The $1.47 million mansion the North Dakota State University Development Foundation built for the school's president, Joseph Chapman, stands so far outside the values of people of the state it will become a grandiose symbol of excess and arrogance. And that it came in 60 percent over the $900,000 authorized by the Legislature clearly reveals the dysfunctional relationship between the university, chancellor's office and lawmakers.

After the fact, NDSU officials and the university's foundation expect the board of higher education, which meets today, and Legislature's Budget Section to rubber stamp the misguided and excessive spending because the house is up and Chapman has moved in. What can lawmakers or the board of higher education do? Turn Chapman out? Stiff building suppliers and contractors?

Despite no tax dollars being used in building the home, the unauthorized spending makes a mockery of legislative authority. It props up the president of NDSU in a lavish way that does not set well with average North Dakotans, a goodly number of whom graduated from NDSU.

It makes one think people at NDSU, at least those from North Dakota, have forgotten where they came from -- farms, ranches and small towns across the northern prairie. The word pretentious seems to fit the situation.

A new home has been built for the president of the University of North Dakota. It's being done within its authorized limits. What does that tell us?

The board of higher education needs to find a way to do more than slap NDSU on the wrist. If it doesn't lawmakers should be deeply disappointed and furious. There would then need to be a personal accounting by those involved in positions of authority, keeping in mind whatever recourse lawmakers take it ought not punish students or taxpayers.

NDSU does such great work in the classroom and lab. Its student body continues to grow. Research, the resulting knowledge and its commercial spin off are hugely important to the state's future. But none of that's predicated on what's happened with the university president's home. Nor will that home buy more of the same.

The university works, like the Legislature, for the people. And the people express themselves through the Legislature. If the colleges and universities circumvent the Legislature, they are in reality circumventing the will of the people and taxpayers of North Dakota.

Many North Dakota students and their families are put into financial stress in order for them to attend the university. The stories of student college loan debt are disconcerting. Then to see this kind of spending by the university officials makes a person question their ability to follow the Legislature's instructions.

No doubt President Chapman, before the next legislative session, will invite members of the board of higher education and legislators to his home for a reception with finger food and drinks. Maybe he'll convince them the $1.4 million was worth it. Good luck, but the majority of North Dakotans will never be convinced.