Before Nevada board of regents recruits a new chancellor, the job needs redefining

Monday, Sept. 12, 2016 | 2 a.m.

The hunt will soon begin for a new chancellor to oversee the administration of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The post has been vacant since the resignation of Dan Klaich in May after he meddled with a consultant’s report to the Legislature by writing a portion of it himself. Klaich had overstepped his role as chief executive of the higher ed system.

It’s for that reason that, having formed a search committee to find the next chancellor, regents must define exactly what that job is. What sort of command and control should the next chancellor have over the office that helps manage UNLV, UNR, the Desert Research Institute, Nevada State College and the statewide community college network including the multi-campus College of Southern Nevada?

The past two chancellors — Klaich and, before him, Jim Rogers — exercised tremendous power, using their authority to restrain college leaders from speaking their minds and meeting directly with legislators to discuss campus funding needs and other issues.

In other words, Nevada’s was a tightly governed system of higher education, so much so that the chancellor could fire a university president with the additional vote of just the chairman of the board of regents. Working in such a system was frustratingly fraught with risk for top administrators who presumably were hired for their leadership, vision and academic accomplishments — no shrinking violets — and were suddenly being told to keep their yaps shut and defer to the chancellor in advocating for their campuses.

So before the search committee sends out feelers for a new chancellor, regents need to revisit the job description. A strong argument has been made by Robert Lang, of Brookings Mountain West, that regents restructure the organization chart so the chancellor and the institution presidents report, as equals, to the board. In this organization scheme, the chancellor would be viewed as a professional manager, overseeing what would amount to a support office to the colleges and universities, as opposed to a command headquarters. University presidents would report directly to regents. Other states have successfully done it this way.

Such a system within the ranks of higher education would echo what is being proposed and applauded within the Clark County School District — that each school principal be held responsible for his campus and answerable to the school board, with the district superintendent overseeing a central office handling such things as food services, bus transportation and human resources.

Why is it important that regents allow university presidents to run their campuses without the interference of an overlord? Simple. Each campus has its own personality, dynamics, culture, support community, constituents and goals. And presumably, regents hire the best possible presidents after search and recruiting processes that involve faculty, staff, student and community engagement.

Instead, Nevada has gotten entrenched in a strong-armed chancellor model that has caused at least one highly qualified candidate for UNLV president, with proven leadership skills and terrific track record, to keep his distance. How many others have been wary? It’s not like we’re a state with dozens of university and college campuses that might otherwise overwhelm regents. Our system is small and manageable, and should not be served by what is now a chancellor’s office bloated with staff.

This is the time to tailor the system to Nevada, and to better define our search — not for a chancellor, but for an executive director of the central office, who can help run things efficiently while allowing higher ed presidents to do the job they were hired to do.