Nichols faces tough questions in interview for chancellor job

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000 | 10:47 a.m.

Interim Chancellor Jane Nichols faced down difficult questions as the first semi-finalist to interview Wednesday for the permanent post as chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada.

The other four candidates will interview with the search committee Saturday.

A sixth candidate, Lindsay Ann Desrochers, senior vice chancellor for capital resources at the University System of Georgia, has removed herself from the list. She accepted a job as vice chancellor of administration for a state college in Merced, Calif.

Nichols interviewed three days ahead of the pack in order to attend a family wedding on Saturday.

Regent Mark Alden asked Nichols if she could be a modern-day Margaret Thatcher with velvet gloves, but also have the courage to draw a line in the sand.

Regent Howard Rosenberg wanted Nichols to describe her style. "Where do you fall between Attila the Hun and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm?" he asked.

And Regent Douglas Seastrand asked, "What is the biggest challenge facing us, and how do you propose to solve it?"

"We're going to have to deliver on our promises," Nichols said. "We have promised the state of Nevada, if you give us the students and the resources through the Millennium Scholarship, then we will educate the citizens of Nevada. We will give them an excellent education. That will be the challenge."

The Millennium Scholarship, funded through a portion of Nevada's tobacco settlement, will provide $7.5 million to high school students heading to college this fall. It is expected to pump as much as $25 million into higher education in future years.

Meeting that challenge will require new ways of leading, Nichols said.

"We have to have business partners," she said. "We have to have local community partners. And we have to have new ways of doing things.

"I'm not interested in replicating what someone else has done. ... We are young enough in the development of our system that we can do things differently."

Nichols, who came to Nevada in 1983 as a social worker and served in senior administrative positions in the state university system through the 1990s, said, "I want to create an environment in Nevada where higher education is the business of the state. Where the state sees higher education as the pathway to a better quality of life."

On Saturday the search committee will interview Richard R. Rush, president of Minnesota State University at Mankato; Owen F. Cargol, president of the University of Maine at Augusta; William Fulkerson, who recently retired as president of the state college system in Colorado; and Robert Tad Perry, executive director of the South Dakota Board of Regents.

Regent Jill Derby said the committee hopes to narrow the pool to "not more than three" applicants through the interview process. The committee plans to present a single nominee to the full Board of Regents in September.