CCSN goes public with chief’s strengths, weaknesses

By Emily Richmond

Friday, May 11, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

A two-day public evaluation of CCSN President Richard Carpenter took on the airs of a love fest this week, with a parade of speakers showering him with kudos.

After , university system Chancellor Jim Rogers said he would recommend a three-year extension of Carpenter's contract.

The evaluation committee, which heard remarks from nearly 70 speakers, will send its recommendation to the Board of Regents in June. The report will highlight Carpenter's effectiveness at bringing stability, strong leadership and a vision to the Community College of Southern Nevada, said Ken Atwater, the committee's chairman and president of South Mountain Community College in Phoenix.

Carpenter's plans to expand on line education for far-flung students and make the college's career programs more responsive to the job market are generally viewed favorably by the college community, Atwater said.

CCSN certainly has challenges ahead, but the consensus appears to be that Carpenter is the right man to lead the charge, Atwater said.

"They used words like you are a 'can-do' guy," Atwater told Carpenter in summarizing the evaluations.

After , Carpenter said he had been uneasy about the degree of openness to his evaluation, but "at the end of the day it's a good thing. It gives the world a very honest view. Everyone will know where the strengths and weaknesses are, and everyone can work together to solve those issues."

Lawmakers decided in 2005 to uncloak annual performance evaluations for appointed public officers who serve "at the pleasure of a public body." That group includes university and community college presidents, school district superintendents, and county and city managers.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes was evaluated publicly in January. It consisted of discussion among School Board members and a brief period of public comment.

But the evaluation of Carpenter, whose contract expires in 2008, took the process to a new level, involving a broad spectrum of speakers, including the student body president and the health sciences dean.

Among the speakers was Kevin Rafferty, chairman of CCSN's human behavior department, who credited Carpenter with reforming a campus that was steeped in "almost a wild West mentality ... Because there weren't policies and procedures, there were a lot of last-minute decisions being made."

The college has a solid organizational structure, with policies and expectations clearly spelled out, said Judy Stewart, the chairwoman-elect of the Faculty Senate.

There were few critics of Carpenter's management and leadership. One speaker said Carpenter should appear more frequently at satellite campuses, and another complained about shortcomings in the college's information technology system, which is handled by a private company chosen by Carpenter.

Business professor Glynda White said although Carpenter has been a "good president and brought some stability, I don't think policies have any credibility if they are not implemented fairly and equitably There's room for improvement here."

Carpenter seemed braced for more criticism, telling the committee as the evaluation got under way that when he arrived on campus in 2004 - as the sixth president in 10 years - he reduced administrative staffing to save $1 million.

Carpenter said it required "bold and decisive action to get things moving here. Not everybody likes those actions. There are people whose jobs have been lost and there are those today whose jobs are in jeopardy. You will no doubt hear from them."

But the committee didn't.

Businessman Ed Curry, a member of the CCSN Foundation board and the evaluation committee, told Carpenter he was impressed with the consistency of the positive remarks directed toward the campus chief. Phrases such as "strong leader," "responsive" and "proactive" cropped up repeatedly.

The committee "tried different ways to ask people the same question in the hopes that we might get a scintilla of a different answer," Curry said. "No matter what we did, it almost always came out exactly the same."