting tuition on Thursday. With a mandatory information technology fee, President Peter Likins' tuition proposal for undergraduate residents is 11.4 percent, while the student proposal is 8 percent. The student proposal is unique in that it would set aside $30 per student for course availability, which has been cited as the top concern of students at the UA. Which proposal are you more willing to support? Which do you think is in the best interest of the school?

Napolitano: You know, I think first of all, this underscores the need to have more state-based student aid and the need for the regents to hold tight to the fact that tuition will never be above the bottom third of public universities. With respect to those proposals, I have a feeling that neither one is going to be the one adopted by the regents. My suspicion is that they are going to do something totally different that takes into account both; some of the things students have said, particularly on the fee side, and some of the tuition issues. I think that right now, sitting here today, I'm not gonna say I favor one or the other, because I think it's actually going to be the choice neither A nor B.

Wildcat: Do you think student leaders have been effective in recent years in lobbying for more funds from the state?

Napolitano: Yeah, I think so, and I think students need to be heard from. I think that where student leaders are most effective is when they just don't come in and say, "No, not ever, you can't raise tuition," but when they say, "If you raise tuition, these are the kinds of things that we need to get, we need to have a student aid set-aside." We need to have a guarantee that this is not going to be supplanted, you know, just supplant general funds, but added on so that we can have and retain more faculty, make classes more available, that sort of thing. So, when students make those kinds of arguments, I find them very persuasive.

Wildcat: We've heard there's an idea to potentially offer four-year degrees at community colleges in the state. What do you think the budget implications could be and what are your general thoughts on that idea, even if the degrees are different from the local four-year universities?

Napolitano: Well, this is an idea that has just kind of sprung up recently and I think on a couple levels. One is the universities are just now having more public hearing on the proposed redesign and those are going to take place in March. I think the key issue is how do you design your community college system so that it meshes with the university design so that there's seamless articulation, so that if you take a course, say, at Pima Community College, that course translates into a credit that will be recognized at the University of Arizona later on. That kind of cross-articulation needs to be worked out and looked at more seamlessly than we have right now. That is different than saying community colleges should offer four-year degrees, and there's a lot of arguments on both sides of that issue. I don't know that the Legislature is actually going to pass anything on that this year, but I do think we need to be working with our community colleges in terms of making sure they are included portal total entry into higher education.

Wildcat: Considering certain budget situations right now, if it was passed, could the problems that arise from that be how community college and four-year institutions might be competing for the same dollar for their education system.

Napolitano: It's hard to say because such a type of idea that nobody has even penciled out what it means dollar-wise ... Certainly the community college budgets are not calculated on offering 300 and 400 courses and 300 and 400 level courses are more expensive. That would need to be explored.

Wildcat: There recently has been a move at the UA to add more fees: mandatory fees, program fees, special course fees, etc. Some are concerned this might be a misrepresentation of the true cost of tuition, because while tuition might seem low, students will have to pay numerous additional fees. Do you see that as a problem?

Napolitano: Well, I think some fees have to be mandatory. They are kind of user fees and they help students; different students are making different demands on the institution in terms of cost of education. I don't have any opposition to mandatory fees, but I think the basic, fundamental, underlying question in all of this is "Have we kept the public university accessible to the public students?" I think you can't just look at tuition - you have to look at tuition and fees together.

Wildcat: Do you think that prominent academics and university leaders, such as Churchill in Colorado and Summers at Harvard, have an obligation or responsibilities that can outweigh academic freedom and freedom of speech?

Napolitano: Well it's this, Professor Churchill has every First Amendment right in the world, I just think he's completely wrong. He doesn't make a persuasive argument. I think President Summers made a statement which he probably thought would simply be provocative, but a lot of people felt it was patronizing, to say the least, and he has a different role, he's the president of a university. And he has to keep everybody rowing in the same direction and he has to demonstrate respect for all the different choices at a university, and he's having a hard time doing that right now. So, I think his role is different because he is the leader of the university. Churchill is one professor out of the whole faculty who has a very extreme and, I think, an unsupportable point of view.

Wildcat: Do you think that the priority of academic freedom is different from private university and public institutions?

Napolitano: No. I think academic freedom is academic freedom and it is as close to an absolute as anything we have in the First Amendment realm. And I can say I disagree with Churchill and I think he's not very persuasive and he's not very ... you know ... I just think our academic institutions need to have the right to embrace people who are dead wrong.

Wildcat: Administrators are worried about the increase of employer and employee contributions into the Arizona State Retirement System because it would leave the UA ...

Napolitano: (interrupts) This is a big student issue!

Wildcat: ... with an $8 million shortfall and so basically ...

Napolitano:(interrupts again) My budget covers the retirement increase.

Wildcat: Right answer - so you won't push legislators to fund this ...

Napolitano: It's in my budget.

Wildcat: Some UA medical students are concerned that moving part of the medical school up to Phoenix will impact the quality of the medical school here. Do you think that should be a concern?

Napolitano: I think it will improve the quality of the medical school down here. I think the overall goal is, for the faculty here at the medical school, to improve as they are improved, which they have demonstrated with me today with a very cutting-edge curriculum, and to have synergy with the campus up in Phoenix. I think it increases the educational possibilities for everybody. This is an exciting time in medical education in Arizona, and I think we will look back on this and do it right; we will have left a tremendous legacy for the future of medical care in our state. I'm very personally involved in this to make sure it happens in the right way.

- Transcript compiled by Natasha Bhuyan and J. Ferguson