This fall, UNLV will continue to expand its reach

By Len Jessup

Monday, Aug. 24, 2015 | 2 a.m.

As he does every August, Brian Greenspun is taking some time off and is turning over his Where I Stand column to others. Today’s guest columnist is Len Jessup, president of UNLV.

As we begin the fall semester today, I am emboldened by the hard work of the UNLV team this summer and am proud of our students, faculty and staff. We continue to make progress on key initiatives while garnering success that helps to further promote the university.

Our vision is to be recognized as a top-tier public university in research, education and community impact by 2025. In doing so, we will become an even greater asset. A stronger UNLV means a stronger Nevada.

Late this past spring, we completed a strategic planning process to help us achieve that vision. Outlined in the plan are five goals we will focus on: 1) high-impact research, scholarship and creative activity; 2) even greater student achievement, 3) building academic health programs with cutting-edge research, creative curricula and clinical programs that combine the excellence of existing health sciences schools of Nursing, Dental Medicine, Community Health Sciences and Allied Health Sciences with our new School of Medicine; 4) building even stronger community partnerships, and 5) improving our infrastructure and shared governance. This month, a group of dedicated faculty members, staffers and students met to discuss how we begin implementing each of these goals. They have formed five committees aligned with the five goals and have begun identifying milestones and steps that will help us achieve that 10-year vision.

Our role as a top-tier public university also involves helping the state further stimulate economic development and diversification while fostering a climate of innovation. We have shifted resources to our tech transfer and commercialization team and integrated that function with the UNLV Research Foundation, consolidating resources to create a single point of contact for economic development. We have also established a technology advisory committee to assess marketing and commercialization of owned or controlled UNLV intellectual properties. Patent applications resulting from university research, primarily in science, engineering and gaming innovation have tripled in the past two years, and we want to continue to grow in this area and further the impact by UNLV.

We continue our efforts to form partnerships and have secured or strengthened relationships with the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, the Clark County School District and Nellis Air Force Base, as examples. We are also working with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development on efforts to advance Las Vegas’ standing as the intellectual capital for global gaming, and to make Nevada the nation’s leader in unmanned aerial systems development and testing.

The UNLV School of Medicine remains a top priority for us and is well on schedule to open classes in fall 2017. Staffers are hard at work honing what I believe will be one of the most innovative programs in the nation, and they intend to submit their proposed curriculum to the national accreditation committee before the end of the year. The tremendous support from the Engelstad Family Foundation and other individuals to raise $13.5 million in roughly 60 days for student scholarships — as well as the leadership demonstrated by Gov. Brian Sandoval, the Legislature and the Board of Regents to help fund the school — demonstrates the commitment to the medical school and the overall awareness of its importance and eventual impact.

The School of Medicine is but one example of the community’s financial support of UNLV that culminated one of our most successful fundraising years in recent history. The Black Mountain Institute, Honors College and English department now all reside in the newly completed Beverly Rogers Literature and Law Building thanks to a generous donation from the Rogers Foundation. Further, we are close to breaking ground on a new academic building for the Harrah Hotel College because of contributions from Caesars Entertainment, Konami Gaming, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming and Station Casinos. We are also building a state-of-the-art clubhouse for our baseball program with the help of Anthony and Lyndy Marnell. And the College of Education received its largest gift ever from the estate of the late philanthropist Kitty Rodman for student scholarships and graduate fellows.

Enrollment continues to rise, and about 29,000 students are taking classes at UNLV this fall. The figure represents nearly a 4 percent increase in undergraduate students, represents twice as many National Merit Scholars entering UNLV, and includes a Truman Scholar, one of only 58 in the country. We will welcome our largest freshman class for the fourth consecutive year, and almost all the growth is attributed to out-of-state students with significant increases from Hawaii, California and Washington over the past three years. The UNLV Honors College has quadrupled its entering class over that same period and will welcome nearly 270 students this semester while raising the credentials for entry, and bringing its total number of students to more than 700.

The figures reflect our efforts to expand the reach of UNLV. Yes, we want to be the school of (first) choice for Clark County students — who make up 75 percent of our incoming class — but we want to draw from the region as well. Enrollment and Student Services is finalizing a new recruitment plan and our Admissions department recently hired three recruiters for California to better draw from this region. Admissions also has instituted a customer-driven focus that emphasizes more consistent engagement with students throughout all stages and is working to reduce the response time for applying from six weeks to one. We also have realigned the Office of Diversity Initiatives and hired a chief diversity officer to better serve all stakeholders and further complement our efforts as a minority-serving institution.

I invite you to come to campus this fall to see all the activity. For those of you who have not visited in a while, perhaps since you received your degree, you will be impressed at the transformation taking place, both academically and in the physical surroundings. Or I may see some of you when a new era of football begins Sept. 12 at Sam Boyd Stadium as UNLV hosts UCLA. This is such a great opportunity to be at this university, in this place and at this time.

Len Jessup has a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and management information systems from the University of Arizona. He is the 10th president of UNLV and began his tenure in January.