Jon Ralston on the 11 strong years of Carol Harter at UNLV and why she was too much like a man for the boys

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006 | 12:34 p.m.

Carol Harter had some pretty strange ideas when she arrived at UNLV in 1995.

She had the crazy notion that academics should have priority over athletics. She insanely thought that she, not donors, should be running the university. And she bizarrely believed that a woman from New York and like New York could succeed in a community still run by white males who couldn't see past their Gucci Row basketball seats.

Harter, who came in with the support of only half the regents, would be sent packing in short order, the whispers rippled. Now, 11 years later, as Harter reluctantly retires, she has done more than help transform a university; she has redefined success for a UNLV president and for a woman in Good Old Boys Land.

How ironic that in the same week Harter exited - or was pushed off - the Nevada stage, two other female pioneers in the state's power structure reminded us how far we have come.

Water czar Pat Mulroy savored a multistate deal she has tried to forge for years and former Lt. Gov. Sue Wagner's oral history, "Through the Glass Ceiling," began circulating.

Harter, like Mulroy and Wagner, didn't so much push through the glass ceiling as crash through it, becoming a beacon for women trying to succeed in the misogynistic land that the ERA forgot but the LDS did not. Lest we forget, the woman known for being tough and occasionally abrasive was elevated to the post thanks to the efforts of a woman who can also be tough and abrasive: A regent by the name of Shelley Berkley, now a congresswoman.

A couple of years after Harter arrived, facing a contract renewal for the UNLV president, Berkley summed up the differences between Harter and her predecessor:

"Where Bob Maxson was a consummate schmoozer, Carol Harter is a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done woman," Berkley said.

"After the experiences we had with Bob Maxson, we were looking for a very different type of president. She fits the job description we drew up. Now that she's cleaned up several messes at UNLV, it's time for her to make more of an effort to blend with the community."

Yes, unlike the consummate hale-fellow-well-met Maxson and his temporary successor, a community luminary named Kenny Guinn, Harter was an East Coast outsider who immediately grated on the cloistered crew that saw UNLV as basketball first, everything else second.

If only she had blended in better with the community, if only she had understood her place, if only she had been more, to turn Henry Higgins upside down, like a woman.

The problem, of course, was that Harter, like other strong, successful women, was too much like a man for the boys.

Yes, Harter never understood that style does matter. But it shouldn't be paramount.

And yet, as Harter, who was more than Maxson's equal in fundraising, is now dismissed because of some mythical inability to get along with money folks, the truth is there were only a few loudmouthed donors who clamored for her defenestration. Chancellor Jim Rogers, who had pulled a pledge in protest, had never supported Harter, and her death was foretold a year ago when prostrate regents granted the system dictator power to fire presidents.

But her unpleasant and unfortunate final chapter as president notwithstanding, Harter's legacy cannot be diminished despite the vicious slurs used by her detractors and brandished by Rogers to force her out. Despite the whispers of donors being upset, sitting in the front row and applauding her as she gave her valedictory Thursday were the likes of the venerable Claudine Williams and the inestimable Don Snyder.

Williams, herself a trailblazer for women in gaming, surely was nodding knowingly.

Williams and Snyder know what many who step back will realize: Carol Harter, unlike almost anyone before her at UNLV, was a visionary. She saw fundraising as a means to an end and that end was transforming UNLV from Tark U to academic respectability. She knew the only real path to success for an institution is producing fine graduate programs. So she increased doctoral enrollment by an astonishing 265 percent and beefed up graduate programs.

Harter supported the law school, which is now flourishing. She established 100 new degree programs, 60 percent of which are graduate courses.

Harter has tried to move UNLV into the future as she struggled with a community torn between its small-town, parochial past and a future as a diverse metropolis teeming with possibilities. Ever the English professor, Harter closed out her farewell address with the timeless Dylan Thomas line about not going "gently into that good night."

No, Carol Harter didn't do much gently. But as she moves into a new job as a fundraiser for a think tank, we don't have to worry about the academic side of the Black Mountain Institute.

Let's just hope she doesn't offend any donors.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com." His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston @ vegas.com.