In the coming months, Nevada’s higher-education system will undergo a major leadership change and will be subject to a statewide vote that, depending on the outcome, could lead to a massive restructuring of its framework.
It’s a time of great uncertainty for the state’s universities and colleges, in other words.
And that being the case, this is not a good time to be choosing UNLV’s next president. The state Board of Regents, which is conducting what appears to be a slow-moving search for the position, should temporarily halt it until late this year.
There are two reasons for this. One, Nevada Chancellor Thom Reilly plans to step down this summer after his three-year contract runs out and a successor has not been identified, meaning anyone applying for the UNLV job at the moment would not know who their boss would be.
Two, Nevadans will vote on a ballot question in November to decide whether to remove the regents from the state Constitution, which would clear up ambiguity about the extent of their authority and allow lawmakers to restructure the higher-ed system.
With these profound changes on the way, the regents should allow the sands to stop shifting before they go any farther with the search. They should wait until after the November election, when voters will decide whether they’re satisfied with how the current system works.
UNLV deserves a superstar of a leader to help it reach its potential, but the current environment simply isn’t conducive to attracting top talent.
To understand why, first consider that the current system is set up in a similar fashion to a public school district, with the regents serving as the school board, the chancellor as the superintendent, the Nevada System of Higher Education as the district’s administrative office and the university presidents as school principals.
Now, think about the search from the perspective of the type of applicant UNLV wants. You’re a high-achieving administrator who has a good job and plenty of prospects — would you roll the dice and apply not knowing the chancellor to whom you’d report? Or not knowing what might become of the regents who are hiring you?
Or would you wait for an opportunity to come along in another place where the ground wasn’t shifting so much?
Keep in mind that these applicants — being high-achieving academics who know how to do homework — will also know that years of mismanagement by NSHE and the regents have created a revolving door of leadership at UNLV to the tune of the university’s leadership having changed hands five times since the start of 2006.
That being the case, it would obviously make a world of difference to a candidate to know whether the current system will remain in place or be reconfigured.
Keep in mind that candidates face professional risk in seeking the position. There’s a potential their name could be leaked, and they’ll definitely be publicly identified if they became a finalist, meaning their current employer could know they were looking elsewhere and could take it as a sign of disloyalty.
With all of that being the case, it makes sense to pause the search until after the vote.
Granted, the uncertainty won’t vanish after the balloting, because there will still be questions over how lawmakers might restructure the system. Options go all the way from breaking it up in favor of establishing oversight boards for each individual institution, to keeping the framework essentially in place but reducing the size of the 13-member board and making some positions subject to appointment as opposed to all being elected.
But if the ballot measure passes, potential candidates would know that Nevada voters want the regents broken up and disempowered. It would be a clear sign that voters will have no more of the dysfunction that has created so much leadership turmoil at UNLV.
In turn, that would help UNLV draw the pool of highly qualified candidates it deserves in order to reach its vast potential.
The university is poised to do great things in the coming years. Among its major recent accomplishments, it attained elite R1 status as a research institution and reached an agreement with donors to build a $150 million-plus educational building that will allow the UNLV School of Medicine to more than double its current class size. And all this from a university that excels in its role as an affordable public university with the most diverse student body in the nation — a stepping stone for working class families to advance their children into the middle class and beyond.
But to keep moving forward, UNLV needs the best leader it can get. And conducting the search right now, with seismic changes possibly on the horizon, isn’t the best way to find that person. Instead, hitting the pause button until late this year is the right move.