The Vitals
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What's Happening at This Month's Meeting? The fallout from this winter carries over at this week's regents meeting (Thursday and Friday, 3rd floor, Desert Research Institute, Flamingo at Swenson), and the proceedings could be entertaining as always. The board will likely continue discussion on the tuition overcharges that first came to light in January. Expect impassioned debate from those who want to refund students their money immediately. Also on tap will be discussion of issues related to conduct of CCSN employees, and how they relate to the Legislature, in an effort to prevent the Remington/Cummings debacle from happening again. A late addition to this week's agenda is the hiring of Lon Kruger as UNLV's basketball coach. UNLV officials said the job wasn't offered to Kruger until Sunday, but the item to approve Kruger's contract was put on the agenda last week. This could turn into a debacle of epic proportionsthe trainwreck of UNLV basketball colliding with the circus of the Board of Regents. |
Why Are the Regents Always at Odds with Each Other? "It's never been this contentious," said Regent Jill Derby, whose 15 years on the board is the longest tenure of any current regent. "It could be individual personalities that exacerbate it, in the way individuals communicate it. It's such a lack of civility and respect that gets expressed and communicated." What went wrong that the public board that oversees Nevada's higher education has become one of the most interesting public boards to watch? First and foremost, debate often turns into a referendum on personalities, rather than issues. Secondly, many veteran regents don't like the style of chairman Stavros Anthony, who was elected to the board in 2002 and ascended to the chairmanship last summer. "I like Stavros, I think he's an asset for the board, but I don't know if somebody that's only been on the board for a year can be chair,'' Steve Sisolak said. "Because of time constraints, a lot of people cannot be chair. For me, it's way too much time. You need some history and some experience in order to make people feel more included. I think you have individual board members ... feeling excluded from the process." Anthony's predecessor, Las Vegas businessman Doug Seastrand, said it's unfair to solely blame Anthony. "I think he's doing as good a job as he's capable of doing, and he handles a lot of administrative things at the police department. He's a very capable leader, and I truly believe he's doing the best he knows how," Seastrand said. "Could he have benefited from more experience before he became the chair? Probably." Sisolak said some regents believe Anthony hands out committee chairmanships based on friendship, rather than experience. "You've got Linda [Howard] for example, she hasn't chaired a committee, and she's been on the board for four years," Sisolak said. "Other people are on the board maybe for a year, [they] are chairing a committee. Not that they're not capable, but it needs to be passed around a little bit, responsibilities need to be split." Anthony said that because there's only four committees, chairmanship opportunities are limited. "I'd like somebody to tell me why they were not handed out fairly," said Anthony, a captain in Metro's vice squad. "When I run a meeting, I try to make sure that it's done fairly, that people are treated with respect. Unfortunately, there's other regents that don't treat each other with respect." Reno Regent Howard Rosenberg, a UNR art professor, said that board members, himself included, takes things personally. "The one thing I have learned is, when you're a member of a board, once a decision is made, while I may not be waving the flag, I'm not going to try to sabotage it," Rosenberg said. "The majority has acted. I don't agree with the majority all the time, but that's life. "If you can feel inside of you that the person that disagrees with you, this is how they really feel, I don't have a problem with it," Rosenberg continues. "What I have a problem with is when I suspect there's an ulterior motive. ... I just need to be comfortable knowing that you've done the right thing." Anthony calls respect and dissent a byproduct of democracy. "You get 13 people, with 13 backgrounds, 13 opinions, and things do get contentious," the chairman said. "That's a part of democracy. If this was totalitarian, one person would be in charge and that would be the end of it." Some regents acknowledge that the drama is no different than with other elected boards, from legislatures to homeowners associations. "I think that other boards just take their discord behind closed doors. They're not subject to the open meeting law the way we are," Sisolak said. "For a board of this size, we don't have caucuses, so any time we get together, it's an open meeting, so most of our disputes are done in public. While it might not make us look real together on some issues, I think the public has an opportunity to see firsthand exactly how the system operates." State Sen. Dina Titus noted that "in the legislature, when caucuses meet, they are not bound by open meeting law. Maybe they do air their laundry a little more privately in the legislative caucuses." Rosenberg said that the open meeting law not only fosters foot-in-mouth disease, but also unnecessarily lengthy discussions. and prevents regents from resolving conflicts outside of meetings. But with the open meeting law unlikely to change anytime soon, conflicts remain. |
Why Is the Board Considered Such a Circus? |
Have They Done Anything Right? Facilities at colleges in Carson City and Elko have experienced just as much growth as their big-city counterparts. The board puts under a microscope projects funded by student fees, even when students vote in favor of fee hikes. |