Regent Howard rips into Rogers

Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006 | 8:20 a.m.

Chancellor Jim Rogers' "maverick" ways have caused "problems," Regent Linda Howard said.

In a letter addressed to the chancellor, Howard said she is concerned that Rogers is acting outside his authority as chancellor.

The letter was released Friday, the day UNLV President Carol Harter suddenly announced her retirement -- a move Howard has called forced. (Rogers said he encouraged Harter to take a position as an executive with the UNLV Foundation. Harter has not commented and canceled a speech Monday to MGM Mirage executives.)

In her letter Howard railed at Rogers for what she said was his interference with the Clark County School District superintendent search and in decisions made at lower levels in the university system. She also said endorsing some political candidates, as Rogers has, is a "dangerous strategy."

Chief among Howard's concerns, however, is that Rogers is dividing black leadership in Southern Nevada and hindering efforts to promote diversity by not including Howard in his recent meetings with community leaders.

In an interview Howard said she is also concerned that Rogers has directed a nonsystem employee -- Rogers' personal attorney, Francisco Aguilar -- and a Community College of Southern Nevada employee, Director of Diversity Debra Lopez, to oversee diversity efforts for the whole Nevada System of Higher Education.

"People (at the other colleges) do not appreciate having a CCSN person telling other diversity officers what to do on their campuses," Howard said. "We need to clarify what her role is."

Howard, chairwoman of the regents' committee on cultural diversity and security, also is miffed that she wasn't informed of a recent elementary school tour at CCSN's Cheyenne campus in her district.

Rogers would not comment on Howard's letter, except to say he was "mystified" that she did not feel included.

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Other regents are also upset that Rogers left them out of the loop by selecting building projects and developers for two private-public initiatives at UNR and CCSN without including them in the decision.

Rogers has made arrangements with local developer Irwin Molasky to design and possibly build a new National Judicial College complex in Reno and is in talks with the Swisher Co. to possibly build a new CCSN campus in northwest Las Vegas. The developers would pay the initial construction costs and the colleges would buy the buildings back under a lease-purchase agreement.

"You've been out there in the community (talking about the projects) and the board didn't know what was going on until right this minute," Regent Thalia Dondero said. "I would like to be part of the process."

Rogers said he was wrong not to include regents, but they will have final say on the projects once the details are ironed out.

If the regents say no, Rogers will be the one with "egg on his face," his pal Dorothy Gallagher, regent vice chairwoman, said.

"For your protection, the board should say let's do these three things," Gallagher said. "If the board says let's do three other things then you have a problem."

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Howard issued an altogether different letter to Rogers in December, encouraging him and regents to look at some of the ideas in her master's thesis on how to improve UNLV's graduation rates.

Howard, who graduated in December from UNLV with a master's degree in public administration, advocates increased assistance for freshmen to help them in selecting a major and a course schedule. That, she says, would better connect the students to the university.

She also advocates exit interviews for students who drop out to see what went wrong.

Howard said she wanted to "conduct research that would benefit the system" and satisfy her degree requirements.

Jane Nichols, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, urged regents to review Howard's suggestions Friday as they continued to look at raising admission requirements. Nichols, the former chancellor, praised Howard's suggestions for helping freshmen.

Studies show that raising admission standards will improve graduation rates because students will be better prepared for university work, Nichols said, but the university system still has "far to go" in improving student success rates.

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Nichols is the former system chancellor. She stepped down in 2004 for health reasons, but came back to the system office last year to work with Rogers. She recently agreed to sign on with Rogers for two more years.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@lasvegassun.com.