Columnist Jeff German: On a proposal to put some distance between regents, future university jobs

Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005 | 7:46 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

Finally, the Board of Regents appears ready to take measures to improve its sorry reputation with the public.

After dillydallying around for two months, the 13 regents are poised today to consider banning themselves from applying for a job within the university system for one year after they leave office.

This is a policy that Nevada gaming regulators and others in state and local government have been following for years.

"It takes away the appearance of impropriety, and I think that's important," Regent Michael Wixom says. "We need to step up and be on the same page with the rest of the state officers."

There's a feeling the proposal might actually pass this time, although nothing is certain when these so-called overseers of the Nevada System of Higher Education get together.

The proposal -- which surfaced after former Regent Doug Seastrand took a research job at UNLV before his term was up -- should have been adopted at the board's September meeting. Instead, however, the regents voted 9-4 to table the matter so that it could be studied further.

Jaws dropped at the meeting when some regents, in the presence of the college and university presidents, brazenly told their colleagues that they were interested in university jobs after their terms expire.

Today the regents have a chance to show the public that they're not in this for themselves.

"They have a chance to tell anybody thinking about being a regent in the future that this is not a place to come to look for a job," says Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics, a nonprofit government watchdog group.

Walton, emeritus professor of ethics at UNLV, says he has provided guidance to a couple of regents on the cooling-off measure and likes the way it has been drawn up.

Maybe the regents are finally getting it.

Jim Rogers, the university system's dynamic chancellor, is among those strongly endorsing the proposal this time around.

"I think we ought to have a policy," Rogers says. "It should have been done some time ago. I don't think the public, at any point, ought to be put in a position of questioning our integrity."

Rogers is as persuasive a chancellor as we've ever seen in this state. His words should carry much weight in the debate -- especially to any regent still looking to put personal interests over those of the students and professors.

Regent James Dean Leavitt says a cooling-off period would make it clear that his colleagues understand they were elected to provide a service to the public -- not to themselves.

"It really just comes down to public trust," he says.

And it's a matter of common sense -- a trait not often displayed by many members of this board.

Common sense should tell the regents to pass this proposal today by a unanimous vote.