Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers sent a scathing memo to the state higher education system's Board of Regents Tuesday evening informing the board that the system is dysfunctional and inefficient and that board divisiveness was largely to blame.
Rogers suggests in the memo that higher education in Nevada might be better off if the state Legislature reduced the elected 13-member board to an appointed, seven-member team. He also advocates for more private funding, tighter controls on institutional presidents and more authority for the chancellor's position.
Rogers, whom regents appointed as interim chancellor in May, says in the memo that "the rapid growth of the system has made it very difficult for a group this large and unsophisticated in corporate governance to know what is going on in its own back yard."
Roger also notes there are several board members "whose personal hatred and animosity toward each other has resulted in crippling the board."
"Different points of view are good and productive, but when votes line up based upon who dislikes whom, everyone loses," the chancellor says in the memo. "The board must develop a method of dealing with its own members who injure the natural and productive flow of business.
"If you cannot cure your own ills, it is my guess the Nevada State Legislature will do it for you," Rogers tells regents in the memo. "But in the meantime, the system loses." "
Rogers said he sent out the memo at this time because he wants regents to be able to deal with their problems and help the University and Community College System of Nevada move forward.
"I'm just throwing these things out there because I think they need to be discussed," Rogers said. "I think these are issues that need to be brought up by someone that is involved in the day to day of the operation."
Rogers denied that his memo advocated an appointed seven-member board during an interview Tuesday night, but he did say that something had to be done to fix the "unwieldy" board.
Regent Bret Whipple said Rogers' suggestion is beyond the control of even the elected regents. The state's constitution mandates that at least three of the regents be elected by voters, so it would take a constitutional amendment to establish a fully appointed board, Whipple said.
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani introduced a bill in the last Legislature that would have changed the board to include three elected and six appointed members. The bill must pass one more time and appear on a ballot before it can become law.
In the interview and in the memo, Rogers stressed the need for the University and Community College System of Nevada to win back the trust of the public and the business community, "which will not invest in inefficient programs."
Rogers cites the University of Arizona, his alma mater, as an institution that does a good job of bringing in non-state funds. Less than 30 percent of the university's funding comes from the state, Rogers said.
He said private business is willing to invest in Arizona because the seven-member Board of Regents works closely together, the two main universities are competitive without being destructive of each other, and that the leadership, faculty and staff of the universities understand the need for efficiency and accountability.
These are all lessons Rogers said Nevada's institutions need to learn if they are to "join and then compete among the world-class university and college systems of the United States."
In his call for more private funding, Rogers also asks regents to support a new capital campaign at the University and Nevada, Las Vegas and a campaign planned at the University of Nevada, Reno, even though Rogers recently pulled a $25 million pledge he had considered giving to kick off the $500 million campaign at UNLV.
Rogers said his decision to not do the $25 million pledge should not reflect badly on him or the system, because he has already made $34 million in investments in the state's institutions.
"I do all of these things and everyone beats me over the head for not completing a pledge that had 15,000 conditions to it," Rogers said.
Finally, Rogers asks regents to review system policy to give the chancellor position more authority to "run the system" and to ensure better oversight of the system's presidents.
Rogers stressed that the current presidents are "people of good faith and good intentions," but that their employment contracts have no performance requirements and there is no policies in place to make sure they are in line with system priorities.
"The presidents do what they please," Rogers says in the memo. "Fortunately, in most instances this has been good. Each president, however, knows the power and authority of the board is so widespread that the board has little ability to discover what is being done and even less ability to stop it."
Rogers had similarly called for an end to competition between the two universities and for better system planning in a memo he sent out Friday to regents.
Rogers tempered his memo in an interview Tuesday night, when he listed many of the state's fine academic offerings, specifically the graduate programs in medicine, dental medicine and law.
"There are a lot of fine colleges in the whole system, there really are, but in the end we need to get better because there are a lot of universities out there getting better," Rogers said.
"If I thought they (the problems) weren't solvable I wouldn't go to work tomorrow morning," Rogers continued. "I believe in the system."
Board of Regents members had varying reactions the memo, which many had not had a chance to read.
Regent Mark Alden said he agreed with everything the chancellor says in the memo, including the need to change the structure of the board.
As the senior regent in Southern Nevada, Alden said he would be the first person to resign if the Legislature decided to change the board.
"It's so dysfunctional," Alden said of the board. "We're the only regents in the country that operate this way."
Whipple said he likes Rogers and appreciates his fresh perspective and bluntness, but that in the memo he had stepped over the line.
"Mr. Rogers is the chancellor, he is not an elected official," Whipple said. "And he needs to recognize that the board is accountable to the public, not him.
"We've worked with him and essentially given him everything he asked for and now he wants to overhaul the Board of Regents that hired him," Whipple said, asking, "How much power does one person need?"
Regent Tom Kirkpatrick was upset by what he said were inaccuracies in the memo.
"I'm a little disturbed," Kirkpatrick said. "He's trying to make policy, and that's not his job. If he wants to bring something before the board, for the board to adopt a policy, then he should get data together and present it in a manner better than this.
"I really think this is shooting from the hip," Kirkpatrick said.
Regent Jill Derby, vice chairwoman of the board, said many of efficiencies Rogers wants to put in place would not work with the academic shared-governance practiced in Nevada and by higher education systems across the nation.
"I think some of it represents the frustrations of a CEO coming in from a private corporation," Derby said.
Derby said the regents can be contentious, but any public board can be.
"Sometimes it is messy and quarrelsome, and democracy is like that," Derby said.
Some regents already upset with the chancellor's proposed policies have questioned whether it is time to start the search for a permanent replacement. Regent Howard Rosenberg said Monday that he plans to add the issue to the October agenda.
Other regents, however, have said they think Rogers needs to stay chancellor at least through the 2005 Legislature.
"I don't know if that would be a wise thing to do to change quarterbacks going into the championship game," Sisolak said.
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