Regents push for naming Rogers

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

Believing that a national search at this point is futile, five regents have requested an agenda item for next week's Board of Regents meeting to go ahead and appoint Jim Rogers as the university system's permanent chancellor.

Regents Doug Hill, Linda Howard, Doug Seastrand, Jack Lund Schofield and Dorothy Gallagher have all requested the item be added, Suzanne Ernst, chief administrative officer for the Board of Regents, said. A sixth regent, Mark Alden, also said he would support the item.

Rogers' popularity and effectiveness as the interim chancellor and his statewide support has likely scared away any other candidates who could rival him for the position, Hill, Seastrand, Howard, Schofield and Alden said.

Gallagher is supporting the agenda item but said she hadn't made up her mind on how she will vote. Rogers needs a majority of the board's support for the position -- 7 votes if all 13 members are there. It's unclear if he has that support yet.

"We can go through the process, but he'll just get the votes anyways, that's my prediction," said Hill, who led the charge to appoint Rogers by sending out a letter to his fellow regents Tuesday asking for the agenda item.

In his letter, originally sent to Regents Chairman Stavros Anthony and chancellor search committee chairman Bret Whipple last week, Hill said that the board is in a "lose-lose conundrum" where the media will have a "heyday" if the regents cancel the search and a "heyday" if they go forward with the search process and end up appointing Rogers.

"They will claim that the search process was nothing more than a Kabuki dance with a preordained outcome and we will have wasted time and taxpayers' money," Hill said.

Hill said if regents appoint Rogers at next week's meeting in Carson City, the board will at least save the system the cost of flying the search consultants and applicants out for interviews.

By appointing Rogers permanently now, Rogers will have more strength in the current legislative process because he will be around to follow through on his promises to lawmakers, Hill writes. Rogers will also be able to fill some administrative positions that have been in limbo during his interim term, and move forward with his relationships with private donors and in his efforts to further unify the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Rogers said Hill's arguments do have merit, but that he wouldn't lobby regents on the issue.

"It would make my life simpler, of course, if they went ahead and made the decision," Rogers said. "But if they feel uncomfortable about it they shouldn't do it."

Seastrand said the recent outpouring of letters of recommendation for Rogers from all over the state made it an "easy call" to just appoint Rogers.

"I'm not sure that the search would yield us too much, and Rogers has everything we are looking for and has proved it," Seastrand said. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Howard said she initially would have preferred continuing on in the search process, but she has heard that other candidates have pulled out because of Rogers' candidacy.

"I believe that's because they feel that they won't have a chance competing against Jim Rogers because he is so highly regarded among the regents and he's well respected, and most of the regents that I've conversed with think he's doing a good job," Howard said.

Howard said she'd rather act now and grab Rogers as chancellor rather than see him recruited for another job. There's been continued talk that some high ranking Republicans would like to see Rogers run for governor, but Rogers said no one has actively come to him pushing him for the job, and that he's too busy focusing on the chancellor position to even think about the possibility of governor.

The seven remaining regents, however, disagreed with their colleagues and said they would prefer waiting for the search firm to at least release the names of the other candidates before they make a decision.

The private search firm hired by the regents, Greenwood and Associates, keeps the list of candidates confidential until the names' are formally unveiled in a public meeting of the search committee, scheduled for April 25. The system often hires a search firm to shield candidates from public exposure until they are definitely finalists.

"Rogers brings many strengths," Jill Derby, regents vice chairwoman, said. "But I'd like to see him compete in the pool or process so that we see all of what's available."

Regent Steve Sisolak said it wouldn't be fair to the other candidates to stop the search now.

"You wouldn't start a marathon race and than call it off half-way through because one runner is way ahead," Sisolak said.