UNLV scandals occupy much of regents’ agenda

Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 | 8 a.m.

The cleanup continues.

Nine weeks after a searing special meeting addressed scandals at UNLV, university system regents are still dealing with the fallout. At a two-day Board of Regents meeting Thursday and Friday at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas, seven items - a quarter of the agenda - dealt with issues related to embarrassing problems at UNLV.

Part of the regents' responsibilities are to react to problems and develop policies to find solutions, Regent Michael Wixom said.

"I think we've moved forward in a very positive way," Wixom said.

Within a six-week period this summer, UNLV officials were blasted for how they dealt with a cheating scandal involving its first graduating class at the School of Dental Medicine, for a failed partnership with a private orthodontics company and the failure of the university's Institute for Security Studies to live up to its promised expectations.

Burned by those revelations, regents in August ordered new President David Ashley to tackle the problems and asked Nevada System of Higher Education staff to return this week with policies addressing some of the issues.

But even items completely unrelated to them, such as the Community College of Southern Nevada's plans to build an apartment complex with private developer Irwin Molasky, were being viewed in the context of UNLV's embarrassments.

For instance, Regent Chairman Bret Whipple warned Chancellor Jim Rogers and CCSN President Richard Carpenter to be careful in making representations to the board on Molasky's behalf, and said he didn't want to see college presidents advocating for private businesses.

"One only has to turn the page to see a partnership that did not work, and that raises a red flag for me," Whipple said, referring to the failed partnership between UNLV and Orthodontics Education Co. The company promised UNLV up to $40 million in a 30-year deal in exchange for enrolling some of its students, but the company defaulted in September after having paid only $2 million.

Uncertainty over future private-public contracts was perhaps the greatest fallout from the failed orthodontics partnership. Regents still believe such partnerships are necessary to the future of the university, but they are asking more questions.

UNLV terminated the partnership in September after the company defaulted on the second of two $1.75 million gift payments and canceled its student stipends.

At this week's meeting, regents were asked to allow UNLV to cover the $1.75 million loss with proceeds from a recent land sale, and to raise student tuition $15,000 to cover the remaining lost revenue. Even with the tuition increase, which hits students in two installments starting in January, the orthodontics program will have to borrow temporarily from other university funds, Gerry Bomotti, vice president for finance, said.

Regents approved the plan because students in the program have already agreed to it, but they expressed disdain that UNLV was having to dip into its land sale money because a donor had reneged. Rogers and Regent Steve Sisolak demanded that UNLV come back to the regents with a plan on how to pay back the $1.75 million.

Ashley said he was still a "great believer in private partnerships, and that he hoped the orthodontics deal wouldn't color plans in the works. Among them: the CCSN-Molasky proposal to build apartments. Some would be rented at discount to faculty, and others rented at a profit, enabling the college to build a new student services building in Henderson.

In response to the cheating scandal, in which 10 students were found to have stolen a professor's password to sign off on their own work, regents Thursday and Friday discussed when and how a student's degree can be revoked and when and how their disciplinary records can be expunged. Regents will discuss it further in November.

UNLV is also re-evaluating its student conduct policies in light of the cheating, and enhancing its emphasis on ethics and patient records in the dental school curriculum, Ashley said.

Regents were most happy with how Ashley is addressing problems at the Institute for Security Studies, which has been chastised for its secrecy, use of federal dollars and failure to establish a master's degree program in crisis and emergency management. Regents approved the hiring of retired Maj. Gen. Scott Smith to run the institute and praised Ashley for bringing the institute and its master's degree program under the university's authority and out of the UNLV Research Foundation, a private offshoot of the UNLV Foundation.

Regents will be keeping a closer watch on its academic programs from now on. Jason Geddes, whose first experience as a newly appointed regent was the Aug. 4 special meeting, spent most of Thursday morning in the Student and Academic Affairs committee asking questions about the funding of new programs at UNLV.

Geddes said he was worried that administrators might try to claim that new programs won't cost additional money when they clearly will. With state dollars dwindling, regents need to force the colleges to prioritize what programs most meet the state's educational needs, Geddes said.

Throughout the two-day session, there was plenty of evidence that regents are still haunted by the past summer's scandals. And now they are wondering how to improve communications between them and the president when there's news that might affect the reputation of the institution.

Maybe what is needed, they said, are "regent alerts."

They'll take up the matter next month, too.