Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Students have fashion-ating experience

Future fashionistas training at UNLV received a dose of reality this week as some students learned exactly what it takes to be successful in the design world.

Five students from UNLV's Educational Outreach fashion design certificate program competed "Apprentice"-style to help launch shoe company Farylrobin's Las Vegas debut this evening at Nordstrom in the Fashion Show mall. One student will win a summer internship in New York City with the up-and-coming company.

The students got to work with and hear from founder Faryl Robin Morse and her team about the business demands of the fashion industry, UNLV instructor Gigi Morris said. Morse also delivered a three-hour lecture Tuesday night for all students in the certificate program.

For students like Christina Culver, a UNLV marketing major, the opportunity to meet someone like Morse, who understands both the design and marketing sides of the fashion business, was inspiring.

"Being 19 years old, I have a lot to learn from someone like that," Culver said. "I would love to start my own business some day."

Morse said the partnership allows her to receive feedback from her main demographic - educated, hip, young women - and to empower the students with tips about how to make it in business.

"I find that there was a certain naivety when I graduated from school," Morse said. "I thought if I could design pretty shoes and clothes I would be successful ... But you learn very quickly that you have to be able to sell the pretty shoes and clothes to be successful."

The UNLV fashion design certificate program is a joint effort between the university and the nonprofit Nevada Association of Fashion Design, Morris said. The nondegree program requires 232 hours of continuing education units. Many of the students, like Culver, are enrolled in degree programs at UNLV as well.

The association recently developed a Fashion Design Cooperative of Nevada to help students practice their design skills as apprentices, Morris said.

Touted by such celebrities as Jessica Simpson, Cameron Diaz and Faith Hill, Farylrobin footwear sells for about $60 to $150 a pair at stores and online.

The internship winner will have her transportation, housing and food covered during her time in New York, where she will help design, market and sell the shoes, Morse said.

A new consultant's report on how to get the proposed academic health science center off the ground has a lot of blanks in it - blanks that likely will be filled in with millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

The University of Nevada School of Medicine is at least two decades behind other medical schools that began at about the same time in the 1960s and 1970s, according to the second draft of an unfinished report released Tuesday by the Nevada System of Higher Education.

For instance, the University of Arizona serves twice as many students and has three times the faculty as UNR has for the medical school. The Arizona school is ranked No. 55 in National Institutes of Health research funding, while Nevada ranks 101st out of 126 schools.

To catch up and meet the growing health care needs of Nevadans, the medical school needs to sharply increase the number of students it serves, the number of professors it employs and the number of research dollars it brings, Greg Hart of the Minneapolis-based LarsonAllen wrote in the report.

That will cost a lot of money in state, federal and private resources, Hart concludes. Exactly how much, though, is left blank in the draft report.

Regent Chairman Bret Whipple said he is establishing a Board of Regents committee to work on the academic health science center. It will include regents, community leaders and stakeholders in the health care industry.

University system Chancellor Jim Rogers' community involvement knows no bounds.

In addition to his recent involvement in the Clark County School District superintendent search, he also has found time to meet with such foreign dignitaries as Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, Mexico's undersecretary to North America.

Fernandez met with Rogers recently, and the pair got into an in-depth conversation on the educational needs of Mexican immigrants and the value immigrants can bring to the Las Vegas community.

Both K-12 and higher education officials are wrestling with how to meet the needs of immigrants, Rogers said.

"Quite frankly, it's an issue that affects everyone," said Rogers, who invited Fernandez to speak before the Board of Regents.

Rogers also had dinner Monday night with retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as part of a University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law function.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, will be speaking this evening at UNLV on possible legislation to stop the ongoing genocide in Sudan.

A leading human rights advocate, Jackson Lee will present a first-hand account of the death and persecution against the people in the Darfur region.

The 7 p.m. forum, in room 109 of the Flora Dungan Humanities Building at UNLV, is free and open to the public.

UNLV's student government, Hillel and the Black Student Association are sponsoring the forum. For more information, call 895-3645.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at [email protected].

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