LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Students at the College of Southern Nevada started the new school year with a new president.
Dr. Bill Kibler is serving as the acting president, but he’s only in the position for one year.
“We're all focused on this one-year time and how we can best prepare this place for a new president, which would be an exciting time and a new chapter for the life of this college,” Kibler said. “I'm not concerned about, ‘Am I making decisions that will make me unpopular and then maybe I won't get the permanent job or something.’ That's not even on the table. At all. And so my popularity is not my goal here, not my focus. The focus is entirely on this college and on its students. Period.”
The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents approved his appointment after Dr. Federico Zaragosa retired in July.
For Kibler, focusing on the college and its students means looking at its efficiency and effectiveness.
That’s something he didn’t find when it came to the structure of CSN’s organization.
“It became necessary in looking at the upper level structure of the institution that we needed to make some trimming here and there. We probably had more vice presidents than we needed, and so I'm addressing some of that as well as other positions at the higher levels of the college,” he said.
That led to the elimination of several positions.
He says next, he’ll organize task forces and groups to go into the second, third and fourth layer of the administration to see if there are other ways to break down silos and make improvements.
“No criticism implied anywhere, but when I got here, I had over 20 people reporting directly to the president and that, in my opinion, for me, that's not sustainable,” he said.
He also said the board tasked him with finding deficiencies in the budget, given spending levels remained the same post-pandemic, despite the decline in enrollment, though he says numbers are moving in the right direction.
“We're anticipating some not dramatic growth, but some slight growth this year, to indicate that we're on the right pathway to continue to grow CSN's enrollment going forward,” Kibler said.
