Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005 | 8:39 a.m.
The Community College of Southern Nevada's accrediting agency recently ranked the college as the best in the country for promoting online automotive safety and environmental training.
The U.S. Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair placed CCSN above 80 colleges and more than 1,900 high schools for its promotion of the agency's Safety and Pollution Prevention training, Paul Pate, associate dean of Applied Technologies, said. The college has issued 17,000 of the certification tests -- 7,000 more than any other school.
CCSN students must complete the online certification programs before they can work on vehicles in the automotive lab, Pate said. The community college also offers the online training program to workers in the industry, saving employers the $300 that they otherwise would have to pay for the courses.
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Regents Jill Derby and Howard Rosenberg are enduring another round of internal criticism on the university system board -- this time for being placed on the search committee to find the next UNR president.
A handful of regents have questioned whether Derby might be more susceptible to influence from the Reno business community because she is running to succeed Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., in Congress. Some also question whether Rosenberg, an art professor at the university, should be picking his own boss.
Board Chairman Bret Whipple, who placed both Derby and Rosenberg on the committee, said the criticism is unwarranted, adding that he sees no conflicts of interest with the appointments. He also appointed Sparks Regent Doug Hill and Las Vegas Regents Stavros Anthony and Thalia Dondero to the committee, and asked Regents James Dean Leavitt, Michael Wixom and Dorothy Gallagher to sit in on the meetings as well.
Whipple plans to hold a special regents meeting in January to discuss the possibility of adding more regents to the five-member committee to make certain the process is fair.
That idea is being pushed by Leavitt and Regent Steve Sisolak, with the former saying he wants to make sure all of the regents are involved in the decision.
Both Derby and Rosenberg deny that there is any conflict with their service on the committee. Derby said her track record for fairness speaks for itself, and Rosenberg said UNR faculty should be, and usually are, a part of the search process.
"The moment that someone says conflict of interest, what they are really doing is trying to deprive people of their vote," Rosenberg said.
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CCSN education professor Linda Miller and former student Dorla Lawhn spent last week in China as part of the People to People Ambassador's program.
As the only teachers from Nevada in the 276-person U.S. delegation, Miller shared with her Chinese colleagues ways to use historical places as teaching tools, based on her own research on the historical Mormon Fort in Las Vegas. Lawhn, a teacher at Oaklane Pre-School Academy in Boulder City, participated in a forum on reading and literacy rates.
The pair also attended presentations from their Chinese colleagues and visited several historical places during their stay, including the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, Miller said.
Miller said she was most impressed with the power point technology being used in Chinese classrooms, where teachers have computers built into their desks.
Miller also said she wished she could transplant the enthusiasm of the Chinese students among those in Las Vegas.
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UNLV students are glad to be seeing the hindquarters of the National Finals Rodeo, Student Body President Peter Goatz said.
The rodeo, while pumping money into UNLV and the Las Vegas economy, takes up thousands of already coveted parking spaces on campus during the study week leading up to finals, Goatz said.
And students trying to drive to or from campus when a rodeo event is starting or getting out often are stuck in traffic for at least 45 minutes, Goatz said.
Study week is one of the most congested times of the year for students because everyone is on campus for class review sessions, Goatz said.
This year's rodeo congestion was magnified, with three construction projects also taking away spaces in the campus' three main parking lots.
"It's really hard to navigate around campus," Goatz said. "The students are not in favor of them (the rodeo) being here when we are trying to get to the library to study and make that final push for a better grade."
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Next to parking, the cost of textbooks is the most popular complaint among students.
As the "buy back" period begins, in which students sell their textbooks back to the campus bookstore for a fraction of what they paid, UNLV's student senate has passed a resolution asking publishers to take action to bring down the cost of books, Goatz said.
The resolution, sent to the Association of American Publishers, UNLV President Carol Harter, the Nevada System of Higher Education chancellor's office and the Board of Regents, asks publishers to reduce the number of new textbook editions and to allow faculty and students to purchase books without unneccessary items bundled with the books.
Students can pay up to about $600 a year for textbooks at Nevada's institutions, according to system officials.
The resolution also asks professors to select publishers who follow those guidelines or the most cost-effective textbooks, and to submit textbook orders early to ensure the best price. The resolution also asks the university to encourage book-swapping or book-rental programs to help students save money.
When the Board of Regents investigated the cost of textbooks in February, the panel decided there was little it could do to reduce textbooks' prices, which are controlled by publishers.
Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at [email protected].
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