UNLV Head Gets Top Cal State Long Beach Post : Education: Robert C. Maxson presided over a major expansion of the Nevada school. He often clashed with former basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.

California State University trustees on Wednesday picked Robert C. Maxson, the embattled president of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, to be the new president of Cal State Long Beach.

Maxson, 57, nudged out interim Long Beach president Karl Anatol for the top spot, which he will assume July 1. Both met with Cal State trustees for final interviews Wednesday before Maxson was named to take over the 27,000-student school.

“I didn’t take this job to leave UNLV,” Maxson said, referring to his sometimes stormy tenure at the Nevada school, where he often clashed with former basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. “I had 10 wonderful years (at UNLV). I love UNLV. I love Las Vegas. I took this job because I wanted to be president of Cal State Long Beach.”

As his first order of business, Maxson said he would “embrace the community and get it involved in the university,” particularly through increased private giving.

“This is what’s happening all over the nation,” he said about the need for aggressive fund raising. “It’s not just California. States all over the country have had to look to the private sectors to help the public institutions.”

Maxson’s appointment underscores a push by Chancellor Barry Munitz and California State University trustees to hold campus presidents more responsible for raising private funds. Following years of deep state budget cuts, Munitz this fall will institute a new job requirement that the chief administrators on the 20 campuses raise between 5% and 10% of their budgets from outside sources.

The move also reunites Maxson and Munitz, both of whom worked at the University of Houston during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Munitz was chancellor of the university’s central campus when Maxson was chancellor at Houston’s Victoria Campus and a senior vice president for academic affairs.

Appointed to lead UNLV in 1984, Maxson worked to transform a school derided as “Tumbleweed Tech” into a burgeoning institution with a more solid academic reputation. His presidency coincided with the gambling capital’s economic boom, and the desert campus bloomed with construction or plans for 35 new buildings, 14 new accredited programs, 28 new degrees, a beefed-up faculty and a student population that nearly doubled to 19,682.

Behind this heady expansion, say school officials, was Maxson’s talent at raising prodigious amounts of private gifts. He brought $100 million to the school’s foundation through a variety of methods, including naming campus buildings after or conferring honorary degrees upon the most generous donors.

But Maxson’s work was overshadowed by his highly publicized feud with Tarkanian, widely adored by Nevada’s sports-starved fans for building the Runnin’ Rebels basketball team into a national powerhouse that won the NCAA championship in 1990.

Tark the Shark, as he was called, packed the sports arena and delighted Las Vegas civic boosters, but his program was dogged by NCAA investigations into recruiting violations. Three players were once photographed sharing a hot tub with a convicted sports “fixer,” one prospect was arrested on cocaine charges and the team was secretly videotaped holding an illegal practice.

Tarkanian quit, changed his mind, then quit again in 1991, but he remains a popular figure in Las Vegas. His supporters have continued to oppose Maxson, who had vowed to make academics a priority and bring the renegade basketball program in line.

Things got worse this year when the Rebels turned in a 15-13 season. “Bob Maxson was a revered president,” said Madison Graves, a Nevada developer and UNLV regent. “But when he fired the most popular coach in the state of Nevada, who brought us a national championship, it divided the community.”

Wednesday’s announcement brings the Maxson-Tarkanian saga full circle: Maxson comes to lead the campus where Tarkanian launched his coaching career before leaving in 1973--under a cloud of recruiting violations--for greater glory at UNLV.

At Long Beach, Maxson will face decidedly different challenges. Nearly $30 million in budget cuts have forced the school to drop football and men’s swimming and close 700 class sessions on the 322-acre campus, limiting enrollment to 27,000--a reduction of 3,000 from last year.

Profile: Robert C. Maxson * Born: May 8, 1936, in Watson, Ark.

* Residence: Las Vegas

* Education: Ph.D. in educational leadership from Mississippi State University; master’s in educational administration from Florida Atlantic University; bachelor’s degree in education and psychology from University of Arkansas at Monticello.

* Career highlights: As president of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Maxson was considered a consummate fund-raiser who brought an estimated $100 million into the school’s foundation. He is perhaps best known, however, for his long-running feud with former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, who resigned in 1991.

* Family: Married, two children.

* Quote: “I like to build, I like to charge and this (Long Beach State) is a young institution that’s very vital and filled with energy.”