Harter gets mostly good grades from respondents to survey

Jennifer Knight

Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.

Few UNLV faculty members responded to an invitation to evaluate their leader, university president Carol Harter, but of those who did participate in a campus-wide survey had mixed reviews.

"I think it is a positive evaluation," said John Readence, faculty senate chair at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "That's not to say there's not room for improvement, but there are not so many negative things in there that we would start a march to remove the president. I don't think there is any move for that."

Members of UNLV's faculty senate were presented Tuesday with the results of the faculty survey on Harter's performance. Only 22 percent of the 1,508 faculty and staff members responded, said Readence, who called the turnout disappointing.

Overall, 75 percent of those who responded said Harter had a clear mission for the university. The majority of those responding also said Harter has promoted UNLV as a quality institution and is good at fund-raising and representing the community.

But a dismal 26 percent agreed that Harter had provided a responsive accountable administrative infrastructure.

"I think that there's always a perception that is raised about how merit pay is distributed, how resources are distributed and how access is distributed to the president's ear," said Regent Steve Sisolak. "I think that any of that can be true with any president when I get feedback. I don't think that is exclusive to President Harter or UNLV."

Harter makes $209,960 a year plus another $31,000 a year in additional benefits.

As part of the evaluation process, the Board of Regents has asked for input on her performance from civic leaders, students, staff and administration. The only part of her performance made public, however, was the faculty survey.

Bill Robinson, who sat on the faculty senate's presidential evaluation committee, described the results as an accurate depiction of Harter's strengths and weaknesses.

"It's an accurate story," Robinson said. "It's not a simple story."

But Robinson and others had a problem with the way the survey was handled. All results were sent directly to UNLV's Cannon Center for Survey Research and tabulated, but as part of a previous agreement only Harter received the open-ended comments.

Harter was unable to be reached for comment due to minor surgery.

Readence said the process of Harter being the only one to see the written comments has been a practice since 2000.

Harter's official review will be handled at a board meeting in December.