Regents sweeten Shelton’s contract, but president won’t keep bonus

There’s bound to be some grumbling over President Robert Shelton’s new contract, approved by the Board of Regents Thursday, since it includes a $50,000 raise for the UA’s highest official. Shelton, however, is using the money to establish a philanthropic fund that would provide financial aid for students, among other things. Moreover, he had announced that intent before the Board voted for the pay raise, which helps to explain why the Regents decided to give a man who already makes $420,000 a year any kind of raise at all.

For taking the wind out of our critical sails, Shelton gets a yea.

Expanding nonresident pool means millions in expanded revenue

The Board of Regents voted Friday to raise the ceiling on full-time out-of-state students from 30 percent to 40 percent of the entire undergraduate body. Since nonresident tuition is about four times as much as that paid by Arizonans, filling that 40 percent would net the UA more than $40 million, according to Regent Robert Bulla. We agree with Regent Bob McLendon that in-state students shouldn’t get squeezed out of the equation -ÿit would be troubling to see the limit creep much higher than 40 percent -ÿbut this seems like a wise move in an exceedingly uncertain time.

The Board gets an OK for providing the UA with another way to boost its revenue.

Obama prioritizes government accountability, civil liberties

Since he’s taking office during the most stressful period the American economy has seen since the end of the Great Depression, one might have expected President Barack Obama to shift civil liberties and open-government concerns to the far end of his priority list. Instead, Obama announced the imminent closing of Guantanamo Bay and banned secret prisons and the use of torture in interrogations. He also reversed former President Bush’s 2001 executive order restricting the release of presidential documents and announced his intent to abide by the Freedom of Information Act, which the previous administration had severely weakened through eight years of repeated noncompliance.

For making the principles of popular government his first priority, Obama gets a yea.

Cable news favors political minutiae over relevant administration coverage

37.8 million Americans may have tuned in to watch the new president’s inauguration, but in the days that followed they would have been better off reading a newspaper. Anyone who tuned in to CNN, MSNBC or Fox News this week expecting to see detailed coverage and discussion of the new administration’s first steps was instead treated to endless coverage of the fate of Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat and speculation over Caroline Kennedy’s decision not to seek it. Time that wasn’t spent on this was spent on the Rod Blagojevich scandal and the increasingly tiresome Minnesota recount. Sure, all this stuff is important, but more important than the first week of a new administration?

For failing to recognize what most Americans cared about this week, America’s cable news channels get a nay.

Editorials are determined by the Daily Wildcat opinions board and written by one of its members. They are Cody Calamaio, Justyn Dillingham, Taylor Kessinger, Heather Price-Wright, and Nickolas Seibel.