Jarvis heading for final roundup

Monday, July 12, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

When the University and Community College Regents meet Tuesday to choose an interim replacement for Richard Jarvis, the departing chancellor will be riding into the sunset -- literally as well as metaphorically.

The English-born administrator of Nevada's higher education system is a founding member of the Silver State Stampede Association and this week is joining the group on its second annual cattle drive, guiding a herd 80 miles to the Elko Rodeo.

Jarvis, who announced his resignation July 1 amid controversy over his performance, may be giving up his university job to move on to greener pastures on Aug. 31, but he isn't planning to give up his cattle drive.

Tuesday's meeting in Las Vegas originally was scheduled to evaluate Jarvis' job performance. And, he said in a wide-ranging interview last week, he didn't cancel the cattle drive for that. What's the distance between Nevada and his new job, likely in Denver, in comparison?

Tom Anderes, vice chancellor for finance and planning, is expected to be named interim chancellor Tuesday, a choice that pleases Jarvis. "Tom is an excellent man," Jarvis said. "He will do a fine job."

Anderes, if chosen for the interim job, will take over a higher education system that for the past six months has been in an uproar over equity in funding. Some critics say Southern Nevada institutions are short-changed in the formulas for state funding.

The Legislature this year increased the higher education budget by 15 percent in an effort to correct some of the funding problems, which are related to faster growth in the south, but it may be years before there is total equity that will satisfy all sides.

Jarvis found himself at the center of the storm over the issue stirred up by newly elected regents Steve Sisolak and Tom Kirkpatrick and veteran regent Mark Alden, who at a particularly rancorous meeting in February demanded the chancellor's resignation.

"Those things go with the job," Jarvis said, refusing to comment further on individual regents and their agendas. "I had a great time here. I love Nevada."

Jarvis said what has been overshadowed by the controversy is that the Legislature has funded a study that will create a new formula to be used to distribute funds.

A formula could be worked out by January or February, he said.

"One question we've been struggling with is there is no formula for technology," Jarvis said. "Technology is eating into every college's budget in the country."

Jarvis is not afraid of a struggle, but he perhaps saw a shift in the board's makeup as a sign it was time to leave.

"This is my fifth year here," he said. "I get nominated for a job a month. I saw the board wanted to go in a different direction, so I looked at the job offers differently."

He said he was hired in October 1994 to be a growth chancellor, a role most agree he fulfilled well.

"When I came on board, they wanted to rebuild the system. Now they want to change that role," said Jarvis, admitting he would like to have been part of the continued evolution of the higher education system here.

However, he thinks he accomplished his main goal -- making continuing education a major issue in this state.

Nevada consistently has ranked among the worst states in the nation for number of high school graduates who go on to college.

"In 1994 when I came here, the whole issue of college continuation rate was not discussed," Jarvis said.

In the early days of his tenure he routinely heard people asking if Nevadans needed or wanted an education.

"I don't hear that anymore," he said. "The most exciting thing for me is that our question now is how much can we handle?"

One of the signs that the state's attitude has turned around, Jarvis said, was Gov. Kenny Guinn's announcement of his Millennium Scholarship Program, which would provide every Nevada student who graduates with a B average or better a scholarship to a state university or community college.

The remaining challenge for the state's university system is to make UNLV a premier research institution. It will take strong leadership, he said.

"The reality of higher education today is that research is the gold standard. That's just the way it is," he said.

So to settle for anything less than a premier research institution would be a mistake.

"To try to compete in the standard disciplines would take a generation," he said. "We need to attract mid-career professors and at the same time bring in some giants."

Professors bring in research grants, which brings in more money to colleges and universities.

For an investment of $200,000 -- the cost of a nationally known research professor and his team of assistants -- the state may bring in $10 million in grants, he said.

It's doable, Jarvis said, pointing to the University of New Mexico, which gets about $200 million in research grants, twice as much as Nevada.

"We should do better in our grants and contracts," he said.

Jarvis said if the state develops a state college system, that will expedite the university's ability to focus on research.

The university also needs to take advantage of new computer technology that allows an institution to have a professor on staff who doesn't have to be physically present but can perform his role from anywhere in the world, Jarvis said.

It is that concept that attracted him to become the first chancellor of the United States Open University, affiliated with The Open University in the United Kingdom, which is considered the top distance education institution in the world with almost 200,000 students.

Distance education will play an important role in continuing education in this country, Jarvis said.

"By the year 2012, one in seven adults in the work force will be taking education courses -- that is 30 million people. (America's) built-in capacity is 14 million now, so we need new ways of dealing with adult learning," he said.

With Jarvis' experience in dealing with growth issues in Nevada, his choice as chancellor of the Open University was a natural one.

He said his goal for the new university is to enroll 2,000 students in the next year and then double or triple than number every year thereafter.

And he won't have to worry about equity funding.