LOOKING IN ON: HIGHER EDUCATION

Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

Student leaders in Southern Nevada got a late start in fighting potential budget cuts to colleges. Rallies they held at the College of Southern Nevada, Nevada State College and UNLV in the past two weeks coincided with the end of the semester and finals.

And much to their surprise, on Friday Gov. Jim Gibbons released a plan for cuts to state agencies including higher education - before students had a chance to deliver an anti-cut petition to the governor.

NSC student body President Ryan Crowell said Monday that he had not heard about the governor's plan outlining reductions. Still, students might send their petition to Carson City, he said.

"It will at least show (Gibbons) how many students in Las Vegas really care about their education," Crowell said.

"It's just going to demonstrate the unity of the students."

After more than eight years at CSN, longtime spokeswoman Helen Clougherty is leaving to take a job in Texas.

And her new boss will be a familiar figure - former CSN President Richard Carpenter, who left the college this summer to become chancellor of the Lone Star College System, a community college district in the Houston area.

Clougherty, executive director of public and college relations at CSN, will be special assistant to the chancellor and liaison to the board of trustees in her new role. She starts in the Texas position in January.

"It's a tremendous opportunity that I couldn't pass up," Clougherty said. "It's hard to leave the college. I've been there 8 1/2 years, but to get a chance to work for Dr. Carpenter is extremely appealing."

Clougherty said the specter of budget cuts to higher education was not a factor in her decision to leave Nevada.

The Lone Star College System, until recently, was called the North Harris Montgomery Community College District.

Clougherty will be at least the second employee to follow Carpenter there. Elva Borsch, his administrative assistant, made the move to Texas with her boss.

Carpenter, though a controversial figure at CSN, seems to have a loyal following. Rand Key, CSN's executive vice president of planning and development, followed Carpenter from Alabama to Wisconsin to Nevada.

With rural education poised to take a big hit from budget reductions, here are some statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that give an idea of where Nevada's hinterlands stand when it comes to education:

In 2006, 262,141 Nevadans lived in rural areas, compared with 2,233,388 in urban parts of the state.

From 1980 to 2000, the percentage of rural Nevadans 25 and older who had gone to college rose from 18.7 to 35.1. In comparison, in 2000, 32.9 percent of urbanites in the same age group had attended college, up from 20.9 percent in 1980.

But rural populations continued to lag behind urban ones in higher education completion rates in 2000. Just 14.8 percent of rural Nevadans 25 and older had finished college, compared with 18.6 percent of urban Nevadans of the same age.

Roberta Burkart, coordinator at a learning center in Yerington for Western Nevada College, understands well the challenges students scattered throughout the state's countryside face.

Burkart, who moved to Yerington about four years ago from Florida to escape hurricanes, said she works part time for WNC to help students who grew up in an environment similar to hers.

She spent her youth in the small town of Holden, Maine, and had to leave home to pursue a college education. She ended up at Florida Atlantic University, and said that within five years of earning her bachelor's degree, her salary had doubled.

Speaking about the possibility of the Yerington center's closing to accommodate budget cuts, Burkart said, "Rural youth who don't have a lot of opportunity are easily discouraged. And if the college goes away, they may go away.

"With gas prices and things like that, our students cannot travel to take classes."