Monday, Sept. 23, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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For five years in the early 1970s, I worked in the president’s office at UNLV, four years with Don Baepler and one year with Brock Dixon. Members of the Nevada Board of Regents made frequent calls to the office — nothing unusual there. They offer advice. They question policy. They call about students.
During the 2017 and 2019 legislative sessions, legislators passed a resolution (AJR 5 in 2017) that would take management and control of higher education in Nevada away from the regents and give it to the legislators — all 63 of them! This is madness. I was an assemblyman in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Legislators have enough to do without harassing the NSHE presidents. And, as was seen recently, the presidents have enough to do dealing with 13 regents — they do not need 63 more managers.
If legislators are interested in improving management of higher education, they can specify the qualifications to be a regent.
To become law the proposed change has to be approved by a vote of the people in 2020. The authors of the Nevada Constitution had the good sense to separate the powers granted to legislators from the powers granted to regents. Let’s keep it that way. Everyone should vote against this misguided change.
