Former Nevada chancellor Jim Rogers dead at 75
Associated Press and RGJ staff
Jim Rogers, a philanthropist and education advocate who served as chancellor of Nevada's higher education system from 2005 to 2009 without pay, died over the weekend at his Las Vegas home after a bout with cancer. He was 75.
Rogers, who died Saturday evening, also was the owner of KRNV-TV and KSNV-TV, the NBC affiliates in Reno and Las Vegas, and oversaw the growth of Sunbelt Communications into 14 TV stations in five Western states. Sunbelt now is known as Intermountain West Communications Co.
In 2007, Rogers said he was worth about $300 million and had donated some $275 million to universities, including $60 million to schools in Nevada. In 2000, he was named among the nation's top 12 philanthropists by Time magazine.
He graduated from the University of Arizona law school in 1962. The school was named for him after the gift he pledged in 1997 became the largest ever given to a law school at the time. His donations also helped establish the law school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"Jim and I were contemporaries while practicing law, and what a terrific lawyer he was," U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. "And his talents were not limited to law. What he has done in education is superb. His philanthropic endeavors are unsurpassed in the state of Nevada."
As chancellor of the University of Nevada system, Rogers fought for increased education funding and sought to shake up the system to improve it.
Rogers criticized Nevada's tax policy and called for personal and corporate income taxes to help pay for education. His clashes with UNLV President Carol Harter and University of Nevada, Reno, President John Lilley forced them to quit. Rogers supported a proposal to have university regents appointed instead of elected.
He also donated his salary back to the university system.
Gov. Brian Sandoval said Nevada "lost one of its most outspoken and fearless advocates," citing Rogers' national recognition as a philanthropist and business leader.
"Jim dedicated his time and resources to advancing our education system and as chancellor of higher education, was fierce in his commitment to make sure our students had the resources they needed to succeed," Sandoval said in a statement. "Jim's legacy will live on in the many lives he touched throughout his truly remarkable career."
Critics branded Rogers as abrasive and opinionated, but he said he simply sought to get the best from himself and others around him.
"I'm very demanding of other people and myself," Rogers told the Las Vegas Sun upon retiring as chancellor. "I do have a very short temper, and I wish I didn't. But that's the way I am. … At the same time, I'm consistent and I expect the people I work with to meet high expectations.
"I've got one shot going through this life. I want to make sure I do as much as I can," the Las Vegas High School graduate added.
In 2010, Rogers was honored by the Nevada Board of Regents with the title of chancellor emeritus and awarded its highest honor, Distinguished Nevadan. Last year, he received the President's Medal from UNLV.
In 2009, just two weeks before he stepped down as Nevada higher education chancellor, Rogers issued a June 16 memorandum citing the need to solve "the outrageously low funding" of UNLV and the College of Southern Nevada.
Rogers said he didn't want to take money away from the University of Nevada, Reno or the other three higher education institutions in Northern Nevada, which he said also are funded inadequately.
However, Rogers said it was not fair for Southern Nevada institutions to receive half of the total higher education budget when more than half of all the students attend schools there.
In 2009, Rogers wrote a vitriolic op-ed piece criticizing Republican former Gov. Jim Gibbons that was published by the Nevada Appeal. The Board of Regents subsequently wrote a letter distancing themselves from Rogers' statements, and Regent Ron Knecht called for his resignation.
UNR-UNLV
In 2004 as interim chancellor, Rogers asked officials with UNLV and UNR to stop competing for resources and work together to improve the entire University and Community College System of Nevada.
In a memo sent to the Board of Regents, Rogers called for an end to the competitive practices of both universities.
The head-to-head combat between UNLV and UNR is nothing less than destructive of both and destroys the confidence of the public, Rogers wrote at the time. To help end this senseless war, the chancellor's office would ask that the regents enact certain principles from which there can be no deviation.
Rogers said regents should consider implementing policies that would allow for only one law school, one dentistry school and one medical school in the state for the next 10 years.
In 2005, the RGJ reported that then-U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and then-Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada were among the powerhouses urging Nevada's Board of Regents to give Rogers, then the interim chancellor, the job for the next three years.
Rift with UNR's Glick
In 2011, in the two weeks before the death of UNR President Milton Glick, a rift brewed between Glick and Rogers over where the new dean of the University of Nevada School of Medicine would reside –in Northern or Southern Nevada.
The increasing stridency of the exchanges between Glick and Rogers was noticeable to other UNR and Clark County officials and was evident in documents requested by the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2011.
On April 15, 2011, the day before the UNR president died of a stroke, the tumult reached a boil when in a correspondence sent to Glick by fax, Rogers wrote: "You lied to me. I'll never forget it and I'll never let you forget it."
In a posting on Twitter (@jimrogersnevada) using TweetDeck, Rogers suggested it was the pressures of dealing with the budget and "the total lack of leadership in the Governor's office in supporting higher education" that might have contributed to Glick's stroke. He made no mention of the accusatory fax he sent to Glick.
Rogers' skirmish with Glick came while the university president was also wrestling with UNR's possible $58.8 million reduction in state funding, which he said would cause fee increases, consolidation of colleges and elimination of degree programs.
Stepping down from his tenure as chancellor in 2009, Rogers was no longer officially affiliated with the university system. But Rogers continued to be an advocate for a closer relationship between the medical school administration, whose faculty and facilities are at UNR, and the medical establishment in Southern Nevada, the RGJ reported in 2011.
Rogers' support for the medical school dean to be based in Southern Nevada dated back several years, and he documented on his Twitter account his frustrations with the administration of the school, the RGJ reported in 2011.
"It's no secret the reputations of UMC and the UNR medical school aren't what they ought to be," Rogers wrote on April 18, 2011 through TweetDeck. "... So, I have this dream. Let me share it with you.
"Let's call my dream the birth of THE SOUTHERN NEVADA UNIVERSITY OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES or something like that."
Earlier this month, Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno announced that it will commit $5 million over the next three years to develop a full four-year medical education program and expand residency training at the UNR campus.
The University of Nevada School of Medicine now provides the first two years of medical education at UNR, but the majority of Reno's medical students must go to Las Vegas, where there are more hospitals, or out of state for clinical training in their third and fourth years.
– Story compiled from Martin Griffith of the Associated Press and RGJ archives