UNLV president names Hardigree to top post

Department chairwoman to be assistant president and chief of staff

Friday, Oct. 31, 2008 | 10:12 a.m.

UNLV President David Ashley announced Thursday that a longtime UNLV faculty member will be joining his office as assistant president and chief of staff.

Christian Hardigree, chairwoman of the university's hotel management department, will take on her new position Monday. Her duties will include overseeing hiring and budgeting for the president's office, representing Ashley at select campus meetings and working with regents.

She will also work to ensure Ashley hears and responds to faculty and staff members' concerns.

Ashley said Hardigree will draw an annual salary of $150,000. In the summer, he had offered roughly $175,000 to a former colleague to take the position.

Nancy Tanaka, an assistant vice chancellor at the University of California at Merced, where Ashley was executive vice chancellor and provost before coming to UNLV, turned down the president's offer after learning of a serious illness in her family.

The pay Tanaka was promised angered some faculty members, who found the expenditure questionable at a time when budget cuts were forcing the university to lay off and buy out other employees.

Hardigree joined UNLV's faculty in 2001, teaching hospitality law, employment law and sports law classes. She earned a bachelor's degree in hotel administration from UNLV and graduated from Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law in Georgia.

A UNLV human resources department listing shows Hardigree currently makes $116,644. Ashley added that in addition to that base salary, Hardigree earns an $8,500 stipend for being chairwoman of her department.