Sunday, July 16, 2006 | 7:48 a.m.
UNLV's Creative Writing program won another mantle of respect recently when one of its Schaeffer fellows was named as a 2007 O. Henry prize winner.
The prestigious short story award went to Vu Tran for his story "The Gift of Years," published in Fence Magazine this spring.
The O. Henry prizes, named after famed short story novelist "O. Henry" William Sidney Porter, usually go to more established writers, English department chairman Chris Hudgins said. For Tran to win fresh out of UNLV's doctoral program is an achievement that will put him on the map as a writer and promote UNLV's creative writing program, Hudgins said.
Tran's story will be published in an anthology with 18 other prize winners.
Tran, 30, will spend the next year teaching creative writing and world literature at UNLV as he works on a novel about life in Vietnam.
A publisher is interested in printing his collection of short stories, completed for his dissertation project, and his novel.
UNLV's Master of Fine Arts and Ph.D programs have been boosted by former Mandalay Bay executive Glenn Schaefer, who has invested in the creative writing program through scholarships and by founding of the Institute for Modern Letters. Hudgins said Schaefer, now with Fontainebleau Resorts, plans to reallocate future scholarship money to the Black Mountain Institute.
Black Mountain is a new think tank being developed by former UNLV President Carol Harter that is scheduled to include the Institute for Modern Letters.
The creative writing program will also bring in Cuban-born American writer Pablo Medina as a visiting professor this school year. Medina is the author of critically acclaimed works "Cigar Roller," "The Return of Felix Nogara" and "The Marks of Birth."
The Nevada System of Higher Education is shelling out another $101,000 for a consultant in its pursuit of a statewide, integrated computer data system.
Moran Technologies will help the system evaluate bid proposals for the computer system, which could cost between $50 million and $100 million when staffing costs are included.
Moran was the only company to apply for the job, partially because of time constraints on the contract and because the request prohibited bidders from having any connection with software vendors who may bid on the system, lawyers said.
The system had paid $108,000 to a consultant to evaluate what kind of computer system it needed. The company delivered the raw data it collected but never gave a final report because it merged with one of the vendors expected to bid on the system. System officials did not ask for the final report, fearing it would be biased.
There are so many people in line to see UNLV President David Ashley that his staff has him scheduled for meetings during breakfast, lunch and dinner.
On top of that, Ashley says he comes away from every meeting with two to three inches of reading material, so he has been denied the long bike rides he uses to unwind.
"I may gain 30 pounds," Ashley said.
Complicating his schedule are professional engineering commitments that will pull him to Washington twice in the next few weeks, plus Chancellor Jim Rogers' fishing trip in Canada and the grand opening of the Harrah College of Hotel Administration's campus in Singapore in early August.
At least during his travels, he has plenty of reading material.
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