Crowley stepping down as UNR president

RENO - His voice breaking, the man who has guided the University of Nevada, Reno for the past 22 years announced Wednesday he is stepping down.

Joe Crowley, 66, will have been president of the campus 22 years when he officially leaves Dec. 31. The man who started as a political science professor in 1966 said he will return to teaching.

"This has been hard. I said this would not happen," said Crowley, long known for his unshakable self-control, as he made the announcement in Morrill Hall. "I will miss this job in many ways, but I will enjoy going back to the faculty and writing a book I've been trying to write for six years."

Crowley said, however, he has offered his experience, which includes 11 legislative sessions, to the university system if it needs him as a lobbyist during the 2001 Legislature.

Jill Derby of Minden, who chairs the Board of Regents, said she intends to take him up on the offer.

"I'm very hopeful we'll get him to help through the Legislature," she said. "Joe's masterful in his political effectiveness."

That sentiment was echoed by Gov. Kenny Guinn, who for a while was president at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"They need somebody," he said. "Joe's provided 22 years of outstanding stewardship."

Crowley only intended to hold the job five years before returning to the classroom, but he has been president at the campus longer than anyone else in UNR's history and is the longest-serving president of a public institution in the nation.

Since he replaced Max Milam as acting president in February 1978, the campus has doubled its total student population as well as its facilities. Research has grown to $70 million a year and fund raising from just over $3 million to nearly $125 million during the 1990-95 Century Campaign.

He said he decided to step down "because I had this growing feeling inside that the time is right."

"And I always felt I wanted to go out under my own power instead of somebody else's head of steam pushing me out the door," he said.

Crowley said if he helps with the system's lobbying effort at the 2001 Legislature, his return to the classroom will be the following fall but, if not, he could be back in class in January.

Asked about the remaining projects and the upcoming budget and legislative session, he said, "What you learn is there is never a good time."

Until his replacement is named, he said, he intends to continue working on such things as the deal for the land now occupied by Manogue High School across Evans Street from the campus and on the new biennial budget for the campus.

"When you make an announcement like this, there's always a certain amount of lame-duckness," he said. "I will be fighting against that."

He said he hopes to help the university system present a unified budget to Guinn and the Legislature.

"To sell this budget as a system budget, we all need to sign off on it," he said.

He said his advice to whoever replaces him is "be persistent and be patient." But he said "in no way" would he help select the next president.

"What the president needs to do who is leaving is just get out of the way," he said.

He did say he has broached the subject to retiring U.S. Senator Richard Bryan, D-Nev., "and he wasn't interested."

Bryan, however, has expressed an interest in teaching and may eventually join Crowley in the political science department.

Crowley said he is interested in getting together the different people on campus who teach leadership to discuss working together to offer a graduate seminar or classes on the subject. He said "in a broad sense," his teaching interests run toward the humanities.

Derby said the system is working on picking a new chancellor to replace Richard Jarvis who left a year ago and hopes to have someone by fall. Regents are also looking for someone to head the Community College of Southern Nevada.