Regent, faculty suggest the fix is in for new CSN president

Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Laura Perkins says an email notifying her Board of Regent colleagues of opportunities to meet with James McCoy, a candidate for interim president of the College of Southern Nevada, gives the appearance McCoy’s selection to the post is a fait accompli. 

“This is highly inappropriate to schedule a meeting out of the public purview with a candidate for such a high profile position,” Perkins wrote Tuesday to her colleagues on the board. “The optics undermine transparency. It gives a strong impression of nepotism.” 

Perkins later said she meant “favoritism” not “nepotism.” 

The email, sent Tuesday by the Board of Regents’ office, notifies regents that McCoy, who is Chancellor Patty Charlton’s recommendation for the position, was available Tuesday and Wednesday for individual meetings “should you wish to discuss with him the concerns raised by a couple of individuals during public comment at the quarterly meeting.”

While the majority of faculty members who spoke supported McCoy, some voiced concerns during public comment at a regents meeting last week. As a result, the agenda item recommending McCoy’s appointment was tabled until a special meeting scheduled for December 12. 

McCoy, the school’s vice-president of academic affairs, did not respond to questions about whether he was aware of the attempt to arrange meetings. 

“It looks a lot like the chair of the Board of Regents is shopping James McCoy around to the individual regents in a way that’s technically not violating the Open Meeting Law,” CSN professor Sondra Cosgrove said during an interview Tuesday. 

Regents’ chairman Byron Brooks did not respond to requests for comment.  

Cosgrove says in mid-November, Brooks and Charlton met with faculty and staff to inquire whether they wanted an acting president or an interim president. 

“The consensus in the room was we wanted an acting president from outside CSN who could objectively take the temperature of the college and do some review of where we’re at while we did a national search,” says Cosgrove. “On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I got an email from the System saying the agenda had been amended” to name McCoy to the interim position. 

Whose idea was it to arrange meetings between McCoy and the regents? 

The chancellor’s office directed the Current to the Board of Regents’ Chief of Staff Keri Nikoajewski.   

“So that would be a question for the chair of the board and/or the chancellor,” Nikolajewski said via phone. She declined to comment further. 

“We were assuming this discussion was going to be in an open Regents’ meeting and we would have an opportunity to comment,” said Cosgrove. “Now it just looks like they’re trying to make it a done deal.”