Rogers reminds regents to keep calm picking next chairman

Thursday, June 2, 2005 | 9:48 a.m.

Chancellor Jim Rogers reminded regents to play nicely with each other when campaigning to be the next chairman of the Board of Regents.

Rumors of regent infighting over who will replace current Chairman Stavros Anthony in June have been circulating for a few weeks now. Rogers said he had heard enough to become concerned.

The chairman position helps set the agenda for what regents will discuss, runs the meetings and decides who serves on what committees.

The additional prestige and power comes with a considerable workload and a $5,000 host account -- twice that of any other regent.

A healthy debate over who should lead the board is one thing, Rogers writes in a memo to regents, but any personal attacks or power struggles "will forever destroy the credibility all of us have worked so hard to restore during the last 13 months."

"I don't have any direct evidence of this (politicking by the board), but at this point I think we've accomplished so much that I don't want to take any chances or see anything go up in smoke by one off-hand remark," Rogers said in a phone interview Wednesday.

"We are under a magnifying glass at all times," he said, noting in his memo that the overwhelming passage of a constitutional amendment to change the structure of the Board of Regents in the Legislature probably reflected the public's frustrations with the board.

According to Rogers' memo and interviews with regents, the board has broken into various camps of supporting various candidates for the position, and some are discussing "how the power will be distributed between the 'losers' and the 'winners,' " Rogers wrote. "These discussions therefore seem to be becoming mean-spirited and counterproductive."

How bad the politicking has become depends on which regent one speaks to. All three regents interested in the position -- Mark Alden, Linda Howard and Bret Whipple -- deny ever campaigning to be the next leader.

Anthony has already served two terms and cannot run again for two years, according to regents' policy.

Because of past divisions and personality differences, there does not appear to be one regent who can muster a majority vote from the board, Regent Steve Sisolak said. Several regents, including Sisolak, said they don't want the job because of the time involved.

"There's still an awful lot of division," Sisolak said, noting that he'd like to see someone get enough votes to bring unity to the board.

Regent Doug Hill said the so-called "power struggle" Rogers was referring to was typical of any elected board and not necessarily a negative thing.

"There always will be a power struggle as long as you have more than one person on the board," Hill said. "There is always people wanting to go one direction and other people wanting to go another direction. That's how it works in a democracy."

Most regents, including Alden, Howard and Whipple, said they agreed with Rogers' letter that the board needs to act together and that whoever is elected chairman (or chairwoman) should work to include all regents in leadership positions of the various committees.

In the past, those campaigning for the position of chairman have held out committee positions as political favors to those who would vote for them, some regents said.

Alden and Howard confirmed that they were interested in the position, but Whipple said he is still just thinking about it.

With his new law practice and his interest in the attorney general's job, Whipple said he isn't sure he'll have time to be chairman.

He said Rogers' memo caught him by surprise.

"I consider it unfortunate that it has even become an issue," Whipple said. "We should be concentrating on issues in hand that are important."