Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.
If anything comes of all the audits and investigations under way at UNLV, it may be that the regents will demand better communication from university presidents from now on.
Regents met Friday to hear about three problems: why the Institute for Security Studies failed to live up to expectations; why a public-private partnership at the UNLV School of Dental Medicine foundered; and how the school's inaugural class cheated and was disciplined.
The clear message from the seven-hour meeting was that from now on, regents want to learn about problems from university presidents - not from the media, as was the case with all three agenda items.
Leading the charge was Regent Steve Sisolak, an outspoken member of the board who compared UNLV officials to children trying to hide their dirty laundry under the bed. "I expect better from my teenage daughters," Sisolak said.
Regents said they want to strike a balance between becoming more informed and involved without stepping into micromanaging.
Critics have attacked regents for micromanagement in the past. To carry Sisolak's analogy forward, they prefer to trust the presidents in the Nevada System of Higher Education to clean up their own rooms. But they also don't want to learn about messes by reading the morning paper.
So in addition to ordering up internal audits of the institute, regents will spend the next few meetings evaluating the way they approve contracts, the way information is brought before the board and student disciplinary procedures.
At Regent James Dean Leavitt's suggestion, they also will meet with all presidents to discuss how and when to let the board know about a possible problem. Presidents need to be open about mistakes, so that they can be fixed and everyone can move on, regents said.
"We can handle the information, and we want to hear it first," Leavitt said.
Regent Michael Wixom believes the problem goes deeper than communication.
"We need a better collective idea of where we are and where we are going," Wixom said, referring to the Institute for Security Studies. "In their mind, they didn't need to communicate because they had a view of what was supposed to happen. In our mind, we did need communication because we had a different view of what needed to happen We need to get everybody on the same page."
As a part-time, elected board that has regular meetings only six times a year, regents have to trust that when presidents pitch new initiatives, they will provide all the information necessary for a decision. Regents also must have confidence that the presidents will follow through to make sure the new program stays on track.
That wasn't the case with the Institute for Security Studies , or with the crumbling partnership with Orthodontics Education Co.
"We are part-time employees, we cannot be expected to dig through financials and do the work of these institutions," Regent Chairman Bret Whipple said.
The problems go beyond UNLV. It is not unusual, regents noted, for presidents to see how far they can push regents.
For example, in June, Community College of Southern Nevada President Richard Carpenter put forth a plan to develop a new campus in the northwest corner of the Las Vegas Valley. The agenda item was crafted in a way that gave Carpenter full authority, working only with the chancellor, to sign contracts and begin building the campus.
Regents quashed that quickly, giving Carpenter permission to pursue the concept and begin discussions but requiring him to get their approval on each one.
Most regents found Carpenter's attempt to circumvent the approval process amusing. Regent Howard Rosenberg said he "would have done the same damn thing," but a few were irked by his audacity.
Presidents also present all of the positive reasons to approve a new program and none of the negative.
When regents were asked to approve a contract entering UNLV into a partnership with Orthodontics Education Co. more than two years ago, university officials listed six reasons to say yes and none to say no. Yet many orthodontists in the community were critical of the partnership because they believed it gave one company too much power and would hurt the quality of the education.
The Sun reported this week that UNLV Foundation researcher Barbara Henry had raised several concerns about the company's financial health and had passed them on to her boss, chief fundraiser John Gallagher. She recommended rejecting the partnership.
None of her research was forwarded to the regents. Earlier this year, the deal fell apart because the company was foundering.
There are always counterarguments, Sisolak said.
The orthodontics partnership illustrates another common problem: Presidents bring items to the regents at the last possible moment, as has occurred with some multimillion-dollar contracts for athletic team coaches.
Regents received the thick orthodontics contract on the morning they were to vote, and then were urged by then-UNLV President Carol Harter to approve the partnership that same day - before UNLV lost out on a "great opportunity." Even Chancellor Jim Rogers, whose first act as chancellor in May 2004 was to encourage regents to approve the deal, admitted Friday that he hadn't known all the details.
Rogers and Dan Klaich, executive vice chancellor, promised regents to try to make sure that the board wasn't rushed in making decisions.
"When you are sitting there with four inches of material, and you bitch about this a lot and you are right, you can't absorb it, and you get steamrolled," Rogers said. "The steamrolling has to stop."
He and Klaich also said they would push staff to include any negative material about proposals.
Regent Jason Geddes, the newest member of the board, recommended that regents consider requiring independent legal and financial evaluations for all future private-public partnerships.
Rogers said he hoped that the presidents at UNLV and UNR, both new to their posts, would end the "culture of isolationism" that led to many of the current problems, and that regents and presidents would work together as a team.
"It all comes down to trust," Rogers said.
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