Business leaders, boosters have much to say about UNLV’s Jessup

Several members of the business community and UNLV boosters have expressed strong support for UNLV President Len Jessup in the wake of his decision to seek other opportunities amid criticism of his performance by some higher-education officials. Jessup is in the fourth year of a five-year contract.

What follows is a transcript of their complete comments in interviews with Review-Journal reporters.

Michael Brown, president, Barrick USA

“Barrick is in a unique position — we work with three institutions, and there are not many companies in the state that do that. I think he’s doing a very good job. Since we opened our office in southern Nevada, I watched Len as he’s worked to transform the university. There’s a joke, or a saying in higher education that the president has three jobs: he’s the president of a university, a sports franchise and a medical school. These are big jobs and I think he’s done a good job.”

“As a board of director for the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, I’ve seen that he’s been very engaging there — telling us where they’re (UNLV) going. Members of the business community are in support of him. I have not talked to him. I left him a voicemail saying that I supported him and that I hoped he would stay.”

“I hope this can all be sorted out locally. Personally, what I see, is a man with a vision. Somebody, who when he got here, made a great effort to reach out and learn how the place worked and what it needed. We have had a whole series of presidents in this job. You need some continuity. You need a long view. You need somebody in it to carry it all the way through. I hope we can achieve it.”

Chuck Davison, a UNLV football booster and former two-time president of the UNLV Football Foundation

“UNLV needs to look and look hard for somebody and quit taking the second choice.”

“We have way too many regents. That’s part of the university’s problem. All they do is fight amongst each other, and they have meetings and nothing gets accomplished.”

“If the university was smart, they should contact her (Carol Harter) to come back and be the interim president.”

Peter Guzman, president, Latin Chamber of Commerce

“From our vantage point, he has been doing an excellent job. He has tremendous relations with the Latin Chamber and has always been responsive. Whenever we’ve had roundtables on issues that have been important to us, he’s been responsive, whether he’s coming to our roundtable, or it’s us going to him. From our vantage point, he’s always embraced the Latino Youth Leadership Conference, which has become a tremendous success.”

“I think it’s absolutely horrible the way it’s playing out in full view. I don’t think this is how we should be treating our leaders of the university. I don’t think people should be treated like that unless it’s warranted. How are we going to get a high-level person to take UNLV seriously whenever we do things like eating our own leaders in full view of the public this way? This all plays out completely in the open, with half truths and half information, and I think that’s bad for UNLV and I think that’s bad for our community. It’s going to make it that much tougher for us when we do want to recruit another person for the university. I would really encourage a lot less leaks of information. And overall, handle things in a more professional manner.”

Tom Jingoli, Board of Trustees member and Board of Directors member for UNLV’s Hotel and Law schools, along with Runnin’ Rebels Club

“I thought Len did a very good job under very difficult circumstances. It’s a toxic environment between the Nevada Board of Regents and the university. I don’t think Len Jessup got a fair shake from the day he walked in the door there. Half the regents are from the north and don’t want to see him succeed. They don’t want UNLV’s medical school to succeed. They want UNLV to be a failure. Quite frankly, we have people from the south who want to see the north fail.”

“What do the regents actually stand for? What do they support? You know what they’re against because they’re always in the public eye saying it. It just sends the wrong message to the community that the Board of Regents and university aren’t in alignment. We’re trying to raise money — whether it’s for a medical school or an athletic director or a basketball coach — and we’re out there airing our differences in the media?”

“Forget athletics — how the hell are we supposed to recruit top notch educators and positions like a dean? This isn’t about Len Jessup, and it’s not about the previous presidents or the future ones or the previous administrations. It’s about the system, and until it gets fixed, this won’t work. Think about it: If you’re a sitting president or a sitting coach at a top flight school, why would you want to come here and work in that environment?”

“I like Len. He has rallied the community and done a good job with fundraising. I don’t know what’s in this so-called report on him, but I know this: Until the system gets fixed and this toxic environment between the two sides is aligned, nothing will work. We have half the board rowing one way and the other half the other way.”

“This is a small community with one university. We’re out there trying to raise money from the same people all the time, over and over again. And when they read stories like this, it does nobody good internally and nothing good externally. So you push Len Jessup out and he leaves. What’s the plan then? What’s the backup plan? Who’s the next person up and what are you going to tell them when they find out how this work environment between the regents and university really works? Would you want to come here? Why would anyone?”

Tom Kaplan, senior managing partner for Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group

“I would use the word appalled that the NSHE situation has erupted as it has, where a leader such as Len Jessup has been chastised for excellent work. The university has achieved enormous successes on the city, state, and national stage. We’re just perplexed that the regents are putting this unnecessary pressure on an individual that has been tasked with achieving extraordinary accomplishments, and who has remained a selfless leader of the university.”

“The strategic goals of being a Tier 1 research institution, his fundraising achievements — a quarter billion dollars in the last three years, the medical school, the repositioning of the hospitality school, the law school, his role in the stadium talks, which is a major asset for the community and UNLV — it’s just mind boggling that he would have to even defend his job. He’s selfless, humble.

“At the end of the day, Len is attracting great talent. I recently met two women. One left her position at Emory University in Georgia and took over directing the school of nursing as dean. The dean of fine arts left Cornish College. Why did both of these ladies come? Because of Len Jessup and the way he’s running the university.”

“They should be thanking him for the work he’s done. He’s not trying to put a badge on his chest. He’s humbly trying to improve the university and every day strive to make the university one of the top tiers in the country. There’s a reason why Len is attracting a quarter billion dollars in the last three years. It’s because he’s doing great job. I haven’t met a single business leader in this community (with anything other than) fine things to say. This is not a controversial figure. He’s not an egomaniac, he’s not a bad person. Why do you get your lease cut out from under you when you’re doing a great job? He’s a passionate, visionary leader. It looks like pure jealousy, coming from the north.”

“When the state was created in mid 19th century, Carson City was made its capital. Las Vegas didn’t exist, and the state constitution was written in favor of the north. As things grew and changed, the south began outpacing the north, and generating most of the revenue. The way monies were distributed favored the north, but with a herculean effort, it began to change.

“The regents have a lot of control, which makes iit very difficult for this current president to operate the university successfully. If they push Len out, ultimately, we’re not going to be able to attract anyone else. Who wants to be step into this? Nobody. It will stagnate. A lot of funders will step aside. At the end of the day, it’s about our kids”

“If you do everything right, and you get beaten up, why would you want to stay? We’re rallying around him because it’s common courtesy. If they have these issues, let’s talk about it. I’ve lived here since 1992. I have no skin in the game. I have no agenda. We live, we work here, we care about our community. We want it to grow. A city is only as good as its academic insitutitions. We’ve made huge achievements. I don’t know any of the regents — I have nothing against them. Let’s sit down and work this out. It might be a little simplistic, but I’m an optimist.”

Jenna Morton, manager, Morton Group

“No. 1, UNLV is one of our greatest assets in the community. It supports businesses by raising the bar in the education level. It’s been doing an incredible job, and in the business community we value that immensely. How we support our university is paramount. The trajectory of UNLV, including the last few years of President Jessup’s tenure, has been really positive. We all feel that. The key is that the trajectory be supported. We’ve raised the bar of education in Las Vegas and in Nevada, and we need to keep that going.”

“Positive reinforcement of success, and encouragement where there are challenges, so that we can overcome them, is important. In our company, we don’t fire people. Only if and when all opportunities for improvement are exhausted, does a person leave. My feeling, and the feeling of my colleagues is that feedback needs to be productive and encouraging and not threatening. Positives and negatives need to be given their appropriate measure. Highlighting a few negatives may be appropriate from a constructive standpoint to encourage progress in those areas. There’s so much we can talk about that is positive, that is real progress for UNLV and that has happened for UNLV under this president. His record fundraising, the record relationships with the business community, the record public private partnerships, the record number of research grants, and having the Brookings Institution has been an asset for us here. This progress needs to be reinforced.”

“Is anyone perfect? No. I can’t tell you that any of my employees are perfect, and that they cannot, in a performance review, receive constructive feedback. But there also needs to be support for the real incredible progress that has been made. There’s a lot of moving parts. If you look in the aggregate, what he has presided over that have had positive outcomes far outweigh those where there have been concerns. Let’s not stop in our tracks or completely regroup. We need to keep the momentum going.”

“If I have to hire an entirely new employee, the onboarding costs along are a lot great to me, rather than constructively coaching an employee who knows our culture and environment. I would rather preserve existing team members who have room for growth. I think for all of us, at least for this community, it is a better investment to encourage and invest in someone who already knows our culture. You don’t change that midstream. We’re silly if we don’t capitalize on the success we’ve made.”

Bill Paulos, basketball booster who used to serve on the UNLV Foundation board

“I think the regents system is an absolute joke. I think it’s political. I think it’s North versus some of the South, and some of the South is not supportive of the South. It should be for all. In my opinion — I’ve been associated with UNLV for the last 50 years and closely aligned the last five — they’re disingenuous. Len, in my opinion, has done a good job. I have no idea what’s in his report or his evaluation, so I can’t comment on that. What I can comment is on is the guy works his ass off, and the regents two months after they hired him, they wanted to fire him.”

“You can’t go to an event that Len’s not there. It appears to me he has raised quite a bit of money, and the people behind that are the ones who like him because they’ve given him a lot of money. … People don’t give money to an organization if they don’t like the person even if they love the organization. If you hand somebody a check for $1 million, you do it because you like the guy in charge. The reason I gave $1 million to the Mendenhall Center is because I believe in Lon (Kruger). The reason I gave $1.5 million to The Smith Center is because I had worked with Don Snyder. I believed in Don Snyder.”

“Len has his own staff. He’s made a lot of hires in the past 12 months. In my opinion, you have to give the leader time to do what he has to do. Do I think Len deserves more time? Based on what I know — and I don’t know everything, and something could come out that makes this look foolish — but he deserves more time. It’s common knowledge people were after Len after he got hired. Who the hell would want this job? How are you going to tie up all the loose ends after all Len started?”

“My biggest beef is we have some of the brightest, creative and innovative people on the (UNLV) Foundation board, and it has zero control at the university. That’s why I left. I’m an emeritus. They should be overseeing the hiring and firing of the president, not the regents. Put the resumes of the Foundation alongside the resumes of the regents.”

“It’s a broken system.”

“The brain power of the Foundation boards exceeds by multiples that of the regents.”

John Ritter, trustee of UNLV Foundation and board chairman and CEO of Focus Property Group

“Since President Jessup assumed the leadership of UNLV more than three years ago, he has enabled, for the first time, a critical alignment of the university and city to come together to function more effectively. His accomplishments on behalf of the community are marked — the launch of an outstanding medical school, a landmark stadium, a revitalized hospitality program and events like a world-class debate. All of this was enabled by bringing in world-class talent of senior administrators and deans; professionals he then challenges to lead and grow the university and our greater community — something any business and CEO would expect in their own organization. I am so proud of Len and would I hate to see this momentum end with an early departure of his vision and spirit at UNLV and Southern Nevada.”