Ernst to leave post with regents to advise Rogers

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 | 9:12 a.m.

Suzanne Ernst, the chief administrative officer to the Board of Regents, is trading in her 13 bosses for one big boss.

Effective July 1, Ernst said she will be leaving her position with the board to take an administrative assistant position with Chancellor Jim Rogers. Ernst will keep her $120,000-a-year salary as an adviser to Rogers on policy issues that come before the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Ernst said she will be handling a lot of the paperwork and details that go into the job of being chancellor, such as readying agenda items for meetings, Rogers doesn't like to do. She'll also be his living history book for how things are done in the system.

With nine years in the system and a total of 31 as a state employee, Ernst said she has the most seniority in the system office.

"Suzanne is more knowledgeable about the history of the system than anybody we've got," Rogers said. "She knows the codes inside and out, she knows the history of how they got written the way they are."

Ernst, who is eligible for retirement but prefers to work, said she was looking forward to the change and that she "really, really liked" Rogers.

"Ninty-five percent of them (the regents) are wonderful, but it's difficult to have multiple bosses," Ernst said. "I really want to help him and make his administration good."

Ernst's evaluation as the board secretary and the director of external affairs has been pushed off for the last two meetings as regents considered whether the position needed to be restructured. Several regents said the joint job of assisting the Board of Regents and running external relations was just too much for one person.

In addition to moving Ernst under his authority, Rogers also plans to ask regents in June to move external relations under him. John Kuhlman, the current associate director of external relations, and the 1.5 people under him would report directly to Rogers rather than to Ernst.

Rogers said he was unsure how Kuhlman's responsibilities might change. He currently spends most of his time helping regents, but Rogers said he wanted the external relations department to be more out front in connecting the system to the community.

Kuhlman, a system employee for seven years, said he was excited about the change and looking forward to "helping the system tell its story." Before coming to the system, he served as the communications director of United Way.

Rogers is reorganizing the open position of deputy chancellor for Ernst. He said she will not have any administrative authority in the role.

Ernst, with both fans and critics on the Board of Regents, has been called a mini-chancellor in the past because of the power she held over board affairs, regents said. She openly voices her opinion during committee meetings and has been known to call meetings back to order by shouting, "Children, children," and clapping her hands.

The continued avoidance of her long overdue evaluation process led many insiders in higher education to speculate that she was taking the job under Rogers to avoid a negative open personnel session.

Ernst would not comment on that, and no regent would criticize her on the record.

Most regents said Ernst has worked extremely hard in a thankless job.

"I think she is in a really, really tough position, as are the presidents and the chancellor," said Regent Steve Sisolak, who lives in the same housing development as Ernst. "You have 13 people all making demands, and some of the requests are in conflict with each other."

When you have 13 bosses, "Someone is not going to be happy, and that's a shame," Sisolak continued. "But I wish her well and hope that she is going to do good things with Jim."

Several regents said Ernst had a "wealth of information" about the system that would be helpful to the newly appointed chancellor. Regent Howard Rosenberg even quipped that nothing would be different because "Suzanne has been advising everyone for years."

Rogers does not need regents' approval on hiring Ernst, but regents will need to select a new board secretary, system officials said. Regents Chairman Stavros Anthony said they will look at Ernst's staff first to see if they can fill the position.

Ernst, formerly the head of the state Division of Aging Services, has a master's degree in education from UNLV and a bachelor's from UNR. She was hired as deputy chancellor for external relations at a salary of $80,000 in 1996 and the became secretary to the board in 1999.