Release: Regents’ Executive Director to Step Down, citing BOR seeking a “different direction.”

Pat Powers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Monday, March 16, 2020

Regents’ Executive Director to Step Down

PIERRE, S.D. – Paul B. Beran, executive director and CEO of the South Dakota Board of Regents since 2018, announced today he will be leaving the Board of Regents at the end of his current contract, which runs through June 2020.

“I have appreciated the last several years working for the Board of Regents, but the board has informed me they want to go a different direction in leadership and I fully understand their right to exercise that change,” Beran said. “I stand ready to help in the transition as the board repositions itself. (my emphasis – PP)

“I have enjoyed getting to work with members of the board, the presidents and superintendent, legislative leadership, and representatives from Gov. Noem’s administration, whom I have worked with over the last two legislative sessions. South Dakota should be proud of its higher education system. All six universities and the two special schools serve the state in a highly coordinated, efficient approach that utilizes shared services in a way that is the envy of many state systems,” he said.

“The board would like to thank Dr. Beran for his service to our state. He has helped prepare the system to move forward to find greater efficiency and effectiveness in future operations. As the system evolves, the Board of Regents is ready to analyze the system’s functionality in new and innovative ways,” said Regents President Kevin V. Schieffer. “The board wishes him well as he transitions into future opportunities.”

Schieffer added that the Board of Regents will announce next steps for the appointment of a new executive director after its April 1-2 regular meeting.

Beran said that much has been accomplished over the last two legislative sessions, especially with new opportunities for individual institutions and collaborative programs that include multiple institutions.

Dakota State University will advance a high-tech, cyber-focused connection with business and industry by developing a business incubator around technology-based needs, he said. “South Dakota State University and the School of Mines and Technology are working together to develop the Governor’s “next big thing” initiative for bio-products produced from farm and forestry products in South Dakota. The University of South Dakota received state funding to help build a 21st century health sciences facility to prepare our next generation of health care providers. In addition, Black Hills State University, SDSU, USD, and Western Dakota Tech are collaborating to increase the number of nursing and healthcare professionals in western South Dakota,” Beran said.

During his tenure here, Beran helped hire a new president at Black Hills State University and a new superintendent for the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  “I am sure the new and current institutional leaders will provide synergy for positive change and forward movement across this state,” he said.

Prior to his time in South Dakota, Beran served as chancellor for the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith for 12 years and for five years as president at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

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18 thoughts on “Release: Regents’ Executive Director to Step Down, citing BOR seeking a “different direction.””

  1. Personnel is policy. This is the first opportunity to change the direction and improve the quality of the product student’s receive for their tuition and the taxpayers pay to subsidize that tuition.

  2. This is potentially good news, I think.

    I spent nearly a decade attending a major university.

    I would testify under oath that the university I attended was under attack by foreign interests in the name of globalism.

    If we aren’t going to throw away the republic and constitution (not likely), whomever let the enemy in the door, paving the way to kill the American middle class should be held to account.

    The SD BOR missed a HUGE opportunity in 2011 to put SD on the map building the worlds banking, insurance, supply chain information systems and employing SD students in high paying, important, future proof jobs.

    If I had my druthers, I would FIRE ALL OF THEM for their negligence, cowardice, and the damage done to the younger segment of the SD workforce.

    The SD BOR is completely incompetent in my humble opinion.

    Sad but true.

  3. How many executive directors hires from out-of-state and leave shortly after does it take for the SD BOR to hire competent individuals from in-state? Dr. Paul Turman left to become Chancellor of the Nebraska State College System, Dr. Monte Kramer left for early retirement (I heard in part because he didn’t get the nod for the Executive Director position last time around). Get it together, because this is not a good look!

  4. How many directors are we going to have under this BOR? I was skeptical of the new guy from the start, but they also pushed out Mike Rush as well. So the question is whether this is an ED problem or a BOR leadership problem? Crazy times. Bring back Paul Turman and get this ship back on track.

  5. Anon 10:55 a.m.’s comment puts me in mind of the male comedian responding to a female audience member bemoaning the poor quality of the men she had been dating. “After the first 40 or 50,” he said, “did you ever think it might be *you* that’s the problem?”

    Even if a string of new EDs have been poor, remember that the BOR voted to hire every one of them after what can only be assumed to be a national search.

    I have assisted in a number of nonprofit ED searches, and I know how difficult they can be for both the organizations and the candidates. The bets searches result in an effective partnership; if either party thinks they’re going to “manage” the other, it’s a prescription for failure.

    1. The problem is that the “national search” is constrained to a limited pool of applicants with certain dispositions toward globalism and anti-Americanism (by design). When I refer to “cowardice”, this is what I mean – SD leadership is afraid of the D.C. globalist interface that seems to service China before the US.

      I think the better analogy would be a helicopter parent that keeps arranging marriages based on factors external to the personality and talents of the son/daughter.

      Hiring authorities are the parents, the hires are the partners, and the citizens of SD are the sons/daughters.

      What South Dakota needs in an BOR partner is nationalist leadership that is more loyal to the state of SD than to the network of administrators that keeps trying to arrange unsuitable partnerships on behalf of D.C. swamp critters beholden to China.

      For instance, this is strange to me:

      Yong Wang, Associate Research Professor
      The Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences
      Education – M.Eng., Wuhan University, China

      Dr. Wang is the director of the PATRIOT Lab at DSU.

      Recall that recently the Secretary of State warned governors of all states that China is infiltrating and operating in the US in any way they can.

      https://dsu.edu/research/madison-cyber-labs/patriot-lab.html

  7. Beran made awful decisions and was not nice to others in Pierre. They were right to can him. Maybe they should not just hire liberal bureaucrats all the time.

  8. Dr. Beran was a good man in many ways. He tried to better the institutions of higher learning and promote positive relations. I feel the regents possibly turned on him when he did not ratify the usual liberal dog and pony show that some were accustomed to.

  9. At $338,250 one would think they would have applicants….talk abut an over paid position…to put it in perspective that is 3x what the governor makes

    2. What do the members of the board of regents make per year? While kids go deep in debt these fat cats get fatter.

  11. Cost for tuition at USD is $37,326 for four years.
    Cost at U of South Florida is $25,640 for four years.
    Cost at Seminole State College is $14,389.20
    Students can take a gap year to establish in state residency, and still come out $10,000 better.

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