UNLV president says she’s here to stay

Sunday, March 19, 2000 | 9:33 a.m.

About Carol Harter

Call UNLV President Carol Harter a role model for university administrators or call her an exacting and unyielding boss.

Either way, call her a Las Vegan. Harter says she is going to continue calling UNLV "home."

She's the kind of person people love or loathe. Her supporters are quick to applaud. Her critics are quick to castigate.

Harter's tenure has been marked by controversies over her reorganization of the UNLV administration, her penchant for job-shopping at other universities and the recent hiring of her husband by the state university system.

Her five-year evaluation is due later this month, and her contract expires in June 2001. But Harter says those who would send her packing before New Year's confetti flies for 2002 will have to wait.

"I think UNLV needs the continuity of leadership a president of more than five years provides," Harter said. "There is a lot going on here, and I need to see things through."

It looks like she'll be able to do that. Nevada's higher education officials have said they are pretty happy with Harter's first five years.

Besides, they are busy enough.

The state University and Community College System Board of Regents is looking for a chancellor for the system and a president for the Community College of Southern Nevada. And plans for a new college in Henderson are on the horizon. They don't need to add a search for a new UNLV president to the complicated mix.

And Harter's home life is settling out. Her husband is leaving his post as dean of California State University's college of Health and Human Services and moving to Las Vegas for job with the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Mike Harter's $120,000-a-year job starts July 10. He'll spend half of his time serving as associate dean for the University of Nevada School of Medicine. The other half he'll work as health education coordinator for the system. He'll live in Las Vegas but won't work directly for UNLV.

"Joy! Joy!" Harter recently said of her husband's pending move. "We're going to start over."

Right here.

Moving ahead

Harter considers her first five years a success. She says administrators have honed the school's mission, brought better accountability to the budgeting process, added a law school, tripled the number of teachers graduating each year, increased enrollment and increased the amount of money collected by the foundation.

UNLV has just over 22,000 students. School records show the number of new undergraduate students enrolling each fall has risen slightly from about 3,200 in 1993 to 3,600 in 1998. New graduate student enrollment has increased, rising from 462 new students in the fall of 1993 to 632 in 1998.

It's not exactly a huge increase in enrollment, but Harter says it's a good start. And it's an increase that has happened in spite of the university raising the minimum grade-point average required for application from 2.3 to 2.5, she added.

Harter says UNLV's continued success also shows in its six major building projects, including a library with 300,000 square feet and plans for a satellite campus in the Las Vegas Valley's northwest region.

Granted, money and plans for those projects were in the works when she arrived, but Harter says she has seen them through. And she's not resting on those laurels.

She plans to ask state lawmakers for $60 million to help pay for a $75 million science and technology center. She wants to attract high-tech and medical research programs, and she wants UNLV to one day have its own National Cancer Center.

Role models

Steve Sisolak, a member of the Board of Regents, says her vision is what UNLV needs.

"If we needed a president at another school, I'd go looking for another Carol Harter. I would use her as a role model," Sisolak said. "She's that good."

Harter is an unyielding advocate for UNLV, and she wants to change it for the better, he said. That kind of attitude can make some enemies, but Sisolak says Harter isn't the bully some make her out to be.

"I think she's got strong convictions when it comes to what's best for students and UNLV," Sisolak said. "She wants to make sure the university is treated fairly. She's a great advocate for UNLV."

There is no doubt UNLV is a different university than it was before Harter took over. The deans and most of the vice presidents have been replaced since she took the job in 1995.

Bill Robinson, a UNLV economics professor and outspoken Harter critic, says that doesn't reflect well on Harter's management style.

"All of the (old) administration is gone. They think anything that happened in the past here can't be good," said Robinson, who competed with Harter for the president's job and in 1997 wrote a scathing 145-page document he called "A Lack of Progress Report."

"This is not an administration that takes criticism. They put pressure on you," Robinson said. "Most of the critics are gone. Some are retired. Some just went away. Others like me are just waiting for her to go away."

State Sen. Dina Titus, a Las Vegas Democrat and UNLV political science professor, says such turnover is to be expected.

"The lifespan of a dean at any institution is three to five years. There's bound to be turnover, and I don't see that as unsettling," Titus said.

There have been some rough spots, Titus said. Harter wasn't the most politically savvy UNLV president to hit Carson City during the legislative session.

"Coming from an academic environment to Nevada, where politics is so much in your face, I think that was a tough transition for her," Titus said.

She said it was difficult for Harter to follow in the political footsteps of her two predecessors, Bob Maxson and Leonard Goodall.

"Anybody will pale in comparison to those two. They're master schmoozers," the senator said. "But I think she's gotten much better at it. She's made some good allies in the community."

The juggling act

Harter says when she enrolled in college, she figured she would become a professor. Becoming a university president wasn't even on the map.

"I never conceived of myself doing any of the jobs I do now," she said.

She certainly wasn't thinking about those jobs when she and her husband, Mike, dropped out of college after their sophomore year in order to marry. He went back to classes full time after staying out a semester. She stayed home and had the first of their two children.

It was a challenging existence, but Harter says she never gave up on getting an education.

"We were so poor. We didn't even have a TV," she said. "I went to the library once a week, took out seven books and read seven books. Then I'd go back the next week."

After staying out a year, Harter returned to college classes full time. She and her husband juggled child care, housekeeping, homework and plunged into the student loan abyss.

"We were still paying off our student loans when we were paying our oldest son's (college) tuition," Harter recalled. "When students come to me and say, 'I don't want to borrow so much money,' I can honestly say I understand."

The Harters perfected their juggling act while rounding out their family with a second child and pursuing master's and doctoral degrees. Harter earned her doctorate in English and settled into a professor's spot at Ohio University in Athens.

In the 19 years they were there, one of Harter's colleagues encouraged her to enter the administration's ranks. Within six years she was the top administrator for facilities planning and management, along with admissions, financial aid and residence halls.

It gave her the experience she needed to land the president's post at the State University of New York at Geneseo -- the job that eventually led her to UNLV.

Job shopping

However, some have wondered whether Harter truly wanted to stay here. In the past couple of years she has been courted by universities in Tennessee, Washington and Florida.

Harter says the separation from her husband was one of the major reasons she looked around. Living in the same town has been a priority for both of them, she said. But it had to be a town with a university where both could thrive professionally.

Harter says her husband isn't the only reason she weighed other options. She always considers opportunities when they are placed before her, and she makes no apologies for that.

At least one of the opportunities turned sour very quickly. In January Harter abruptly withdrew from the president's search at the University of South Florida in Tampa, calling the process too public.

It was revealed that during her interview Harter accused Nevada's regents of micromanaging. That obviously didn't sit well with the elected, unpaid regents. Public release of the comments didn't sit well with Harter.

"You've got to explore opportunities. Every professional has to do it. But very few people have to do it on the front page for 12 straight days," Harter said.

Titus says Harter's willingness to consider all options has been unsettling in a state that already has a handful of high-level openings to fill.

"We can't even find a (Clark County Schools) superintendent," Titus said. "I think that hurt her credibility when we need an advocate."

Focus and style

Few of Harter's critics are publicly vocal, but she says she knows she has made some enemies. Harter says the university didn't have a clear mission when she started, and instituting one aggravated a lot of the longtimers.

She says she encourages her deans to make their own decisions but demands they adhere to the university's ultimate direction and goals.

It's aggravating because the direction seems to keep changing, said Bill Thompson, chairman of the public administration department in UNLV's College of Urban Affairs.

"The mission isn't focused," Thompson said.

First, the school is going to be a community booster by graduating more teachers and opening a law school, he said. Now Harter is looking to freeze the number of teaching graduates and mold UNLV into a major research university, leaving the duty of training teachers to CCSN or the new Henderson school.

"We can't decide whether we're going to serve the valley or what," Thompson said.

He assailed Harter's repeated claims that she sees UCLA as a role model. If that's so, Thompson said, then there shouldn't have been any concern about Henderson opening a state undergraduate program. He says he can't see UCLA officials getting antsy about the opening of a state college in the San Fernando Valley.

There is no comparison or threat if your university is filling its shoes, Thompson added.

"If we had been serving adequately, in the public's perception, the needs of the Las Vegas Valley, we wouldn't need Henderson State," he said. "We would go out and start a general education center in Henderson."

He also criticized her reorganization of the university administration under the guise of focusing its mission and system. It has always been suspected, he said, that she intended to make a spot for her husband.

Harter admits her first couple of years on the job brought a fair number of resignations among her deans and vice presidents, but most left on their own.

"Some of the deans and vice presidents had different modes of managing that weren't very compatible," Harter said. "It was a new era and new expectations. And you have to make some of those changes to have a really effective (institution) change."

Harter says she was not pushing people out to make room for her husband. Mike Harter won't be working for UNLV, although some people still perceive it that way, she said.

Harter says she is cultivating a partnership with the dean of the University of Nevada, Reno, medical school -- her husband's new boss -- in hopes that it will help UNLV develop some research projects.

Harter hopes her critics are seeing that she is committed to the university and is making some strides. She remains mystified by the perception that she manages by fear.

"I've heard that, and I just don't think so," she said. "But sometimes the power of the position is something you don't experience personally."

Juanita Fain, UNLV vice president of administration and one of Harter's colleagues from her days at Ohio University, has known Harter for 20 years. She says Harter is honest with people, and some find that disarming.

"You know where you stand with her. If there are some concerns she has, she'll let you know," Fain said. "She's a hard worker, and she has high expectations. Some people might interpret that as overbearing.

"She wants to hear a different point of view, but she'll challenge you," Fain said. "You need to make sure you have your act together and know what you're talking about."

Rachel Land, a UNLV student and editor of the Rebel Yell student newspaper, said Harter has become more accessible to students in the past year. But Harter reacts best when she knows what questions are coming, Land said. She doesn't respond well when put on the spot in person.

"She has made strides this semester," Land said. "She's far more responsive than she used to be. She's pretty good about calling us back in 24 to 48 hours."

Harter says she encourages faculty members and students to speak their minds when they are with her. She says she considers such discussions to be on a level playing field.

"If there's an argument, I don't hold that against you. But I have heard in these settings that it's intimidating," she said. "I don't like intimidating people. I want to be respected, and I want my position to have the right to be heard, too."

Susan Snyder is a staff writer for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-4082 or by e-mail at snyder@lasvegassun.com.

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