The new council, which is about to take control of Papua New Guinea's troubled University of Technology in Lae, will immediately be confronted by major financial issues.
The council, being sworn in in Port Moresby today, will be set up after the government removed its predecessor because of months of managerial squabbling.
Earlier this year, students staged a successful protest after the previous council had tried to remove the vice chancellor just weeks after his appointment.
But our correspondent in Lae, Oseah Philemon, says the problems at the university run much deeper, with many of its facilities run down.
He says it needs a major funding injection.
"One of the things that the council will have to look at is the budget, the funding of infrastructure. They have introduced post graduate programmes, but those programmes I understand are not really up and running properly because of funding problems. So they have very serious funding problems."
