UNLV: A first choice

Debra D. Bass

Thursday, Aug. 21, 1997 | 9:07 a.m.

Look who's 40.

As UNLV begins to look its age, the university seems to be garnering some newfound respect.

"When I started UNLV, I was embarrassed. All my friends were going to college away, out-of-state," said Glenn Glover, a 1987 graduate of Bishop Gorman High School. "The funny thing is that a lot of them wound up coming back to UNLV and getting their degrees here after spending lots of money going to other schools for a year or two."

Glover is now working on his third degree from UNLV, a master's in public administration, after earning bachelor's in criminal justice and business management.

"I'm proud to have a college degree from UNLV," Glover said.

In the past, UNLV was often considered a last-ditch option for Nevada students eager to get the "college experience" of being far from home. But the perception of UNLV being the University of Never Leaving Vegas is changing.

Faiza Qureshi, a 1996 Green Valley High School graduate, said UNLV was her first choice. In fact she said it was the only choice on her list.

"This is the only place my parents would pay for me to go," Qureshi said bluntly. "I'm not kidding."

Aside from the financial strong-arming, the sophomore communications major insists that UNLV would have been her choice anyway.

"I wanted to stay in Las Vegas because I was born here and raised here and my brothers and cousins all came to UNLV. It sounds lame and corny, but it's true," she said.

This is not to say she didn't have her doubts as her longtime schoolmates packed their bags for universities in Boston, Colorado and California.

Nanette Bautista, a 1996 Basic High School graduate, agreed that it was hard to watch her friends go and not be tempted to follow.

"I made the right decision to stay," Bautista said. "I like the nursing program here and it's well respected. I'll leave Vegas after I graduate, but I want my degree from UNLV."

Bautista and Qureshi are new-student orientation leaders as UNLV looks to welcome some 4,000 freshman to what could be a record-breaking student body.

Enrollment has become more diverse in more ways than the obvious -- ethnicity. Though minority figures are soaring.

Students are taking more classes, suggesting more are interested in getting their degrees in four years rather than the traditional six at UNLV.

During the previous three years, the Honors program had registered declines in enrollment, but this year, 141 new Honors students have enrolled for a total of 340 in the program.

"That's our biggest class yet," said Beverly Sabedra of the Honors College. "We were just bombarded. It was unbelieveable. It started in June, when we surpassed what we had expected for the summer and had to start adding classes to the schedule."

The director of the college, Len Zane, attributed the decline to bad publicity the university was receiving in the recent past, but now the program is attracting students from as far away as Romania and Guam. The majority are still Nevada students.

As a milestone, the Honors College will welcome its first Rebel basketball player to the program, Keith Long of New Jersey.

Another milestone, approximately 3,700 ethnic minority students are among the newly admitted.

That figure boosts UNLV's tally of ethnic minorities this fall to nearly 6,000 thus far.

"I don't think it hurts that our ethnic student programs have increased or that our ethnic student participation in events on campus has increased," said Velicia Haron, director of multicultural student affairs. "It has certainly helped to change the climate of the institution."

She said increasing diversity enriches the campus academically and socially.