LOOKING IN ON: HIGHER EDUCATION

Friday, Sept. 21, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

Nine permanent or interim presidents have led the College of Southern Nevada since 1995. The most recent permanent leader, Richard Carpenter, left after three years for a new job and a raise as chancellor of Texas' North Harris Community College District.

So at a meeting this week, members of an advisory committee dedicated to finding CSN's new president talked about the importance of finding someone interested in, well, staying.

Faculty and other stakeholders on the committee say they want a leader who views CSN as a commitment - not another carpetbagger who sees the college as a steppingstone to a bigger paycheck.

The advisory committee met in conjunction with a Regents committee that will recommend a candidate to the full Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents.

The committees voted unanimously to hire a search firm to compile a list. Doing so will give the applicants privacy. If the committees conducted the initial interviews, the names would become public, possibly deterring some potential candidates.

Representatives of CSN's Administrative Faculty Assembly and Classified Council and of the Nevada Faculty Alliance expressed concern that their organizations did not have seats on the advisory committee.

Regent Steve Sisolak said many committee positions, such as that of Thomas Brown, CSN's affirmative action officer, were filled in accordance with Regents' bylaws. He urged those who want a voice in the search to offer suggestions at committee meetings.

Nevada State College is a step closer to the day nursing students and faculty will no longer have to hold court in a Water Street strip mall.

Design work on a new nursing building is to begin in November now that an architecture firm has been selected. It's too soon to know the construction timeline or the size of the facility.

The college and state public works board chose Dekker/Perich/Sabatini, a local company, from a group of five potential designers. State lawmakers allocated $3.3 million this year so design work on the building, whose cost is estimated at $40 million, could begin.

The nursing building will be the second on the college's more than 500-acre campus. A 42,000-square-foot liberal arts and sciences building is under construction, with summer 2008 set for move-in.

The nursing program, which enrolls about 500 students, received accreditation in 2005 and boasts more than 270 graduates. Nursing and education are the college's largest programs.

Nevada State operates out of buildings scattered across Henderson.

Three CSN administrators are hoping a one-week Asia trip will help the college develop relationships that could lead to student and faculty exchange programs.

Carlos Campo, interim vice president of academic affairs, will spend time in Macau before attending a start-of-semester celebration at a Jilin University campus in southern China where a CSN travel and tourism professor taught in spring.

Accompanying Campo will be CSN's director of international initiatives and the college workforce development division's special projects director. They leave today and return next Saturday.

The group is to talk with university officials in Macau and at Jilin about mutual benefits that could be gained from exchange programs.

With Macau's booming tourism industry, schools there might want to host a CSN-run associate's degree program in hospitality, Campo said. CSN would be interested in hosting professors who could teach Mandarin or other topics, he added.

Some CSN administrators would like to see a full cultural exchange program take shape.

The Asia excursion's cost includes about $1,300 in airfare per person, Campo said. The return on the investment is uncertain - any full-blown foreign exchange programs would be far down the line.