Zach Wendling and Aaron Sanderford
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — Gov. Jim Pillen is blaming Nebraska’s eight elected regents for not naming a presidential successor for the University of Nebraska and for the departure of the flagship campus’ athletic director.
Pillen, in a Thursday “call to action,” said that NU is “immeasurably bigger than one person” but that leadership matters. He called on the NU Board of Regents to support a decisive choice for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s next athletic director while working quickly to appoint a permanent presidential successor.
“The long-term success of our university depends immensely on having committed public servants as its leaders,” Pillen said.
UNL Athletic Director Trev Alberts ended a day of speculation Wednesday night by confirming reports he would leave to accept the same role with Texas A&M University, effective this Friday.
“I am deeply disappointed by Trev Alberts’ decision to leave so soon after restating his commitment to Nebraska and I don’t fully understand or know his reasons why,” Pillen said in a statement.
“I do know that the time for reflecting on the failures of university leadership, which led to his decision, must come later,” Pillen continued. “Now is the time to act.”
‘We will not rush’
Regent Rob Schafer, board chair, said that the selection of the next NU president is the “highest duty” of a regent and that the regents owe it to the university community to find the best possible leaders. The “reality in professional life,” he added, is people sometimes choose different opportunities.
“Our goal is always to be timely, but we will not rush this crucially important process,” Schafer said in a statement to the Nebraska Examiner.
Schafer noted the presidential search is progressing on a timeline similar to those in 2014 (which took more than a year) and in 2019 (which lasted about seven months). The current search will hit the seven-month mark next week.
Schafer said he is confident that the board is doing its “due diligence in choosing the right person to lead us forward.”
“We are now focused on the future and on supporting Husker Athletics as we work to compete at the highest levels on and off the field,” Schafer said.
‘I call a spade a spade’
Pillen stood by his criticism Thursday, telling reporters that the regents need to act and that they have taken too long to coalesce around a candidate.
“I keep my life really simple,” Pillen said. “I call a spade a spade. It needed to be said.”
He said the regents should have hired a president within 90 days of then-President Ted Carter’s Aug. 22 announcement that he was leaving to lead Ohio State University. That would have been by mid-November. Carter’s last day on the job was Dec. 31.
Pillen, who served on the Board of Regents from 2013 to 2023, led the effort in 2019 that resulted in hiring Carter, a process that took seven-plus months. The Examiner asked why Pillen thought the current board should have been able to move faster.
He pointed to a change to Nebraska public records law and the NU hiring process that the university sought in 2016. The change allowed NU to name only one priority or preferred candidate instead of four finalists, who were previously subject to more public scrutiny, including a longer vetting process.
The change let the Board of Regents conceal the identities of candidates for the presidency, along with their associated resumes and materials, except for one finalist.
Pillen said the ability to interview potential candidates privately in virtual meetings has speeded up the search process since then, eliminating the need to fly people out and arrange clandestine interviews around busy schedules.
In 2014, under the previous law, NU took 10 months to name four finalists for the presidency and another five months before hiring Hank Bounds in April 2015.
‘Couldn’t be about money’
Regent Paul Kenney of Amherst, board vice chair, and Schafer told the Examiner they wish Alberts well. Kenney added he expects regents to find “some kind of resolution” in the presidential search soon.
As to why Alberts is leaving, Kenney said: ”I don’t know what you can say.”
“November — put out a new contract, which was top 10 in the entire United States for athletic directors and that obviously wasn’t good enough,” Kenney said. “You can speculate as much as I.”
Kenney said Alberts’ leaving “couldn’t be about money,” though fundraising at Texas A&M may have played a role.
Regent Kathy Wilmot of Beaver City said “Nebraska is great” and she still has faith in the state and NU but, like Schafer, said she is looking forward.
In 2022, then-Gov. Pete Ricketts endorsed Wilmot for the board while Pillen endorsed her opponent, former State Sen. Matt Williams of Gothenburg. Williams was one of a handful of senators Ricketts opposed for overriding his vetoes on key issues, including the death penalty.
Williams said that the political action committee Ricketts funded was aimed at replacing certain top NU leaders. Carter, after announcing his departure, hinted that politics may have played a role in his decision.
Others have blamed Pillen for turning up the heat on university leaders during his 2022 governor’s race, along with his top opponent in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Charles Herbster. They focused attention on critical race theory and a university-created anti-racism plan.
When asked about the role of politics in NU’s recent departures, Wilmot said arguments about politics influencing Alberts or Carter to leave lack credibility. She said those arguments come from people who don’t know who’s responsible for what NU does or how the university works.
“I know that there will be someone that wants to come here that I think can do a great job for us,” Wilmot said.
Contract extension to departure
Four months ago, Carter unilaterally doubled Alberts’ salary from about $850,000 to $1.7 million.
The eight-year contract extension included various retention and performance bonuses and a provision requiring NU and Alberts to compare his salary with other directors at peer institutions.
Should Alberts’ salary have dropped from the top three director salaries in the Big Ten or the top 10 in the NCAA Division 1, and he had demonstrated “satisfactory performance,” Alberts and NU would have negotiated in good faith to boost his salary.
Alberts served UNL and earlier the University of Nebraska at Omaha for a total of 15 years. He apologized Wednesday for the non-ideal timing of his change and “for any negative impact it might have.”
“Leadership matters now more than ever before,” Alberts said in a statement accepting the Texas A&M position.
Alberts must pay NU $4.12 million, per his contract, because he is leaving before year’s end.
Last summer, the regents unanimously changed oversight of Husker Athletics from the campus chancellor to the NU president. This allowed Carter to change Alberts’ contract without the regents’ say.
‘We don’t need a shiny star’
Several people familiar with the university’s current presidential search have said Pillen has been very specific about what he wants in the next NU president.
Three declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution but said they were told he wants someone with Nebraska ties, someone willing to stay in the job for 10 years and someone who won’t advocate for the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that Pillen campaigned against in 2022.
Pillen initially denied having made any requests of the regents. He also denied trying to influence their presidential choice. After the Examiner followed up and shared what it had been told, the governor acknowledged having made his wish list clear.
“Yeah, maybe I can clarify that … I’ve been very, very public,” he said. “We need a great Nebraskan to be the leader of our university system. We don’t need a shiny star. We need somebody that understands Nebraska, understands the people of Nebraska and understands that the taxpayers are our boss.”
He also confirmed the push for someone who would stay 10 years, saying, “To really make things happen, having a 10-year expectation is reality.”
“If you try to hire somebody for two years, you’re spinning your wheels,” Pillen said.
Of the third push, he said he also told people that he wanted someone who “understands what our Nebraska values are and what Nebraskans expect.”
Regents must ‘end this uncertainty’
Interim NU President Chris Kabourek said that he was disappointed to see Alberts leave but that with “incredible momentum” in Husker Athletics, the university won’t hit pause. He intends to name an interim athletic director “very soon” and quickly begin the national search process to find a permanent leader.
Pillen said the regents should support Kabourek to immediately appoint a new, permanent director.
“It is unacceptable that the university’s elected leaders have failed during this time to appoint permanent leadership,” Pillen said in his Thursday morning statement. “It is imperative that they act urgently and decisively to end this uncertainty.”
Former UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green retired last summer after seven years at the top. A successor for that post took over the day after Green’s retirement.
Once a presidential priority candidate is named, that person will be subject to a statewide, 30-day public vetting period before regents will vote on their appointee. Regents previously said Kabourek is not a candidate for that final spot.
Voters will decide future membership
Pillen sidestepped a question about whether he felt any responsibility for making the hiring process harder by proposing DEI restrictions during his governor’s race and with a resolution against critical-race theory that was supported by two other regents, Kenney and Schafer.
His answer: “We have an extraordinary university system that’s been functioning for 150-some years, but short-term leadership matters, and when there’s a leadership void things happen.”
State law and case law specify that the elected NU Board of Regents, not the governor, leads the University of Nebraska.
Some Husker athletics supporters have begun efforts to press for new blood on the Board of Regents, including recruiting candidates for future races.
On Thursday, when asked whether he wanted to see changes on the board, Pillen said:
“That’s the people’s choice.”
