Smart moves: Under Jessup, UNLV is on a promising path

Sunday, April 9, 2017 | 2 a.m.

At roughly the halfway point in UNLV President Len Jessup’s five-year contract, the university has made remarkable progress on a number of fronts.

Unlike many public universities, it’s been able to work with state lawmakers to increase its funding. It’s also formed key community partnerships that have led to an overall increase in donations as well as several eye-popping gifts.

Enrollment is up, and so is the quality of the incoming students, whose grade-point average as a group has been on the rise.

Dozens of building projects have either recently been completed or are underway, and the university got a major splash of publicity when it played host to the most-watched presidential debate in the history of the events.

To top it off, the medical school that approved by the Board of Regents shortly before Jessup’s arrival is about to welcome its first class of students — who all will receive full four-year scholarships thanks to the generosity of UNLV donors.

In short, Jessup has really moved the ball forward for UNLV. When he says he feels he’s witnessing a renaissance — that “there’s something about this university at this time in this place,” as he told the Sun’s sister publication The Sunday in a recent interview — it’s not just a promotional line.

Jessup deserves a huge amount of credit for the strides the university has made under his watch.

Unfortunately, some people are judging him unfairly based on a couple of areas where the university hasn’t made progress since Jessup took over in 2015. Those would be the football and men’s basketball teams.

Jessup’s critics are unquestionably correct in noting that both teams have struggled. The basketball team has gone through a particularly ugly stretch, with low points including Coach Dave Rice’s firing midway through the 2015-16 season and the Rebels’ last-place finish in the Mountain West Conference this season. In between, there was a nightmare of a coaching search in which the first leading candidate turned down an offer and the second accepted the job only to leave a short time later for another position.

Meanwhile, the football team has undergone a coaching change from Bobby Hauck to Tony Sanchez, who in two seasons has yet to lead the Rebels to a winning record. Last season ended in a particularly disappointing way, as the team was blown out at home by its intrastate rival in what was supposed to be a winnable game for UNLV.

Jessup said in his interview with The Sunday that he hadn’t heard much complaining about those teams, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t griping. It just means it’s happening behind his back, which is also unfair.

Look, we get it: These are two high-profile programs that are also points of community pride in Las Vegas. It’s only natural for people to be upset when they routinely lose.

But Sanchez and basketball coach Marvin Menzies have both shown they can coach — witness UNLV’s stunning upset at UNR in 2016 and Menzies’ wins this year despite a roster that had to be thrown together with very little time to recruit.

Both coaches deserve a chance to carry out the rebuilding processes they were hired to lead.

Meanwhile, Jessup shouldn’t be judged too much on the success or failure of the teams.

Looking at the big picture, which includes the progress that the university has made across so many fronts in his 2½ years as president, Jessup has done an exemplary job.