Daily Memo: Education:

Rogers’ memos: Too many of a good thing?

Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The multimillionaire chancellor of Nevada’s public university system is accustomed to getting what he wants.

The TV mogul has given or pledged about $56 million to the university system over the years. Last summer, his family decided against donating $3 million to the University of Nevada, Reno, after his bosses on the Board of Regents, which governs higher education, criticized his leadership.

These days, though, much to his displeasure, Jim Rogers is facing a problem his generosity can’t solve. Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked the university system to cut 14 percent from its 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets. Rogers fiercely opposes the cuts, but he can’t tell the state’s chief executive what to do.

So instead, he shares his frustrations with anyone who will listen, railing against the reductions in weekly memos his office e-mails to about 1,500 people, including every state legislator.

He favors using capital letters to highlight important sections and peddles doomsday scenarios: “This higher education system may be so crippled by its lack of funding that it will never, and I mean never, be able to recover,” he wrote in one memo.

But is he effective?

This week, Rogers distributed letters from Assemblyman Morse Arberry, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, all saying they found the chancellor’s weekly memos helpful.

Rogers says he’s speaking the truth. But the whiff of apocalypse his messages carry could endow him with a Chicken Little image.

More damaging, some state leaders think the mercurial Rogers could get his messages across with a bit more sophistication.

He opened one memo by accusing Gibbons of attempting to “muzzle” him via the governor’s adviser Monte Miller, who had complained to several regents about Rogers’ writings.

The chancellor’s diatribe inspired the following entry in State Sen. Bob Beer’s blog: “He’s a great cheerleader for higher ed, when he sets his mind to it. But when he gets to whining and complaining, he gets old fast.”

Rogers also has a propensity for tossing insults into his notes, which some experts say is a losing strategy.

In July, he wrote that Gibbons and other Nevadans who would not consider raising taxes were people “who care nothing about the state, its future, or anything other than their own pocketbook.”

Joe Valenzano, a UNLV professor whose expertise includes political communication, rhetoric and persuasion, says people become less receptive to counterarguments when they feel they are under attack.

Maybe that’s why Gibbons ignored the chancellor for months before sending him a letter last week affirming their differences. As Miller says, “Why would the governor have a dialogue with a guy who blasts him every two weeks?”

Still, at a time when few others in government have openly questioned Gibbons’ orders, many education advocates welcome Rogers’ aggressive stance.

Jabs at the governor aside, the chancellor’s memos have explained how cuts will hurt colleges and universities, which bring federal and private research dollars to Nevada and produce nurses and other professionals the state needs.

“A lot of people take higher education for granted, state institutions for granted, and they don’t recognize the importance of funding and the association between higher education and community growth and business growth and overall community culture,” Valenzano said. “What these memos really are bringing to the fore is a discussion of these relationships.”

But even he cautioned that Rogers runs the risk of disseminating so much information that “people just get tired of hearing it and turn it off.”

As Regent Ron Knecht said in July, “He just has a torrent of stuff, gushing forth, and he doesn’t recognize the law of diminishing returns. And everyone just says, ‘There he goes again.’ ”

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By Ruralsrule

8/27/08 at 7:22 a.m.

Suggest removal

Give the guy a freaking break! What other Captain of Industry in Nevada has the guts to relentlessly criticize the Governor? Where is Steve Wynn? Phil Satre? The Cashman's? The ship is sinking fast, folks. At least Jim Rogers is sounding the alarm.
By Enough_Already

8/27/08 at 7:43 a.m.

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Perhaps Regent Ron Knecht doesn’t recognize increasing economies of scale.
By KDR81

8/27/08 at 8:54 a.m.

Suggest removal

The reason the ship is sinking is because the government spends to much and spends what it gets ineffectively.

How would you like it if you spent $44,000 on your kids education and there was still a 43% chance they'd be illiterate?

http://npri.org/blog/just-the-facts

Enough with demanding taxes be raised and more money spent. Lets try reform.
By Education_Will_Lift_Nevada

8/28/08 at 12:52 a.m.

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Shouldn’t everyone in the statehouse be cheerleaders for higher education?
By CSNspeaks

8/28/08 at 12:36 p.m.

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Dear Chancellor,

Obviously you have no idea Bob Gilbert and Sherry Payne's sharing the job but enjoy full separate, 6-digit paychecks. Neither do you understand that a pair of CSN faculty couple (neptism of hiring unqualified spouse) who are known being lousy teachers, take sabbatical the same time, and cost this state well over $100k with no teaching duty for 1 year. And how are you going to ever have heard the missing giant telescope from the CSN loading dock, and later appeared in a professor's Utah vacation home?

Not to mention there is no way you have heard of the Attorney General's office's raid of Patty Charlton and Bob Gilbert's offices, and Bob Gilbert's home for the severe financial wrongdoing, including theft from the state.

So it is always the Governor's fault that you can not budget this right. NSHE is an endless pit. There is no amount of money, that will feed the NSHE's needs resulting from your incompetency of managing the mess.

How about calling Bob Gilbert and Patty Charlton on the carpet, and holding them accountable? You didn't do that with Richard Carpenter and he became the biggest diaster of the NSHE history. To name two major events, CSN experienced the first massive computer hack in its 35 years history, and CSN experienced the first AG raid in the Nevada Higher Education history.

Chancellor Rogers, are you going to do something about CSN, or are you going to distract people's attention by continuing blaming the Governor for your own mismanagement?