Regents make Nichols’ job permanent as chancellor

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Sept. 11, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

Jane Adam Lamb Nichols became the first female chancellor in the history of Nevada higher education, receiving the official nod from the full Board of Regents.

The regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada also on Friday approved a three-year, $5 million plan to establish a school of pharmacy to be run jointly by UNR and UNLV. Classes for the program, which will offer doctoral degrees, are expected to begin in fall 2003. Funding must still be obtained from the Legislature.

Nevada is the only Western state that does not have such a school.

Regents also approved a bachelor of arts degree program in Afro-American studies at UNLV.

Nichols will get a salary of $195,000 per year in the three-year contract. She also will receive two annual housing allowances of $12,000, a hosting allowance of $10,000 and an automobile allowance of $6,000. Nichols is guaranteed tenure in her field of social work at any school within the system following her term as chancellor.

The unanimous vote came after an eight-month search. Nichols was picked from an initial field of 44 candidates.

Nichols served as interim chancellor for two months before her appointment as chancellor. Before that, she served three years as vice chancellor for academic and student affairs.

Of her immediate goals, Nichols said, "I plan to meet with the governor and the Legislature to communicate the needs of higher education and to strategize on ways we might work well together to meet the system's needs in a time of limited resources."

Regent Douglas Hill also requested Friday that Nichols begin conversations with the Nevada Division of Investigation regarding the release of a report on a March 9 dormitory drug raid by UNLV Police.

An attorney for the school system has refused to make the controversial report public, calling it a personnel issue.

Nichols said she will ask the state Division of Investigation to rewrite the report without any information that would compromise specific individuals.

"We have no desire to hide any of the findings, and we are not trying to protect any administration or institutional action," Nichols said. "The public has a right to know."