An ‘identity crisis’

Thursday, March 9, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

While UNLV President Carol Harter avoids mentioning the name of the man who ousted her from office - university system Chancellor Jim Rogers - she does have plenty of opinions about the Board of Regents.

In her first media interviews since being pushed earlier this year to resign, Harter avoided ever saying Rogers' name. But she criticized the structure of the Nevada System of Higher Education and the regents.

Harter said regents face an "identity crisis" after yielding much of their authority to Rogers, including the power to fire college presidents. Because regents retained the power to hire presidents, that has created a "disconnect" for presidents about who they report to.

She also said she believes the time may have come for Nevada to split up the regents' authority, giving UNLV its own governing board. Currently, all two- and four-year colleges in the state report to the regents.

Harter stopped short of supporting a proposed constitutional amendment to change the board to a mix of elected and appointed regents, but she said there may be some merit to the idea.

Harter announced Feb. 2 that she will leave June 30 to become executive director of the Black Mountain Institute, a proposed think tank at UNLV, and to raise money for the UNLV Foundation.

She acknowledged in interviews Tuesday that the move was not her decision, but one made by the "authority" in charge - code for Rogers.

Regents' Chairman Bret Whipple said Harter's criticism "cuts to the core of the issue between Harter and Jim Rogers."

Harter believes UNLV needs a strong, autonomous leader who can fight for resources against the more politically dominate UNR, Whipple said. Rogers wants a strong leader who would also be a "team player" and work within the larger needs of the higher education system.

Both make good points, Whipple said, but ultimately the regents have decided that the strengths of having a unified system outweigh the weaknesses.

"There's no question that UNLV could become a better university quicker if they didn't have to share their resources and had more autonomy and flexibility," Whipple said. "But what's best for the students? Is it to build up one superstar university and have a bunch of also-rans, or to build up the system together?"

Nevada is the only state to have one governing board for all of its higher education institutions, ranging from community colleges to universities. It is one of only four states that elect regents.

Harter said she'd like to see separate boards for the community colleges and the research universities, or at least separate miniboards for both UNLV and UNR to address their specific needs.

"There's a huge difference between a research university and a community college," Harter said. "They have different issues to deal with."

A statewide coordinating board could still oversee the political and state funding issues for all of the higher education institutions, as the state Board of Education does for the local school boards.

Asked about Harter's suggestions, Rogers said separate boards would only increase competition among the colleges and universities for resources, something he has worked to stop as chancellor. Separate boards only work when there is separate funding, but all of Nevada's higher education institutions are funded out of the state General Fund along with K-12.

"We need all the collaboration we can get," Rogers said.

Harter, however, thinks the regents need to do their own self-evaluation in light of the constitutional amendment coming before voters in the fall.

"I don't think it's possible to say anymore that it is just fine the way it is," Harter said.