National search planned for chancellor

Jace Radke and Ed Koch

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2000 | 9:43 a.m.

The search for a new chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada will be national in scope, with September the target month for the new administrator to take over.

UNLV President Carol Harter said Wednesday that, despite the cost, to get the best applicants a national search is necessary.

"It is so important that we get a really top-notch chancellor, and I think we have to look at a national pool of candidates," Harter said at a meeting of the Board of Regents' five-member search committee.

The committee, meeting for the first time, decided that a national search firm would be used, probably at a cost of around $70,000 to $100,000.

"A search firm can help us by narrowing the candidates and pulling those that shouldn't be there," Harter said.

Which search firm to use and what qualifications the leader for the fastest-growing higher education system in the country should have are questions that the group is hoping to come up with at its meeting tentatively scheduled for early March.

Regent Thalia Dondero, the search committee chairwoman, said a person who can work well with many other people and entities is essential for the post.

"My expectations are that the new chancellor can step into a role of dealing with the Legislature and the governor and also be able to work well with the Board of Regents, (college and university) presidents and faculty," she said.

"We need someone who can bring all of those groups together."

Great Basin College President Ron Remington feels that applicants should be made aware of what he sees as great educational opportunities in Nevada.

"I've been here 27 years, and Nevada offers some very unique opportunities in higher education," Remington said. "Across the country higher education is facing cutbacks, but in Nevada we're growing.

"The medical school, the baccalaureate programs at smaller colleges like Great Basin and the chance to be involved with a new college in Henderson should all be highlighted to applicants," Remington added.

The committee is conducting its search in the wake of acting Chancellor Tom Anderes' decision to withdraw his name from consideration for the permanent job.

Anderes, 49, said the job just did not fit him. He has been filling in since the resignation of Richard Jarvis on Aug. 31.

"I don't think I would be the right person for the job," Anderes told the Sun when he announced he would not seek the chancellor's job late last month.

"They (the regents) need a fresh perspective ... somebody they can rally around, and I don't think that is me. I think I have been doing an all-right job, (but) there may be a better opportunity for them (the regents) to come together" with a new person from outside.

Anderes will return to his post as vice chancellor for finance and planning -- a job he has held since 1994 -- when a new chancellor is hired.