A constitutional amendment to change higher education governance in Nevada

Higher education governing boards are responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of policies related to the mission and goals of the institutions under their charge. These responsibilities typically include approval of new programs, selecting and evaluating campus leaders, overseeing budget requests, ensuring financial stability, and setting tuition and fee structures. Higher education governance structures vary substantially across states.

In Nevada, a single Board of Regents was initially established in the state’s 1864 constitution in order to access federal resources to establish land grant colleges. Since then, all of Nevada’s higher education institutions have been placed under this governance structure. These include the seven public, degree-granting universities and colleges, as well as a research institute. Currently, the board includes 13 elected members serving six-year terms.

In 2005, the Nevada regents voted to further centralize authority by placing the state system chancellor (appointed by the Board of Regents) atop the presidents and giving the chancellor a larger role in the hiring and firing of presidents. This change ushered in a period of frequent turnover among university and college presidents.

Nevada’s elected, unitary structure is unique. While states such as Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah have single boards that govern their higher education systems, their board members are appointed. Colorado, Nebraska, and Michigan have elected boards, but those boards govern single institutions. Most states have separate governing structures for each of their colleges and universities, and many utilize coordinating boards to oversee program alignment and student articulation.

Nevada voters confront a question on higher education governance

Question 1 is a legislatively initiated amendment to the Nevada Constitution proposing to remove the constitutional provisions establishing the election and duties of the Board of Regents. In addition to requiring the Nevada legislature to provide by law the governance of the state’s land-grant institutions, Question 1 requires regular legislative audits of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE). If the measure passes, the board would become a popularly elected statutory body that would be subject to the full oversight powers of the Nevada legislature. If the measure fails, the legislature will remain constrained in its ability to oversee NSHE and the Board of Regents.

This is not the first time that the Nevada legislature has sought to exert control over higher education. In the 1940s, the legislature created an advisory board to serve alongside the Board of Regents. This action was struck down by the Nevada Supreme Court on the grounds that the intent of the framers of the Nevada Constitution was “to vest exclusive executive and administrative control of the university in a Board of Regents to be elected by the people.” Accordingly, some regents and higher education administrators have operated as if the board and NSHE are a “fourth branch” of government that is impervious to legislative oversight. Recent scandals involving the regents include dustups with the legislature because of plagiarized research and falsified documents submitted to legislative study committees, intentional stifling of legislative proposals, and violations of Nevada’s open meeting law and ethics guidelines.

In response, the legislature qualified for the 2020 ballot a measure similar to 2024’s Question 1. The measure failed by less than 3,000 votes out of 1.25 million cast, with support and opposition breaking largely along regional lines. In a subsequent legislative session, the legislature qualified Question 1 for the 2024 ballot and used its available powers to initiate audits of higher education budgets, reduce the size of the board from 13 to nine members, and shorten terms from six to four years. The legislature also exercised its bluntest power by disproportionately cutting the higher education budget during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding was not restored to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.

Despite heightened legislative scrutiny, chaos continues to reign. After the former chancellor filed a hostile workplace environment complaint in 2021, the board bought out her contract after 19 months on the job. Additional buyouts of senior staff soon followed. An acting chancellor lasted a year. In an exit interview, he said he supports removing the board from the constitution, noting the system’s dysfunction and infighting. The search to hire a permanent chancellor failed. An interim chancellor has been on the job since August 2023. Meanwhile, regents continue to make headlines in the wake of impolitic comments related to race, trans people, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The implications of Question 1

 If Nevada’s Question 1 is voted down, the legislature can continue to use discretionary audits and its appropriations authority to keep an eye on higher education operational and capital funding. The legislature could establish separate governance for the five colleges and universities that are not the state-designated land-grant institutions (though several bills proposing to do so have failed to advance in recent years).

Passage of Question 1 would put the Board of Regents and NSHE on the same footing as other executive agencies and ensure that higher education is governed by the laws enacted by the legislature. In addition to being required to regularly audit higher education budgets, the legislature could review and reform existing programs. Their potential new powers could also allow the legislature to statutorily differentiate the missions of the universities and colleges and more effectively integrate higher education with the state offices overseeing workforce and economic development. Other possibilities include the specification of qualifications for regents, mandated professional development training, and a process for removing regents for misconduct or dereliction of duties.

Approval also would allow the legislature to alter the board’s structure and composition. For instance, it could add student and faculty representatives. It also could create a hybrid board of elected and appointed members. This is not without precedent. In 2006, the legislature qualified a constitutional amendment to change the board to a mix of elected and gubernatorially appointed members. The measure failed by less than a percentage point. In 2011, the legislature changed the state board of education that oversees K-12 education from an elected board to a hybrid board. In theory, the legislature could make all board members appointed, but this would be difficult to pass. In 2010, a ballot measure that proposed to amend the Nevada Constitution to change the process for selecting state supreme court justices and district court judges lost by more than 15 percentage points. In 2015, Republican Governor Brian Sandoval proposed appointing school board members. The idea went nowhere.

Alternatively, passage may usher in an era of detente between the Board of Regents and the Nevada legislature. Absent a constitutional claim of exclusivity over higher education, the regents would be required to partner with legislators on higher education issues with the understanding that if they are unable to work together, then the legislature could alter the board’s composition and scope of authority to its liking.

Questions about how to govern institutions of higher education in the U.S. probably have not received their fair share of attention from education researchers and policymakers despite the amount of resources that higher education governing boards oversee and the importance of higher education to states’ economic and social well-being. On November 5, however, Nevada’s voters will confront those questions at the ballot box.