Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Recommendation expected in search for new Nevada chancellor

The four finalists for chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education were asked about how they would improve racial equality in higher education, school funding plans, working with state legislators and more during video forums ahead of an expected recommendation Wednesday by the search committee. 

The finalists will be interviewed Wednesday by the Board of Regents, who on Thursday will consider action on the committee’s recommendation.

Chancellor Thom Reilly was set to leave the position but agreed to stay through December because of the pandemic. Once the new hire is on board, Reilly will move into an advisory role.

Here’s a look at each finalist:

Anthony E. Munroe

Munroe is president of Essex County College in New Jersey, a federally designated predominantly black institution.

Munroe has also served as president of Malcolm X College in Chicago, where a $251 million academic complex for science, engineering, math and technology, health sciences and liberal arts was constructed in his tenure.

Munroe has a bachelor’s degree from Regents College, a master’s degree in public health specializing in health policy and management from Columbia University, an MBA from Northwestern University and a doctorate in education with a concentration in health education from Columbia University. His family hails from Jamaica.

“I’m one generation away from being DACA, Dreamer, undocumented or an international student,” he said.

Melody Rose

Rose, the owner and principal of Rose Strategies, a consulting firm for universities, worked in the Oregon University System for 19 years, ultimately serving as chancellor.

Her tenure as chancellor in Oregon coincided with two legislative sessions. She is credited with keeping tuition down, securing further funding for the system’s seven public universities and “supported reorganizations” at the system’s rural campuses.

Rose then took over as president of Marylhurst University, which closed in 2018. Rose said she recommended the school close its doors while it still had resources to transition students out, clear debts and provide employee severance.

Rose received a bachelor’s degree in politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and master’s degrees in both public administration and government and a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

Arthur Ellis

Ellis most recently served as vice president for research and graduate studies at University of California’s office of the president, a position from which he retired in 2019. Immediately prior, he served as a provost and chair professor of chemistry at the City University of Hong Kong, where he helped develop Hong Kong’s first veterinary school.

Ellis touted his work at the University of California on facilitating knowledge transfer between communities, promoting diversity and advocating for public policy recommendations.

Ellis worked in various positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1977 to 1993, mainly in the chemistry department. He’s also served as the director of the division of chemistry at the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Ellis received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Richard Larson

Larson is the executive vice chancellor and the vice chancellor for research at the University of New Mexico.

In this position, he touts his work expanding extramural funding — funding from outside of the university — to $200 million and his work with the state legislature on establishing a process to track the health care workforce and linking education funding considerations to potentially filling workforce shortages.

“I see the potential, and I have the experience of operating in the same sort of environment as Nevada successfully,” Larson said.

Larson is also president and chair of the New Mexico Bioscience Authority, a public-private partnership tasked with developing a biotechnology sector in New Mexico.  He is the co-founder of Cancer Services of New Mexico, a nonprofit serving cancer patients.

Larson received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a doctorate in immunology and a doctorate in medicine at Harvard University.