Schools emphasize quality costs money

Southern Nevada's two higher education leaders passed a microphone back and forth, joked, strolled between charts, and talked about "vision."

Onlookers nibbled on complimentary meatballs.

It was an informational schmooze session hosted by CCSN President Richard Moore Monday night at the college's Palo Verde High School High Tech Center, aimed at warming up lawmakers and Regents to the spring sales pitch: Quality schools cost money.

A couple dozen policymakers, economic development officials and lobbyists took in the presentation, which was coiffed in part by Moore's PR firm, R&R Advertising. Everybody left with a lukewarm smile and a slick book full of charts and artists' renderings of future campus plans.

"It's important that they have this information," Moore said later. "It's time to get into all of this."

(Itals:) All of this (end itals) is: The university and college system is facing enormous growth in enrollment. The campus compounds are too small. Professors are in trailers. The College of Medicine is operating in the red. New programs need funding. Support services are depleted. Funding formulas are archaic.

The Board of Regents will take on some of the issues this week in their meetings at UNLV, starting with subcommittee meetings today and an orientation for new regents tonight and ending Friday.

But in the middle of their Monday night presentation, Moore and UNLV President Carol Harter talked up their latest idea for handling growth at the college and universities: a UNLV-CCSN joint campus in the Summerlin area.

The two education leaders recently met with executives from the Howard Hughes Corp. to negotiate a land deal on a piece of property on west Charleston near the proposed beltway interchange west of Hualapai.

"We're in the preliminary stages," Moore said. "(Howard Hughes executives) are interested in an extremely favorable arrangement. It's always in a planned community's best interest to have a college."

Moore said that the campus, which would be the first joint UNLV-CCSN college, would have a bio-technology emphasis. The first two years of a student's four-year education would be through CCSN, the latter two through UNLV.

"It's just in the talking stage, but I'm encouraged by the interest of all three parties," Moore said.

Talk of a new joint campus in Summerlin comes on top of a heap of other ideas for handling growth in southern Nevada's higher education system, which will be considered Friday as the Board of Regents take part in a strategic planning workshop at UNLV.

Recent debate has centered around creation of a state college in Henderson, independent of CCSN and UNLV.

"This Henderson idea just came out, and boom -- two months later, they're talking about something in Summerlin," said Regent Steve Sisolak. "We have to have a long range plan."

UNLV's landlocked campus and a squeaky tight state budget add another issue to the Regents' agendas this week: building space on the overcrowded university campus.

Regents will consider whether the campus is best served by purchasing a 80,000-square-foot, 2-story modular building that was designed for Boeing in Seattle.

In recent months, many professors and graduate assistants have been forced to move their offices into trailers due to campus overcrowding. The modular building would cost about $58 per square foot and would be used to house support services such as the purchasing department and controller's office, freeing up other building space for faculty.

"It's either the modular building or 60 trailers," said Regent Steve Sisolak. "We don't want this to turn into a trailer city out there, and I don't see any better alternatives to the modular building."

The building would be driven down in pieces on trucks from Seattle and would be functional for the Fall 1999 semester if it is approved.

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