Harter: UNLV moving toward ‘major status’

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2000 | 11:27 a.m.

The future looks bright for 43-year-old UNLV in more ways than one, says President Carol Harter.

Her university lacks just one thing these days: "money, money, money." With 23,000 students enrolled this year, but only 40,000 alumni, the task for fund-raisers is difficult.

But Harter isn't complaining. During an interview on the Sun's television news discussion show "POV Vegas," which airs on Cox cable channels 1 and 39, she told host Mark Shaffer that UNLV "is moving toward major university status on a national level."

Entering her sixth year leading UNLV, Harter in the last few months has reaped the harvest of many long-term projects, both fiscal and academic, as well as cultural.

On the money front, UNLV received preliminary approval Monday from the Nevada Public Works Board for a $32 million share of $246 million in state construction projects over the next two years. The recommendation includes $23 million for the expansion of Wright Hall and $9 million toward planning a science-engineering complex.

Those recommendations, which still must be approved by Gov. Kenny Guinn, came despite new competition for funding from the proposed Nevada State College at Henderson. The board did not recommend as a priority the $36 million requested for a classroom and student services building at the proposed college.

And on Sept. 12, Harter announced during her State of the University speech that a long-fought funding feud between Northern and Southern Nevada had been resolved and fiscal parity achieved.

That news came thanks to a new funding formula devised by a special legislative committee. It promises to make funding more equitably between University of Nevada, Reno, and UNLV.

That same day, Harter announced a gift to the university of a $2 million endowed chair for a post-graduate writing program.

Those fiscal gains -- combined with a recent 10-year accreditation and a Carnegie Foundation rating bumping the school up three levels to the top 7 percent of universities nationally -- have put UNLV in a position to "recruit some of the very best faculty in the world," according to Harter.

That new recruiting clout comes at an optimal moment for Harter. She told Shaffer she has had conversations with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman about establishing an academic medical facility as part of the new high-tech incubator planned for the downtown area.

"We need to bring high-tech and biotechnology to the valley, and that doesn't happen without a very strong university and faculty who can partner with business," Harter said.

Harter acknowledged that UNLV's police force and its athletic program could both bear improvement. But she said that for the moment, UNLV has a new edge.

"The edge we have is the sense of creativity we have. And the sense that we're not entrenched in traditional notions in a negative way, but that we're building and growing and changing and that (new faculty) can be a part of this incredibly creative experience."