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This file photo shows a view of the UNLV campus.
Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019 | 2 a.m.
It’s been about a year and a half since then-UNLV President Len Jessup announced his resignation, and the university still does not have a permanent replacement for the position.
While Marta Meana has served as acting president since July 2018, the Nevada System of Higher Education has created a search committee of members of the Board of Regents, combined with an advisory committee of community members, to find the next president of the university. A national search firm also has been employed to assist in attracting candidates.
The system for filling a presidential vacancy is governed by NSHE code and has been dealt with in the same manner in the past, said NSHE spokesman Francis McCabe. Costs for a presidential search are incurred by the institution with the vacancy.
“This procedure has been done this way for presidential searches across NSHE,” McCabe said. “UNLV’s last presidential search was also conducted this way.”
So how will this search work? Let’s break it down.
The group is expansive
The committees together make up a large group, with members pulled from throughout the university community and community at-large.
The advisory committee is made up of 29 members, while the regents’ committee is made up of six of its members: Sam Lieberman, Amy Carvalho, Trevor Hayes, Cathy McAdoo, Laura Perkins and Rick Trachok.
The second committee includes multiple community leaders and stakeholders, as well as local politicians like state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, and Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft.
Naft stressed it was important to give a varied range of community members a voice because of the importance of UNLV in the community.
“UNLV is and should be the flagship for Southern Nevada, particularly in academia. I think the more we can have a hand-in-glove relationship with the university the better it will be for everyone who lives here and everyone who is potentially looking for a job here,” Naft said.
The committees have met once, in September, to determine guidelines and now will essentially wait until finalists are presented.
The NSHE code requires the search committees to include five faculty members, up to three administrators, one classified employee, one undergraduate student representative and one graduate student representative and one alumnus. The employees and students are nominated by the relevant bodies — for example, faculty members are nominated by the faculty senate.
Lieberman, who is chairing the regents’ search committee, said the advisory members give integral, community-based advice.
“Their voice, as always in these searches, is vital to the process,” he said.
UNLV’s faculty senate debated a proposal in September that would have recommended postponing the presidential search by three years until after a voter referendum on changes to the regents’ governance was decided. The faculty body ultimately voted against the measure, leaving the regents on the prescribed course.
Lieberman said he was encouraging sharing opinions, including public comment. “I really think people do care, people are engaged and their opinions are vital,” he said.
Peter Guzman, the president and CEO of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, sits on the advisory committee. He said that one of his main concerns going into the process was that candidates be skilled at working in a diverse community like UNLV.
“I would be definitely looking for somebody who looks like the makeup of the students at UNLV or has worked at a university (that) has a tremendous amount of diversity like we do,” Guzman said.
Naft said he hoped to see a successful candidate who would consider UNLV a long-term home.
“They say the average for a university president is three years. I’d like to see someone who would really be willing to invest in our community,” he said. “I think it takes the first year just to know who the leaders on campus are, to tour the campus and to meet with all the donors of the university.”
Lieberman said he hoped to begin candidate interviews in March or April, with a selection made by the end of April.
Search firm employed
Wheless Partners, a national executive search firm with offices in cities including New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis, was hired to advertise and bring in potential candidates, McCabe said. The firm, which previously led the search for the president of the College of Southern Nevada, submitted proposals to the regents and signed a contract in June.
Under its contract with NSHE, Wheless will be paid $100,000 in three installments for its work. Direct expenses — such as travel or interviewing costs — are estimated by Wheless to cost around $20,000.
Wheless touts its selectivity in the search process, stating in its bid that it will not represent more than 3% of institutions in higher education in order to avoid having too many relationships that could affect its search processes.
The firm and NSHE Chancellor Thom Reilly will review the list of candidates and narrow the selection to a list of semifinalists.
The chancellor and the search firm then will interview the semifinalists and further narrow the list to three to five finalists, who will then be invited to campus for “tours, meetings and interviews” with the search committee members and others, McCabe said.
Lieberman said he wanted candidates to be “dynamic enough to help them reach our goals and … academic enough to work with all the different parts of the campus community.”
McCabe said applicants through the semifinalist stage would be known only to Wheless Partners and Reilly.
“Once the finalists are chosen, the process becomes public as the finalists are invited to campus for tours, meetings and interviews with the search committee and various university and community stakeholders and leaders,” McCabe said.
Lieberman said he didn’t have any concerns that the public portion of the UNLV process would keep potential leaders from applying for the job, for fear of retribution from their current employers.
“I think that if you take candidates who visit campus into the classroom and see how students interact with faculty — and you watch how the community is thriving in so many ways and growing — I think there will be a number of talented people that will want to be part of that process,” he said.
Lieberman said there had been no hurdles in the process thus far.
“I can’t tell you there isn’t going to be issues that come up, but I can tell you we’re very pleased with the way people are communicating now, and it seems like the process is working,” he said.
Wheless Partners did not respond to a request for comment.
