The Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education have had some great wins when it comes to diversity, recently. The incoming chair of the board, the chancellor and three of the eight institutional presidents are women, and five are people of color. UNLV and UNR both have remarkable firsts — the first African American President and first Hispanic president respectively — and Nevada State will soon be led by Nevada’s first female African American president. As of Fall 2020, 60 percent of NSHE’s students came from a minority population.

The diversity of the student body of the Nevada System of Higher Education is, of course, nothing new. The diversity of the faculty and staff, meanwhile, has long been cited as an area for improvement — it is almost the opposite of the student population in that 67 percent of faculty and staff identify as White, non-Hispanic. Fortunately, there is yet another opportunity for the Board of Regents to move the needle on diversity in the administrative faculty realm.

The Board of Regents is at the beginning stages of finding a new chief of staff and special counsel to the Board. It is a generally uncontroversial, functionary position responsible for advising the board and supervising the board office within NSHE. The person reports directly to the elected regents and works collaboratively with the chancellor. (The Nevada Independent’s Jacob Solis has written several stories detailing the departure of the most recent Chief of Staff and Special Counsel, Dean Gould.)

As a matter of background, Mr. Gould was only the second person to hold this position, with Reno attorney and former Nevada Deputy Attorney General Scott Wasserman serving as the inaugural chief of staff after the Board of Regents decided to create the position to replace the position of Secretary to the Board.

The Board of Regents will be meeting on June 30 to begin the process of appointing a permanent replacement for Mr. Gould. This is a great opportunity for the Board of Regents to chart a new path. After all, the person in this position will advise the board chair on issues like board member conduct and open meeting law — two issues the Board has historically had challenges with addressing internally.

Like most of Nevada’s highly paid public administrators, the chief of staff and special counsel enjoys relative anonymity from public scrutiny. I draw attention to this because my personal belief is, as Nevadans, we need to know who works for us, especially when the person has the ear of the group of elected officials responsible for the policy, financial and personnel oversight of our system of higher education. A position with this much influence should also reflect the diversity of thought and background that has given the Nevada System of Higher Education so much strength in the last year.

Amidst so much criticism from all sides, it is easy to believe that the Board of Regents are constantly fumbling the ball. Quite the contrary. In recent months, we have seen the board approve the first collective bargaining agreement with CSN faculty, support through the Legislature a plan for salary progression for all NSHE faculty, and establish a commitment to diversity (Chancellor Melody Rose and the university presidents have made many statements reinforcing this). We have momentum, and the Board of Regents can send a message to the community through their selection of the right person to serve as permanent chief of staff.

We are fortunate in Nevada to have such a deep bench of talent, especially at the higher education system office and our eight institutions. I hope the Regents take full advantage of this as they seek to fill this influential and important position.

If you wish to view the June 30 Chief of Staff and Special Counsel Search Committee meeting, or offer public comment, you can visit the Nevada System of Higher Education website. 

Nathaniel Waugh is a member of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Board of Trustees and a program supervisor at Hope for Prisoners where he focuses on workforce development for dislocated workers and recently released offenders. He received his Master of Arts in Urban Leadership from UNLV.