Universal finger-pointing

Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006 | 8:09 a.m.

A special regents meeting Friday on the failings of UNLV's Institute for Security Studies raised more questions than answers and ended up deteriorating into finger-pointing among warring factions of the university.

The regents' debate regarding the performance of the security institute followed their handling of two other controversies: an effort to force a private donor to make good on his multimillion-dollar promises to the university and a cheating scandal at the School of Dental Medicine.

The discussion over the embattled security institute provided the regents, collectively, their first public forum to delve into a thorny subject that has been the source of unflattering headlines for weeks.

After peppering UNLV officials with tough questions about the counterterrorism institute - including its broken academic promises and its shoddy business dealings and secretive ways - the 13-member board voted to let separate internal audits run their course before taking further action.

At the urging of Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Jim Rogers and several regents, the board was on the verge of authorizing a sweeping independent audit into the institute's methods of operation. But it backed off after new UNLV President David Ashley, attending his first regents meeting, said he wanted a chance to take "constructive" measures to improve oversight of the troubled agency within the university.

"We see some issues we need to deal with," Ashley said, adding that he did not want the additional scrutiny to turn into a "witch hunt" of an agency he believes still has value to the university.

As the meeting came to a close, Tom Williams, the institute's interim director, was asked to address the regents, and he promptly blamed the institute's troubles on his detractors at UNLV's Division of Educational Outreach, an agency he said he severed ties with last year because of irregularities he discovered in its dealings with the institute.

"I believe they're behind this smear campaign," Williams said.

But minutes later, Richard Lee, the vice provost of the Outreach Division, took the microphone and responded: "This is not, as Mr. Williams has claimed, a smear campaign on our part."

Lee said he was not responsible for a series of Sun stories on the institute's troubles. He accused Williams of providing the regents with skewed information about the alleged irregularities involving the Outreach Division, which in April received a scathing university audit report concluding there was an overall lack of financial oversight.

Williams charged that the media scrutiny of the institute was the result of his efforts last year to expose "very questionable activities" on the part of the Outreach Division and a subcontractor, Qualifying for Success, that both the division and the institute hired to work on a security training project for a confidential "New York client" the Sun has identified as Walt Disney World Co.

In a Sun story on Thursday, Bill Gault, owner of Qualifying for Success, charged that Williams was dragging him through the mud to divert attention away from the institute's problems.

Gault, who listened to Williams rip into his company, said afterward that the interim director's "ranting" was proof of that effort.

"He was allowed to eviscerate my company," Gault said. "For him to be given the podium without any notice to me was very unfair. I never had a chance to respond to his ridiculous accusations."

Gault said he provided UNLV officials with an extensive written rebuttal to the allegations leveled by Williams, but it was not given to the regents Friday.

The finger-pointing at the meeting between Williams and Lee did not go over well with Ashley.

"The fact that those two gentlemen have a public disagreement is unfortunate," he said afterward.

But Ashley added that he needed to know more about the dispute before commenting further.

Regent Steve Sisolak, who supported an independent audit, said after the meeting that he was not sure what the board had accomplished in its desire to resolve the institute's problems.

"There's still a lot of infighting obviously going on between departments of the university. But before we can have a healing process, we need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened, and we haven't gotten there yet. There were a lot of unanswered questions today," he said.

During the meeting, as UNLV officials did not respond to the regents' satisfaction to question after question, Rogers steered the board toward considering the independent inquiry, saying he was "uncomfortable" letting the final resolution rest with the internal audits.

"I want somebody outside to come in and say, 'This is the way it works, and this is what's wrong with it,' " Rogers said.

But 6 1/2 hours into the meeting - by which time Rogers had left - the regents ended up taking a more cautious approach to give newcomer Ashley a chance to get a better handle on the institute's troubles.

Ashley said he is looking to move the institute from the UNLV Research Foundation, a private fundraising arm of the university, to UNLV's Division of Research and Graduate Studies by the end of the month. He said he also plans to hire a new executive director from outside the university.