Editorial: Institute’s new day

Sunday, Oct. 1, 2006 | 7:34 a.m.

The UNLV Institute for Security Studies has a new executive director and will recast its focus under changes that the university's new president has promised in the wake of a critical internal audit.

The recent audit, which was a result of Las Vegas Sun stories about the institute's shortcomings, was not the independent review for which many had called. But it does reveal that the institute had lost sight of its goals regarding counterterrorism research and also had kept such pitiful records that outside auditors wouldn't have had enough information to examine anyway.

The institute's secretive operations were so poorly documented that auditors had trouble determining precisely how it spent much of the $8.9 million, mostly in federal funding, it received over the past three years. Previous stories by the Sun show that the institute failed to live up to its promise of turning UNLV into a leading academic authority on homeland security.

UNLV President David Ashley said last week that accountability would be restored under plans that call for removing the institute from the supervision of the UNLV Research Foundation - the university's private fundraising arm - and placing it under the auspices of the university. This should provide the institute with the direction and oversight needed to help it stay on course in the future.

The institute also receives a new leader Monday, when retired Army Gen. Scott B. Smith replaces interim Executive Director Tom Williams. Smith is the former chief executive of the private Western Research Institute in Wyoming and worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.

While we would have preferred to have an outside audit of the institute's failings, it is clear from the recent internal examination that the institute didn't have enough documentation to make such an audit successful. We hope the long overdue changes being made by Ashley will provide the groundwork for better accountability and create an institute that is effective in producing some of the counterterrorism innovations as promised.