A new chancellor will take his seat at the helm of the Nevada System of Higher Education on Monday, beginning what many hope will be a period of long-term stability after the eight colleges and universities spent more than a year under interim leadership.

Thomas “Thom” Reilly is no stranger to Southern Nevada. He served as Clark County manager from 2001 to 2006 before spending six years directing the social work program at San Diego State University. For the past three years, he’s worked as the director of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.

He enters a system at a crossroads. Former Chancellor Dan Klaich retired early in June 2016 amid criticism that the system misled lawmakers during the dicey process of reworking the formula that allocates money between the institutions.

A national search for Klaich’s replacement failed when five semifinalists withdrew from consideration, and interim Chancellor John Valery White was poised to take the post before suddenly removing himself from the running, saying he didn’t want to get in the middle of a dispute among the board of regents. Reilly said he was tapped after Regents Rick Trachok and Kevin Page approached him; the national search firm then conducted background and reference checks before regents voted unanimously in June to appoint him.

There’s still tension between lawmakers and system leaders, evidenced in legislative hearings for bills seeking to remove regents from the Constitution, split the system into two, reorganize a cooperative extension program and work more computer science classes into high schools.

State leaders are increasingly looking to NSHE for help raise Nevada’s persistently low levels of college attainment and build a highly skilled workforce that can attract more diverse businesses, such as advanced manufacturing. The schools themselves are hoping to grow in prestige and answer respond to labor shortages, such as a scarcity of doctors.

Reilly will be based in Las Vegas, but plans to spend two days a week or so in Reno. He also hopes to teach a class at one of the community colleges come January — something he likes to do to keep in touch with the student body.

Here are excerpts of his interview with The Nevada Independent, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What’s your first order of business as chancellor?

A: My goal for August is to meet individually with each of the regents, all the presidents, or anyone else that reports to me. I’m hoping by October, we can begin strategic planning. The last time I understand that the system has actually done that was about seven years ago. I think there’s a good consensus that this is something that they’re interested in.

One thing I’ve done for the last 10 years is a lot of strategic planning. I’m really excited about engaging the board in that exercise.

Q: What are some of your biggest goals?

The four areas that I had identified was first of all, figuring out how we can expand access to higher education and really looking at barriers. I’m not just talking financial barriers because they’re important, but addressing what is it that’s keeping individuals from accessing higher education. Nevada is below the national average in the percent of adults that are registered or enrolled or seeking to obtain some type of higher education.

What attracted me to Arizona State was, when [President] Michael Crow came to this university, he made a commitment to moving the university to a first-class research institute. But he said we’re going to judge ourselves not by who we exclude, but who we include.

It kind of flips the whole system because the prevailing notion is that when you search for excellence you exclude and be more selective. But learning has become the single most critical adaptive function for individual success. So we should be talking about how we expand access. I’m not just talking about intellectual capacity, but intellectual type.

The second area is we’re below national averages on educational attainment. Not obtaining a degree creates a financial burden that follows you from institution to institution. We really have to figure out what does it take to ensure that individuals who begin can actually realize a degree or certificate.

The third area is the area of workforce. The disruption that’s occurring to the workforce in the next five years will be dramatic not only in job elimination, but job creation. We’ve got to figure out how we’re meeting the economic needs of tomorrow.

The last one is that we really should be focusing our research and our intellectual capacity on solving problems. That needs to be cross-discipline. I think a lot of the responses to a community problem is that we have a discipline come in and solve it. And the problems are too complex or too intractable. We need to unleash our students and our faculty in an interdisciplinary manner to really solve problems. When there are issues in the community, the university doesn’t always have to lead, but it needs to be there.

Q: Unlike some other leaders in the system, your experience goes beyond just higher education. How will that inform your work?

A: Many chancellors have had previous experience being a president, but not many have worked with elected boards. As you know, Nevada is unique in that aspect. It is a different structure. What I bring is experience directly working with an elected board, but also a lot of my private work has been working both with non-profit boards and elected boards. I think I’ve worked with every elected local government in Southern Nevada.

The other is I have experience in relationships not only with the Legislature, but also with private industry, and obviously, they’re key constituents in furthering the goals of higher education.

Q: What would you do to address the tension between the system and the Legislature?

A: One is having a strategic focus that really is kind of laser-focused on the things that are most important for higher education. I think having individual conversations with legislators is essential to really better understand what their issues are or why they’re concerned about how the system is operating and meeting its mission.

I look forward to really listening and working with legislators, whether it’s to committees or individually, to better understand a lot of those issues and work with the regents to alleviate or address them.

When I worked a local government, tensions were exacerbated at different times between the state Legislature and local government. They still are. I think it’s not uncommon to have some of the friction, but I understand that the tension and the concerns were at a high level.

Q: Where do you stand on an effort to remove the regents from the Nevada Constitution?

Sandra Day O’Connor, an esteemed Supreme Court justice, came and made a real push in Nevada not too long ago about appointing our Supreme Court justices. That didn’t receive a very good reception. When I was county manager, there was a county recorder that was involved in quite a bit of crazy behavior. I wrote an op-ed piece and met with the Legislature and was very vocal that we should be electing policymakers, and not administrators.

I really made a big point about why don’t we elect the public works director because he’s not a policymaker. And what does the recorder do? It is not a policy position. It is an administrative position. I probably got more hate mail, and the commissioners were inundated with more phone calls than anything I ever did as county manager: “Do not take my right away to vote. I don’t even know what the recorder does, but don’t take my right away.”

My point is that when something like that is established, it is exceedingly difficult to get the public to give up their right to elect someone individually.

But I think it needs to be discussed. I’m always in a big favor of open discussions about that.

Q: What can we deduce from the fact that there are discussions about removing the regents from the constitution and breaking NSHE into two — a community college system and a university system?

A: I see it as red flags. Obviously there’s a sizable group of individuals that are concerned. I’d be interested in not just dealing with the issue of whether we do a structural change, or whether we appoint or elect, but what are the root issues and concerns.

I would always want to go back to what are the metrics, and what is most important in educational achievement and access, and what is creating barriers. I’m in Arizona right now. I just had this conversation with the chancellor of the Maricopa Community College System.

The community colleges have incredible autonomy. The problem is that there’s tremendous effort that has to go forth of communicating between the K-12 and the university system. We know students who go through community college and transition to a four year college do better. They graduate more, and they’re better students. That system should be as seamless as possible. So is creating a separate system really helping that, or is that going to improve metrics? Or, the issue is that the higher education system focused too much on the two universities, and not the state college and the community college?

The community colleges are much more nimble. They’re much more adaptable to respond to the changing workforce issues.

I know people view this as more symbolic, but I’ve always taught. When I was county manager, I taught a class. It’s important to have that connection as chancellor. I made a big point to say the first class I’m teaching is going to be at the community college. It’s not just because I want to symbolically say that. It’s that we need to give increased attention to those issues at community college. They are incredibly important to obtaining all these goals of access to higher education.

Q: There’s always the perception that universities are getting more attention and resources than community colleges. Do you think they’re getting short shrift?

A: I think that the strategic plan should be indicative of what is the clear focus of higher education for the next three to five years. And if community colleges are not prominently outlined in that document, I’d say there’s issues.

Q: How do you balance workforce development goals with just kind of the general push towards liberal arts?

A: I think we have to have this multiple focus. The liberal arts degree that allows for critical thinking and prepares individuals beyond just a specific task is something that’s very important to higher education not only in Nevada, but nationally.

Having said that, a sizable part of the population does not participate in higher education for a host of reasons. We have to be a lot more flexible and adaptive and innovative about what we consider higher education. I don’t see it as an either/or. I do see it as a balancing.

I do see ways to address a core task or certificate someone might need, but also build in opportunities for other types of course-taking, maybe online. I think it’s also working with industry to expand not only to meet the immediate needs of supplying workers, but also expand knowledge.

I think too often we get ingrained in these disciplines. I understand. I ran a department. I’m a tenured professor. I understand the challenges of having one discipline work with another, and we give a lot of lip service.

As an employer, I was always frustrated with public administration in universities. They were producing good financial managers and human resource managers. But the individuals didn’t have the ability to work across boundaries. To be successful you have to manage people and resources that don’t belong to you. Those soft skills were much more indicative of success in the public sector than just a degree in public administration.

We really have to explore what is it that makes good workers and incorporate some of those other components like critical thinking and soft skills.

Q: Do you think there should be another round of tuition increases, or a change in the financial aid structure for NSHE?

A: It’s one of those issues I really have to be much more educated on before I make any intelligent comment. But we have to address the issue of affordability. There’s a host of barriers on why people enter or don’t enter, or don’t succeed, or don’t obtain degrees. They’re not all financial, but a lot of them are financial. I don’t think there’s one solution to this, but the affordability issue has to be addressed.

On the other hand — others dealt with this stuff at the CSU system in California: is the tuition that’s being paid actually covering the services being offered? There are complex, emotional and needed discussions that need to occur.

Q: I know you’ve done some research on public pensions. Have you noticed anything in NSHE’s system that could be improved?

A: I just don’t think we benchmark enough to justify needed increases. One of my big gripes at local government was they always benchmark, but they only benchmark each other. Henderson benchmarks Clark County and they got an increase. So the city of Las Vegas now is not on par. Rarely did they benchmark the private sector, and they never benchmark the state.

One of the things the faculty kept asking is whether this will be a priority for you — the merit system that we had that had been turned down the last four or five times. My initial reaction is I would be much more interested in figuring out why it’s being turned down.

I understand as a director who ran a program that good faculty can easily go other places, and people are willing to pay for people who produce, research-wise. But I’m not sure that the system that’s being presented to the Legislature is the right one, particularly if it keeps getting turned down.

The second area is that I’m also big on performance. I don’t like automatic increases and I’ve been on record as saying that. I prefer pay systems that are based on performance. I just think we need to have more transparency about salaries and benefits.

Q: How were you chosen for this position?

A: I can’t address the failed search although I have asked our attorneys to look at what happened. If there’s something we need to change legislatively, we need to change it. That didn’t serve anyone well when you have a failed search.

After the failed search, I was approached by two of the regents about my interest. I talked to them — they actually flew down and met with me. They said I was recommended by people in the community. I thought about it, and then I declined. I just said I like my job now. I know people say that quite a bit, but I really have a cool job. I run a policy think tank. It’s a fun position and I’m surrounded by these incredible, smart, talented journalists and researchers.

And then they came back again and made another pitch and articulated why they felt I was a good fit right now. Nevada has been my home. It’s my legal residence. I still have a home there. Nevada’s been great to me. So I thought about it. I had a conversation with President Crow at ASU who encouraged me to take it. So I decided at that point I would, based upon several issues.

One is that I was bothered that it didn’t go through the search committee. I wanted to be vetted to the search firm. I want the search committee involved, and I want to do public forums.

I did nine public forums. The search committee was involved. There were 40 people vetting me. It probably came up pretty quick. But I think that they were very, very transparent in the sense that they cast a wide net of people that have an opportunity to talk. I think people had an opportunity to say is this someone we want.

You get into a point where you have a failed search. Then, you make a decision — what do we do? One is you can retrospectively go back there and say why did it fail? I’ve committed to looking at that, and saying whatever needs to change, let’s change it.

When you have candidates, they should be able to go to a search committee. They should be vetted. I don’t buy it’s just an open meeting law problem. I’m sure that was some reasons why individuals didn’t want to throw their name out there in order to get vetted by the board. And I get that having 13 regents could be unpredictable.

But I don’t think that’s all of it.

Q: Former Chancellor Dan Klaich didn’t leave under the best of circumstances. What do you think that we can learn from that?

A: I think the first week I’m starting up in Reno, I’m actually meeting with Dan Klaich. I wasn’t following it very, very closely. But my understanding is that it was ongoing issues between north and south. And it was an issue around transparency, and how communications occurred with a group that they had contracted with.

So, lessons learned. I know it sounds trite, but the more public discussions we can have, and the more of those that are out there in the public, I think will serve us well. The north-south issue, despite progress probably being made on the formula, is still alive, probably always will be to some extent, and needs to be paid attention to.

I’m looking forward to talking to Dan more about it. It’s always easy to retrospectively look at how things could have been done. Having been in those positions, I’ve made tough decisions. I’m always cautious about that because the situations are different, but Dan has been very generous in sitting down with me and offering any assistance and thoughts, and I’m looking forward to that discussion.