Thursday, September 15, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Regents express concern over UNR's use of waivers

University of Nevada, Reno bypassed search process to fill permanent positions more than any other institution in state

The University of Nevada, Reno has bypassed the search process to fill permanent positions more than any other institution in the state, according to the Nevada System of Higher Education.

The search process advertises a position and allows a faculty committee to peruse applications, interview and select the most qualified candidate for the job. It's billed as a fair but often expensive and time-consuming process.

University presidents are allowed to forgo the search and hire a person as a professor, researcher or administrator through a waiver. But several regents said they were shocked to see more than half of the 84 waivers used systemwide to fill positions between July 2004 and June 30 were used at UNR.

"When I see a lot of waivers it tells me: No.1, they could be too fat, they could have too many jobs open; secondly, the hiring process to begin with may not be defined enough; and thirdly, and you hope not, is that maybe they gave the job to somebody on the inside," Regent Mark Alden said.

Alden said he was bothered to see so many waivers at both of the state's universities.

UNR conducted 305 searches and waived 48. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas held 298 searches and waived 22 of them.

UNR officials said about 30 of the positions filled without searches were in the medical school or were grant specific. Fourteen of those waivers were used for people who were tied to grants the institution received, they said.

"We have a lot of research grants that come our way. In the grants are select people that have to carry through the grant and complete the research process. Those individuals who are grant named, we do a waiver for them," said Gena Jones, associate vice president of human resources.

Within the medical school, the institution must use waivers to nab professors of rare disciplines quickly before competing institutions hire them, she said.

UNR recently created a new online search process that will help expedite hires, she added.

UNLV used waivers to fill 16 grant-specific positions. Nine were also used to transfer a federal biological science program to the institution.

"When Al Gore went down to Emory University in Atlanta after his vice presidency after he was not elected (president) in 2000, you know Emory didn't do a search for former vice presidents to come down and teach political science," said Sam Connally, associate vice president of human resources at UNLV.

"When you're looking for those kinds of truly distinguished feathers in an institution's hat, be it in an area of specific research or public relations, you just want to go after those folks."

Every institution has a reason to make exceptions from the traditional search process, but Regent Steve Sisolak said the high number at UNR concerned him.

"I'm not looking to point fingers here, I'm just saying we have a search process for a reason and it's to be open and to be fair to everybody," he said.

Regents plan to discuss the waivers at the Board of Regents meeting next week.

Chancellor Jim Rogers defended the use of waivers as an economical way to hire, quickly. He noted formal searches are not the norm in private industry.