Jim Rogers left his position as chancellor Sunday morning with two words, and he returned to the post Monday night with five.
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"I hereby withdraw my resignation," the millionaire businessman wrote in a memo e-mailed to regents at 7:32 p.m.
Rogers said the memo was sent immediately after a meeting with James Dean Leavitt, one of two regents who had called for Rogers' resignation Friday. They broke bread at the Mayflower Cuisinier restaurant on Sahara Avenue, near Decatur Boulevard.
"We just had a nice conversation for 2 1/2 hours with James Dean, and we went through my positions and his positions," Rogers said.
The meeting was mediated by former Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, who worked for Rogers briefly as chief operating officer of the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center before leaving to take a lucrative position with Harrah's Entertainment.
"I feel very good about it (the meeting) because the differences that we had were easily resolved," Rogers said.
Disputes between Leavitt, who is chairman of the Health Sciences Center ad hoc committee, and Rogers came to a head last week after Rogers tapped former Democratic congressional candidate Tessa Hafen to lead the center's lobbying efforts in Carson City.
Leavitt questioned the hire and whether a search should have been done for the position.
Rogers said Leavitt was hostile in his questioning and fired off a scathing memo to Whipple stating that he would resign if Leavitt was elected chairman or vice chairman of the Board of Regents in June. Whipple said Rogers' memo was way out of line, and Whipple joined Leavitt in calling for Rogers to resign.
Leavitt couldn't be reached for comment late Monday.
Rogers issued a statement saying he and Leavitt had a "fundamental misunderstanding that was based on a lack of communication."
"It was inappropriate to send the correspondence (to Whipple) without giving Regent Leavitt a chance to respond to my concerns," Rogers' statement noted. "We have since resolved these issues privately to both our satisfaction. It is my sincere belief that Regent Leavitt is ethical, professional and highly competent in his duties as a Regent of the Nevada System of Higher Education."
Rogers had written to Whipple that: "James Dean's lust for power along with his total lack of knowledge and sophistication in the operation of any large organization makes it impossible to deal with him. Every week is worse than the previous week."
"My letter initially was written rather hastily," Rogers told the Review-Journal.
Rogers said that after he sent the letter to Whipple, he "expected to get a phone call from Bret saying, 'What the hell is going on?' (But) Bret's position was that legally he was required to distribute that letter to all of the regents."
By Sunday morning, Whipple had not responded to Rogers.
"I thought, 'If these are our differences and we're not talking about this, it's not going to work out,' " Rogers said. "We had a railroad train that was kind of running amok."
But now everything is back on track, Rogers said.
Regent Steve Sisolak, who had pushed for Leavitt and Rogers to discuss their dispute in person from the start of the controversy, had a better-late-than-never reaction to the news. "They both came together and I'm very, very pleased," he said.
Rogers' "I quit" memo had shaken up the higher education system, leaving regents, officials and lawmakers scrambling.
Board of Regents Chairman Bret Whipple spent much of Monday in Reno and Carson City meeting with elected officials including Gov. Jim Gibbons and state Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, regarding Rogers' abrupt departure.
When Whipple returned to Las Vegas on Monday evening, he was told to go to the restaurant where Leavitt and Rogers had been negotiating their truce.
"I got back and there's a written apology and everybody's, as we say on the ranch, hunky-dory," Whipple said.
But Whipple said he still had concerns over the legality of Rogers' resignation and didn't know what it meant for the system. "I think the entire board needs to address this issue," he said.
Sisolak said there is a three-day cooling-off period after resignation notices are submitted, and Rogers' withdrawal of his resignation fell within that period.
In the day and half since word of Rogers' resignation had spread, the state's university and college presidents had lobbied for the regents and Rogers to resolve their differences. The presidents had even drafted a letter encouraging reconciliation, according to Community College of Southern Nevada President Richard Carpenter.
"This is a clearly a matter between the Regents and the Chancellor," the letter stated. "However, we DO have grave concerns about the effects of any executive leadership change at the point in time. In the interest of our system and for our students, we urge the Chancellor to reconsider his decision to resign and we urge the Board to work with the Chancellor to reconcile this matter."
The presidents were worried about going chancellor-less into the legislative session that begins Feb. 3.
"The presidents have been unanimous in their support of the chancellor," Carpenter said.
The rough draft was never circulated because hopes dwindled that Rogers would return, Carpenter said, and there were enough e-mails and memos being passed between regents and university officials that the presidents chose to relay their messages to regents in person.
Carpenter said the presidents weren't taking sides in the matter, they just believed the dispute could be resolved between Rogers and Leavitt.
Meanwhile others were seeking a different action related to the root of the dispute. Conservative group Citizen Outreach continued its efforts Monday to sack Hafen.
"The hiring of Tessa Hafen so soon after her losing congressional campaign and without any real experience in the lobbying world smacked of the kind of partisan patronage one would expect from a ward boss in New York, not Nevada," state Sen. Bob Beers said in a press release issued by the organization.
Beers said he was concerned that Hafen's Jan. 8 hiring, at an annual salary of $100,000, sent the wrong message to lawmakers.
"The perception is not of a struggling university system when they can hire someone with no (lobbying) experience ... for considerably more than an entry-level teacher," he said.
Several regents told the Review-Journal they have no interest in ousting Hafen.
Hafen could not be reached for comment Monday night.
