Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Bill Wortman, from left, and Bill Paulos, co-principals of Cannery Casino Resorts, and Jon Cobain, who graduated UNLV in 1964, are acknowledged on stage for each giving $1 million during the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner at the Bellagio on Thursday.
Published Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 | 8 p.m.
Updated Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 | 2:41 a.m.
UNLV Foundation donor Mel Wolzinger mingles at cocktail hour during the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner at the Bellagio on Thursday.
Sun Archives
- UNLV announces $12.6 million scholarship program (11-3-09)
- UNLV extends deadline on its $500 million fundraising goal (12-24-2008)
- UNLV fundraising campaign falls short, so deadline extended (12-18-2008)
- Emotional farewells at Regent’s meeting (12-5-2008)
- UNLV fundraisers fighting to the finish (9-1-2008)
Sun Coverage
Beyond the Sun
Nearly eight years ago multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist Jim Rogers met with Don Snyder, then-president of Boyd Gaming, to explore the possibility of UNLV mounting its first-ever capital campaign. ¶ Consultants were hired to test the university’s readiness for a proposed $250 million drive, and the potential level of community support. ¶ The consultants’ report was far from encouraging: UNLV lacked the heft and infrastructure to attempt such a massive, multiyear undertaking, and community support was lacking. ¶ Rogers — who served five years as the higher education system’s chancellor before retiring in June — not only decided to forge ahead, but he raised the campaign’s target to $500 million. People scoffed. ¶ On Thursday, UNLV President Neal Smatresk told a UNLV Foundation dinner audience of 600 supporters that the goal of $500 million in cash and pledges had been exceeded.
“I feel so privileged to be here at the end of this race to watch us cross this finish line,” Smatresk said. “It’s extraordinary that a 50-year-old university would be so audacious to launch a half-billion dollar campaign. But we made it because this community believes in UNLV.”
The “Invent the Future” campaign set out to enhance the quality and strength of the university’s education and research activities, as well as boost UNLV’s reputation and public profile. In addition, the campaign sought to strengthen alumni ties and involvement, increase UNLV’s fundraising resources and improve the university’s position as an engine of economic development for the community.
The proceeds of the campaign will provide “the margin of excellence at this university,” Smatresk said.
Bill Boldt, UNLV’s vice president of university advancement, praised Rogers for setting a high bar.
“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Boldt said. “If you think you can — and you have the need — you can.”
To surpass the campaign goal “in the worst economy we’ve ever had in Nevada is pretty incredible,” Boldt said.
Millions in gifts announced
At Thursday night’s celebration at the Bellagio, several sizable new gifts were revealed that helped put the campaign over the top, including $15 million from local businessman Mel Wolzinger.
“We just feel fortunate we’re able to do it,” said Wozinger, who has lived in Las Vegas since 1946 and made his mark in the restaurant and gaming businesses.
Also announced were $1 million each from Bill Paulos and Bill Wortman, co-principals of Cannery Casino Resorts. A 1999 graduate of the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration gave $1 million.
A $1 million gift from California businessman Jon Cobain, also announced Thursday, is notable not just for its generosity but also for sentimental reasons. In 1964, as the university’s first student body president, Cobain had the honor of leading the procession across the stage to accept his degree, making him UNLV’s first graduate. Today he is a mergers and acquisitions specialist.
Cobain said he attended what was then Nevada Southern University because he couldn’t afford to live in Reno and attend UNR — and was schooled so well that he earned a full academic scholarship at Northwestern University, where he earned his master’s degree in business.
“I couldn’t have done that if I wasn’t well prepared,” he said of UNLV. “I got a first-rate education.”
A good three months
Despite the region’s economic slump, UNLV has been riding a wave of goodwill and optimism. In the three months since Smatresk was appointed president, there have been a series of carefully timed announcements that, collectively, bode well for the university’s future.
• In August, just weeks after taking the helm as president, Smatresk announced a $14 million gift from the Lincy Foundation to create a research and development institute at UNLV to raise money to advance education, health care and social services in Nevada.
• In September the Brookings Institution and UNLV announced a joint initiative for research and public discourse on the myriad issues facing the Mountain West states, which the Washington, D.C., think tank has called “America’s new heartland.”
• And this week Smatresk announced a $12.6 million gift from the Engelstad Family Foundation to establish what will be the largest endowed scholarship program in the history of Nevada higher education. Students, who will be known as Engelstad Scholars, will participate in community service with local organizations, including Agassi College Preparatory Academy, Three Square Regional Food Bank and local Boys & Girls Clubs.
In recent years UNLV has benefited from major gifts to its academic programs. The William S. Boyd School of Law, now in its 10th year, is ranked 75th in the nation, while two of UNLV’s writing programs are considered among the nation’s best.
“The success of our standout programs is a wonderful testament to the power of giving,” Smatresk said. “We believe those are donor dollars that were well spent.”
And the university intends that the proceeds of the “Invent the Future” campaign will be allocated just as fruitfully, Smatresk said.
Recession helped, hurt
The capital campaign, he said, will likely pay for such needs as scholarships and fellowships and upgraded classrooms and laboratories. By law, private funding cannot supplant state funding, which was reduced at UNLV by 15.4 percent this year.
Smatresk said the gloomy economic forecast actually spurred on some donors. “When people saw what happened with the state budget, they were motivated to help. My deep and heartfelt thanks go to all of those people who invested in our future.”
For accounting purposes, the campaign began Jan. 1, 2002 — the big public push came three years later — and was initially intended to last seven years. After the economic downturn bloomed into a full recession, the campaign was extended by a year, and will wrap up at the end of next month.
Over the past 18 months some donors informed the foundation that they would be unable to follow through on pledges because of the financial downturn.
“We lost $20 million to the economy,” Boldt said. “We’re lucky we didn’t lose more.”
The success of UNLV’s fundraising efforts “indicates that people in Las Vegas truly have passion for the university,” said Peter Smits, vice president of advancement at Fresno State University in California, which is in the midst of its first capital campaign. “It’s an enormous vote of confidence to hit a goal like this in a recession.”
Fresno State has set a goal of $200 million by June 2012, with about $138 million committed.
Private colleges and universities typically have an easier time with fundraising than public ones, Smits said. Although the percentage of donations that typically come from alumni varies widely campaign to campaign, older and larger schools typically have more graduates in a position to give. Given that UNLV is just 50 years old, it’s impressive that 33 percent of the “Invest in the Future” donors are alumni, Smits said. For the Fresno State campaign, about 21 percent are alumni.
“They obviously believe in what UNLV is doing, and it’s expressed in their giving,” Smits said.
"The $500 million will be used for a variety of university needs including scholarships, faculty research and new facilities..."
Do you know how many scholarships that could give? If a normal scholarship is only $5,000/year for 4 years (which would be able to cover over half of a student's tuition), it would help 25,000 students! Amazing!
Ha, but the cruel irony is most of that money is going to be spent on building new buildings (that we don't need!), and giving faculty money for pointless research. What type of research happens at UNLV? Oh, a recently funded grant was paid to the school to study the origins of the Earth and the universe. What good will that do? It's all hypothetical!
Ugh... I hope that Mr. Smatresk actually thinks once about the students who are suffering in this economy before he deals out money to his administrative staff
theviolet41, how will giving money to a select group of students help UNLV grow into a prominent university that we can view with pride? Once the scholarship money disappears, then what does the university have to show for it? It is far better to use that money to purchase research equipment that can then be used to generate enough quality research to earn grants that will allow UNLV to conduct more research. That's how academia works and as nice as it would be to allow students to go to school for free, that is just not an approach that will make UNLV a premier self-sufficient university that does not require a constant stream of state tax dollars to operate. If you want your tax dollars to stop being used to fund higher education, then you better hope that UNLV can raise its own money through donations and grants.
too bad that little gibbons monkey was there...
kind of ruined the whole story!!!
I am sure that some of the donors gave the money with the agreement that the wing will carry their name, or some other agreement. All the other money available should be tracked carefully and every penny accounted for. The education system here in NV has a tendency to throw money away with no accountability. Ill bet this will be the case here.
"first study body president" ?
Yikes! Nice catch on that typo, vegasstudent! It's now fixed. Thanks.
I truly hope that UNLV is held accountable for this money and publishes exactly how this money is spent. I'd like to know the percentage of this funding that goes into an endowment that generates scholarship money and how many students it helps and how much money each received.
In my opinion, using these funds for faculty research is crap! Let them get competitive research funds and overhead instead of taking advantage of money that should help students!
If the new President was serious about making a mark, he would use ALL of this money on students and make EVERY STUDENT'S tuition free next year. Imagine the positive national press UNLV would get for this, especially in this bad economy!
In my opinion, people that are that rich aren't dumb enough to give research money to UNLV when there are much better universities that would produce better results. Nice hypothetical though to suggest that people are doing that. So tell me a few donors that specifically chose to give to UNLV research!!
theviolet41: I completely disagree. Even if the Pres had discretion over the way the the money should be spent, UNLV desperately needs buildings and space for students. UNR has approximately twice the square footage per student (and more money per student). In any event, I think the scholarship idea is wonderful. This coming on the heels of the 12.6 million gift for other scholarships (pell grant related).
nevadaappleslices: The community can't have it both ways. You can't argue for reduced faculty pay, increased courseloads, and then demand that they have the time to obtain external funding. Regardless, in most cases... funding agencies want to see an existing, extensible project before they grant millions to an idea. It's the "start small and scale up" idea. And where does the small idea get funded? Almost every university has an internal mechanism to fund infrastructure grants to promote these projects. In any event, GrandmaCrabby is right, if the donors have earmarked money for faculty research... that's what it's for. Period.
so how come they say they're "broke" all of the time?
Research is very important to a University. It fuels more donations and publicity for the school. It also attracts brighter students....because they will have the opportunity to research issues and ideas.
While I agree that scholarships are important, at this point in UNLV's history I believe that research is more important.
My 2 cents.
S711
Everyone is wrong. This was a capital campaign in name only. Your donation to the football team comes back with a "Thanks for helping the Invent the Future Campaign," note.
The consultant was correct. UNLV was not and is not ready for a traditional capital campaign. How many major donations did they get? Four? In nine years?
Did they name the Business school? The Dental School?
They probably raised $20 million more than they would have if it wasn't a "capital campaign" and there isn't any real money to solve any budget issues.
Build and launch a medical school.
UNLV raised $32 million during the capital campaign year of 2008.
UNLV raised $29 million during the campaign year of 2004.
UNLV raised $28 million during the non-campaign year of 1998.
Maybe kept up with inflation, that's all.
In other words, take out the couple of big donations (Greenspun, Rogers) and the campaign did exactly zero to increase funding.
Sinatra, in my opinion, if research is so important to UNLV, they should get some professors that do real research! It is my opinion that the majority of them are a bunch of clowns that aren't doing much.
while UNLV is definitely not a top tier university, we're fortunate to have one large employer here that is not directly tied to gaming.
Nevadaappleslices: How would you define "real" research? What metric would you use? Would you define it in terms of what YOU personally value? Or a powerful majority group?
The thought scares me tremendously. Don't forget that Galileo was excommunicated because he chose to pursue and make known, ideas that were not favorable to the controlling group at the time. He is also credited with being the father of modern science in spite of the efforts to have him silenced.
I'm not sure why you seem to have such animosity toward UNLV or their intellectual freedom. There is a wealth of inquiry taking place. There is also a wealth of service being brought back to the community. I think your negativity, and the negativity of others on this thread, is extremely misplaced.
Any way you slice it, a 500 million benchmark is good news for UNLV.
are you kidding me? there are many ways to measure research productivity. how many nobel prize winners are there at unlv? where are the researchers publishing? how many PhD students do they graduate each year and where do they go post-graduation? how much competitive research funding does the university have and how many top students are they able to hire due to their research funds? blah, blah, blah.... our professors need earmarks and handouts and screw the students!
in my opinion, there are some good researchers, like David Ashley, but guys like him are far and few.
Okay, you want a way to measure productivity? I looked at the UNLV and UNR Physics & Astronomy Departments and their publications in peer reviewed journals since 2005 on the ISI Web of Knowledge (a thorough database of publications in a wide range of disciplines). Though UNR has more researchers than UNLV, here are the numbers
Publications:
UNLV 403
UNR 304
Number of Citations of Publications Listed Above (numbers are not a typo)
UNLV 5424
UNR 1584
h-Index (a measure of the quality of citations and number of publicaitons)
UNLV 37
UNR 18
How do you spin this that UNLV is the underachiever in the state?