Editorial: Good riddance to lame duck

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 | 7:38 a.m.

I n a baffling act as he heads out the door, College of Southern Nevada President Richard Carpenter canceled a successful and profitable union-backed apprentice training program last month, infuriating union and university system officials.

As Christina Littlefield reported in Sunday's Las Vegas Sun, Carpenter, who has a month left before heading off to a job in Texas, abruptly ended the program. The college and a dozen unions have worked together since the 1990s to train people in various trades, get them on-the-job training and prepare them for associate of arts degrees. Carpenter and his staff had been negotiating with the union to extend the contract before he fired off a nasty parting shot, telling the unions where they could go.

With one curt letter, the lame-duck college president put the education of 12,000 students at risk and so infuriated union officials that they had to be persuaded not to move the program out of Nevada.

Carpenter and his staff apparently were trying some sort of takeover of the program. Before sending the letter, he and his staff had proposed expanding the program to nonunion members, while still using the union's proprietary training material. College officials raided the program administrator's office while she was on vacation, taking her computer and files related to the program.

Carpenter's rash decision will cost the college financially, as the program brought in $6 million, six times the cost of running it, which helped keep the school in the black.

This is odd behavior for a man who earlier this year received a glowing review and had Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Jim Rogers fighting to keep him from leaving.

Rogers and Regent Dorothy Gallagher had to clean up the mess and , thanks to reasonable minds at Nevada State College in Henderson and Great Basin College in Elko, the program will continue.

People involved are calling this a personality conflict. It is a sign that Carpenter made the right choice to leave. His work here is done. He can leave - now.