Wednesday, May 17, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.
Regents think they run the higher education system in Nevada.
Their failed attempt to recruit West Point Lt. Gen. William Lennox as president of UNLV suggests otherwise.
Lennox's decision to withdraw his candidacy Saturday, on the brink of a formal job offer, illustrates a reality in higher education politics: Regents may hold the public power in hiring a president, but they need the faculty's backing to make it happen.
The lesson learned over the past week, says Brian Spangelo, vice chairman of UNLV's Faculty Senate, is that professors' opinions are not to be dismissed in matters as important as selecting a president.
"We all need to work together to make this a much better system, and it will happen sooner if we are all working together for a vision," he said.
Faculty support is as crucial to launching a successful presidency as is support from the regents and the chancellor, search consultants and higher education officials across the country agreed this week.
"If any one of those three is missing, it could be problematic," said Alberto Pimentel, vice president for AT Kearney, the consulting firm that successfully recruited UNR's new president. "Some (candidates) take the job anyway, but to do so is to fight an uphill battle Your honeymoon period is gone."
Jamie Ferrare, the consultant behind the search for UNLV's next president, also agreed that it was fundamentally important to have faculty on board with a decision that will define the university's mission.
"You want as much of a groundswell (of support) as you can get," Ferrare said.
The six regents on the search committee voted unanimously last week to recommend Lennox for the job, knowing that faculty, students and staff overwhelmingly preferred either of Lennox's competitors. Four of those six regents now say they believe it was that lack of faculty confidence that led Lennox to pull out.
A survey of 24 members of the Faculty Senate, conducted by UNLV's human resources department, showed that 16 did not want Lennox as president. Professors strongly preferred Marvin Krislov, vice president and general counsel for the University of Michigan, or David Ashley, provost of the University of California, Merced.
During the search process, professors, students, staff and community members on the advisory committee worried whether Lennox was the right fit for the job.
They didn't question his leadership skills or character, but whether his West Point experience was appropriate for UNLV. While he was the only sitting president among the final three candidates, he had no record of improving academic standards, promoting research or working with graduate programs.
Regents, on the other hand, were impressed with the general's West Point connections. They heralded his academic wherewithal (including a doctorate in literature from Princeton) and his managerial and political skills. They would be needed, regents said, to win the respect of state lawmakers and donors to bring more money to UNLV.
After Lennox won the endorsement of the search committee, faculty leaders said they would support the West Point superintendent.
It is unclear what if anything Lennox heard from faculty, students or community members in the three days between his selection by the six regents on Wednesday and his phone calls to Chancellor Jim Rogers and Regent Steve Sisolak on Saturday morning.
At the meeting Wednesday afternoon, members of the advisory committee vocally criticized Lennox, with hotel professor David Corsun announcing that Lennox was the one candidate faculty would not support. On Thursday, grumblings about Lennox and the search process overshadowed a party honoring outgoing President Carol Harter.
Media coverage focused more on the dissident voices than those saying they would "rally behind" Lennox, Sisolak said. "The dissidents get the attention, that is the sad thing about it, and if there was an orchestrated effort to send phone calls or e-mails, that's a bigger problem."
Lennox told Rogers and Sisolak on Saturday that he was pulling out because he and his wife decided he was not a "good fit" for the position. He did not elaborate at the time, and declined interviews this week.
The job is now likely to go to one of the two candidates preferred by the faculty, an irony not lost on Sisolak.
He said he was disappointed by the negative comments made against the general at the search committee meeting and to the press, which he believed were made to "intentionally undermine the candidate."
"These people want the institution to move forward, they want it to improve, but they want it done their way," he said.
Regents and professors say the conflict illustrates the differences in their visions for the university.
"Faculty always think that we know what is best for the university, and sometimes it is hard for us to look at things through other people's eyes," Faculty Senate Chairman Bill Robinson said.
Regents typically focus on a president's skills as administrator and fundraiser, while professors seek presidents who promote academics and research.
That divide is growing at universities nationwide, as trustees introduce business models to higher education that professors resist, said Martin Snyder, a former college president and director of external relations for the American Association of University Professors.
The divide is aggravated when professors, as in the case of UNLV, don't believe their concerns are heard.
"Universities exist under a system that we call shared governance, and shared means shared," said William G. Tierney, director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California. "What it takes is trustees and faculty to have a shared sense, not just shared governance but a shared vision of what the university can become and what the groups' roles are in what's happening."
But before a candidate can win political support off campus, he has to have professors' support on campus.
Without it, Snyder said, "it is not going to work well."
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