Harter won’t reverse plans to move English teachers into trailer

Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1998 | 1:58 a.m.

Harter said Monday she supported plans to move the majority of the first-year writing program's teachers out of the campus' historic Houssels House to make room for UNLV's Consciousness Studies Program, which explores near-death experiences and otherworldly topics.

Forty-two part-time instructors and graduate teaching assistants, who have been sharing space with the three-member consciousness studies team, were expected by week's end to occupy a trailer.

Harter said the English instructors and graduate assistants were "absolutely underestimating" the potential of their new digs.

"I'm not saying they'll be in the Taj Mahal, but it will be a decent work space," she said.

The composition program's director, Susan Taylor, countered: "If our space has potential, let me say simply that she's judging it from the Taj Mahal."

Harter said she did not intend to meet with Taylor and others to talk about their plight.

"There's not a whole lot to say," she said. "We're in a space crunch. People will have to grit their teeth and bear it."

Taylor has called the work space deplorable and has questioned UNLV's commitment to 2,500 students who take the writing classes each semester.

Harter said part-time instructors and graduate assistants from 30 campus departments will be moved around campus in the coming months to prepare for the arrival of 80 new professors in August 1999.

"The English department writing folks are hardly the only ones being impacted," she said.

The campus is so starved for office space, Harter said, that the university may buy an 80,000-square-foot modular building for $4 million.

Last week, Ken Hanlon, the university's associate vice president for academic budgeting, said the Consciousness Studies Program was chosen as the Houssels House's occupant in part because the university wanted to remain in good graces with its donors.

Real estate developer Robert Bigelow donated $3.7 million to UNLV to create the program.