I have always thought of Nevada as just the place I happen to live. It's never occurred to me to think, "I'm proud to be a Nevadan."

But today, I am.

The big difference in legal status in Clark County is not black vs. white. It's the political in-crowd vs. everyone else. Bob Gilbert has many defenders among the political in-crowd. Why do you think he was paid a six-figure salary at taxpayer expense while on a leave of absence that I believe extended for more than a year? Do you think an ordinary faculty member, or a secretary, at CSN would be given the same deal while under investigation for stealing from the school?

Any person, black or white, with connections to the power structure in Clark County, will be given every benefit of every doubt. (S)he will get government contracts, makework jobs, and be handled with kid gloves by the law enforcement people. Anyone without those connections - black, white, Hispanic or Asian, male or female - watch your back.

On another website, I posted a question about whether ANY employee (other than Bob Gilbert) in the history of CSN/CCSN had ever received a one year PAID leave of absence, for any purpose. So far, no one seems to know of any such case, and several people have declared their certainty that there ARE no other such cases. Even when we allow for the the fact that the CSN administration became an ethical sewer the moment Richard Carpenter set foot on campus, the granting of such a unique (and expensive) privilege to an employee who was under criminal investigation seems inexplicable.

On another website, I posted a question about whether ANY employee in the history of CSN/CCSN had ever received a one year PAID leave of absence, for any purpose. So far, no one seems to know of any such case, and several people have declared their certainty that there ARE no other such cases. Even when we allow for the the fact that the CSN administration became an ethical sewer the moment Richard Carpenter set foot on campus, the granting of such a unique (and expensive) privilege to an employee who was under criminal investigation seems inexplicable.

To Sisolak - Part 5

When you get to be 61 (aren't we about the same age? Forgive me if that's an insult!), you start thinking about what you really want your life to be worth. I have become much less patient with people who impede the very goal for which I changed my life at the age of 40, and especially those do so purely for self-serving reasons. I do not intend to just "play out the string" and "go along to get along."

It wasn't until earlier this year that it really came home to me how seriously poisoned the culture of CSN had become as a result of the Carpenter tenure. In all those jobs, in all those states, in both careers that I described above, I have never known a person for whom I had the total irredeemable, personal and professional contempt that I had, and continue to have, for Richard Carpenter. I really didn't believe it was possible for any individual to be so obsessively self-centered, so blithely willing to sacrifice the good of his organization purely to promote his own career and to protect himself from criticism. It was also astounding to me that a person would go into educational administration knowing almost nothing about education and having so little intertest IN education.

If I were 31 instead of 61, maybe I'd just chalk the whole thing up to experience, probably look for another job, and move on. But as I said above, this is my last job. I'm damn well going to make it count. And that means that when a major decision is made, undermining my and everyone else's ability to turn this school into an educational institution we can be proud of, I'm going to say something about it. I'm going to say it loudly, I'm going to say it unapologetically, and I'm going to say it repeatedly.

You let us down. You let us down badly, in one of the most important decisions you can possibly make concerning the largest school in the state. And you had no excuse. The superiority of the credentials of the two other candidates were objective, clear, and unarguable. If you were unaware that CSN needs a drastic change in direction instead of "continuity," then you certainly SHOULD have known. It's your job to know. And you didn't do it.

Stan VerNooy

To Sisolak - Part 4

I am 61 years old. I spent 15 years in various data processing / project manager jobs before deciding I wanted to teach. In my previous career, I had about 7 different jobs in three states; as a teacher I have taught at six schools in four states. It wasn't until something like 2003 that I made the same amount of money that I was making in 1985 - and that's without allowing for inflation! I am not in this business to build a career. I am in it to educate students and change lives.

This will be my last job. My forward calculations show that I probably can't afford to retire for another 10 years, at which time I will be 71, but that's OK with me. In fact I have no real desire to ever stop teaching, although I would like to move to the Pacific Northwest once I have my 20 years in here. At any rate, my only ambition is to be allowed to participate in an institution that truly believes in education, that remembers that its mission is not itself, and that its first priority is not kissing the ass of a chancellor or regent. When I first came here, I truly thought I had found that kind of a school. Richard Moore, for all his blowhardism and name-dropping, never lost sight of why the school was here. And he never let US forget either.

Things have deteriorated alarmingly in the ten years since I arrived. During the candidates' forum that I attended at Henderson, a middle-aged female staff member whom I had never met brought up exactly this same issue in her own words. She remembered how Moore had dropped in to student hangouts just to chat and find out whether the school was fulfilling their needs and expectations. She felt - and she was certainly correct - that we had lost something precious as the culture has shifted more and more inward. Her comments were addressed to Dr. Glandon, who gave a response that I don't remember verbatim, but just listening to his response should have embarrassed anyone who supported Dr. Richards's candidacy.

I had to teach a class during Dr. Richards's turn in Henderson, but I really wish someone had asked him the following simple question: "Other than members of the Student Government, can you name three current students at CSN and tell us what you know about them?" I can guarantee that Drs. Spraggs and Glandon would have had no trouble with the question and would have answered it with real enthusiasm. I suspect Dr. Richards would have come close to losing his temper at being asked that same question.

To Sisolak - Part 3

Finally, a few personal notes - yes I suppose all of this has been personal, but not quite in the same way as the folllowing:

When Mike Richards first arrived, I was VERY impressed with him. I told some of my closest colleagues that we finally had someone I thought I could respect and work with. I certainly did not start out with any prejudices against him - quite the contrary. In his first meeting with the math and science division, he came across as a straight shooter. He didn't sugar-coat things, he recognized problems where problems existed, and he didn't speak in platitudes. I started to have reservations when it became clear that his expressions of concern about some of our issues were never going to be anything but that - expressions of concern. There was never any action, never any change in the status quo. I thought perhaps THAT would change when he became the top guy, but as I said in my newspaper interview, he has been an empty suit. He has made sure to please Jim Rogers, but he has done nothing for the school.

I also lost most of my personal respect for him for what may seem to you to be a trivial reason, but I don't think it was trivial at all. He was holding a meeting with our division. During the question-and-answer session, I was in the middle of asking him a question when his cell phone rang. He immediately answered his phone and walked out of the room, motioning for Rand Key (perhaps the highest-placed nothing I have ever encountered in my 61 years of life) to answer the question for him.

I would not tolerate that rudeness from one of my students. I wouldn't tolerate it from myself. And I had, and have, no reason to tolerate it from a Vice President of Academics. And I believe that you can often tell more about a person's character from little things like that than you can from the major decisions he makes after a great deal of thought.

Meanwhile, under his Mike Richards's nonexistent 'leadership,' the school has continued its downward slide into focusing its energy more and more on itself, sometimes even explicitly at the expense of its educational mission. I have already expounded on that in some detail, so there's no reason to repeat it here. My only point is that I am FAR from being a person who was predisposed to dislike Mike Richards. He has richly earned my lack of confidence in him.

Letter to Sisolak - Part 2

And by the way, if you had any credibility left with me, it was destroyed by the INCREDIBLY hypocritical comment that the Review-Journal quoted you as making, that the "institution has been tough on presidents."

May I please remind you of the facts, namely that:

1. You foisted an unbelievably unqualified president on us who was forced to resign shortly thereafter when he was overheard making a gutter-level racist remark about an Assemblyman's wife;

2. You foolishly fired Ron Remington, who had the enthusiastic support of the CSN community;

3. Richard Carpenter left, not because of any pressure on him from the school (although there SHOULD have been pressure), but because he was offered a job with higher visibility and more prestige, and he characteristically did what was in the best interests of Richard Carpenter. That action violated his contract and broke his word (much as Mike Richards broke his word not to be a candidate for the current presidential opening) - but, as in the words of an old song, "You knew I was a snake before you took me in."

In other words, the turnover in presidents at CSN is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the result of the actions and decisions of the Board of Regents, and yet you have the chutzpah, the hypocrisy, and the temerity to admonish US publicly that we had better support this president because WE have been so hard on presidents in the past. Have you NO sense of shame?

I have always thought of you as one of the best of the regents. My God, what does that say about the rest of you?

I have just sent the following message to Regent Sisolak, in response to a message he sent me which made two points: First, that he refuses to read blogs and complaints that are not signed because he doesn't take seriously the statements of people who lack the courage to identify themselves, and secondly, that he hopes I/we will "give Mike Richards a chance."

Here is my response:
Regent Sisolak -

You fail to take into account the obvious fact that many people who will not sign their names are unwilling to do so because of the regular use of intimidation as a weapon by Carpenter, and to a lesser extent, Richards. It is hard to believe that you are so naive as to be unaware of that. I have personally received messages from people who, of course, have trusted me not to reveal their names, expressing their fears of retaliation if they speak out. And in more than one case, they have cited specific instances of statements made to them that eminently justify their fears.

Since you are so afraid to face the statements of people who differ with your defense of the status quo, let me share some of the communications that I have received in response to my letter (of which I sent you the original version, but which has been e-mailed, published and posted with small modifications all over the Internet):

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[and here I inserted some quotes from this blog, from e-mails I have received, and from other places where my letter was posted.}

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As far as giving the new president a chance, he has already been given a chance. We know what we have with Mike Richards - an unqualified hack who has got where he is by kissing up to the Chancellor and the Board of Regents at the expense of the mission of the school he has just been selected to head. There is no reason to give him an additional chance, especially when we know for a fact that there were two far better qualified alternatives whom your committee simply ignored.

I personally will "give him a chance" in the sense that I will support anything he does that promotes the legitimate mission of the school. But since I don't think he knows what that mission is, I don't know that there will be very many opportunities for me to express that support. I don't base my support on personalities anyway - I support things that I believe deserve my support, and I oppose things that don't. But as far as supporting him personally, simply because he's there and he's the president, no I won't do that. I think his presence in the presidency of CSN is detrimental to our mission, and I think I would be disloyal to CSN and its constituents if I were to do or say anything with the intention of maintaining him in his position. I think the greatest support I can provide for CSN will be to work for his departure at the earliest possible date.

The committee, and the Las Vegas Sun, have let us down badly. Mike Richards has nowhere near the support among the faculty that you claim he has. The "fix was in" from the moment that the regents changed their own rules to allow Richards to be a candidate. The two other candidates, whose qualifications exceeded Richards's by an embarrassing margin, were simply defrauded, as were the citizens and taxpayers of the State of Nevada, and the entire CSN community.