Regents propose changes in evaluations

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Members of the public could soon get an inside look at the jobs their university and community college presidents are doing.

The University and Community College System of Nevada Board of Regents has the new policy proposal on its Aug. 19-20 agenda.

The policy would streamline the burdensome evaluation process by handing off the work now done by a regents' committee to an outside peer consultant and by releasing the final report to the public, board Chairman Stavros Anthony said.

"Right now we put a committee together of regents and community members and others and have closed-door sessions discussing the president," Anthony said. "It seems like we should really have somebody from the outside that comes and does an evaluation of the president and presents it to everybody in the open.

"These are public employees, and it's good to have a discussion in public on whether they are meeting the objectives of the board and the community and meeting their mission."

If the policy is approved, members of the public will also be able to provide more feedback on how they view a president's job performance by sending written, signed evaluations to the outside consultant. The consultant will also take over the committee's former job of interviewing all interested parties -- including regents, faculty, staff, students, alumni, foundation and community members, in preparing the written evaluation. The same process would be used to evaluate the system chancellor.

As before, all decisions related to the evaluations, such as contract renewals or raises, will be voted on in a public meeting of the Board of Regents.

Former Chancellor Jane Nichols began drafting the policy in March, primarily in response to the Nevada attorney general's opinion that regents violated the state's open-meeting law during a closed personnel meeting in November.

Although the proposal calls for the final evaluation report to be made public, regents will have to decide whether their one-on-one meeting with the executive officer in question will be open or closed, Assistant Chancellor Trudy Larson said.

Regents typically cite privacy concerns in closing the evaluation sessions or claim that opening up personnel sessions will stifle discussion because some regents would be hesitant to criticize a president in public.

It's a decision, however, that may be made for them by open-meeting law legislation being drafted for the 2005 Legislature.

Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, wants to prohibit public governing bodies from holding closed sessions to evaluate employees they appointed, especially in the case of university presidents who he says should have no expectation of privacy in their position.

"There's this knee-jerk reaction that if you have a hearing with a personnel matter that you go into a closed session," Care said. "To me you should have to make some sort of case that public disclosure would indicate public harm."

The regents are split over whether opening the personnel sessions are a good idea, but those who could be reached Monday said they did see a need to improve the often time-consuming and inefficient evaluation process.

"We have to do something to expedite things," Regent Steve Sisolak said, who is in favor of opening the sessions.

Regents in favor of the proposal also believe that an outside consultant will be able to write a more accurate, objective and honest evaluation of a president or the chancellor than the current committee is able to do.

"I don't think the committees were that effective," said Vice Chairwoman Jill Derby, who believes the sessions should stay closed.

"I think when individuals are speaking to one person, who is a professional, they are more forthright than speaking to a committee of four to five individuals," Derby continued. "It's important that people are able to be frank so we get feedback to improve the leadership."

Consultants will typically be retired professionals who have had previous success in a position similar to that of the administrator they are asked to evaluate, said Suzanne Ernst, chief administrative officer for the Board of Regents. The consultants will also not have any personal or professional connection to the president they are evaluating.

Committee members, on the other hand, typically color the final report with their own views of an administrator's performance, regents said.

"We're trying to make the consultant very independent of any influence," Ernst said. "We want an objective outside look."

Regents have used outside consultants in the evaluation process before, but committee members still influenced the final report, Ernst said. In 2002, the system paid $5,000 plus expenses for an outside consultant to evaluate one of the community college presidents, and $10,000 plus expenses for a outside consultant to evaluate the chancellor.