Utah’s State Board of Regents for Higher Education seems to have scored something of coup in hiring Dr. Terrell H. Bell as this state’s commissioner of higher education. Dr. Bell is United States Commissioner of Education, having held the nation’s top school post since June 1974. Before that, from September 1971, was superintendent of the Granite School District. He served as Utah superintendent of public instruction from 1963 until his appointment for an earlier tenure with the U.S. Office of Education in April 1970. Ordinarily you’d consider the job of U.S. commissioner of education as the top educational post in the land. This doesn’t hold true salary-wise. Dr. Bell gets $37,500, it is reported, in his national post. He’ll return to Utah at a figure something like $48,600, and with tenure will probably move into the $50,000 bracket eventually. Even at that figure his salary would not top that of at least one college president. The Utah commissioner of higher education is responsible to t.lie board of regents for operation of nine institutions – University of Utah, USU, Weber College, Southern Utah State College, the Snow, Carbon and Dixie Junior Colleges, and the Utah Technical Colleges at Provo and Salt lake City, the latter two in cooperation of the State Board of Education. The new appointee will succeed Dr. Homer Durham, Utah’s first commissioner of higher education – but can’t be available until Aug. 1. Dr. Durham had wished to resign as of June 30. Already the new commissioner has identified his two greatest challenges as earning the trust and support of the presidents of the various colleges and universities and of the legislature. . . He’s an old hand at solving educational problems – and the experience he has had at the national level should be an added asset in his performance.