Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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The UNLV School of Medicine is preparing to take the next critical step toward full accreditation and ultimately to expand its current class of 60 students per year to 120, then 180. This is in direct response to the needs of Southern Nevada.
The physical home for the school — its medical education building — is in limbo, however, as Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Thom Reilly and the Nevada Board of Regents struggle with the chaos they created by forcing former UNLV President Len Jessup to leave Las Vegas for much greener and more prestigious pastures at California’s Claremont Graduate University.
Donors have walked away from Reilly and the regents, eliminating necessary private funding for the project under the current higher education leadership.
An anonymous donor who matched a state-funded $25 million challenge grant for a UNLV School of Medicine education building expressed a clear unwillingness to move forward with the plans for anchoring a first stage of the project around a health sciences library. This led the university to withdraw an agenda item from the Oct. 24 Nevada Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee meeting; that agenda item sought spending approval to begin construction on a “49,000-square-foot Medical School/Health Sciences Library Building.”
Having a major donor reject repurposing their grant money from a medical education building to a health sciences library should surprise no one. It would be the equivalent of UNLV reallocating the philanthropic gift by the Greenspun family to build Greenspun Hall, complete with labs, classrooms and offices, and instead using the $37 million gift to the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs for an urban affairs library. There is little chance the Greenspuns would have ever gone along with such a plan.
So where do we go from here?
We recently spoke at a public forum sponsored by the Lincy Institute and the UNLV School of Medicine, “The UNLV School of Medicine: Rethinking Governance, Planning and Economic Development.”
Our presentations offered a historical context that led to the creation of the UNLV School of Medicine, examined best practices for the design, construction and funding of medical school buildings nationally, and detailed the potential economic development and tax benefits to our region if this project is properly executed. That is what academic research centers such as the Lincy Institute provide for their universities and communities, and Southern Nevada deserves the best efforts UNLV can deliver for public policy issues such as health care and economic development.
The conference offered two key takeaways.
First, UNLV must remain true to its donor commitment and build a medical education building and not a hybrid, first-stage, multi-institutional “learning center-library-convening space.” This building should be designed and planned by experts who incorporate best practices from similar buildings now in place, under construction, or planned at medical schools across the nation. The health, economic development and tax benefits for our region will be significant, particularly if we are able to invest public and private resources that match recent efforts in places such as Kansas City — a region about the same size as Las Vegas but far ahead in academic health care.
Second, what UNLV really needs to do is … wait.
Yes, wait.
In less than two weeks, the 2018 midterm elections will result in a new governor and a reconfigured Legislature. Regardless of the political outcome, both branches of state government will be anxious to imprint their support on the UNLV School of Medicine. Like Gov. Brian Sandoval, Nevada’s next chief executive will have a stake in the success of the school because of its impact on the state’s economy and health outcomes.
With new leadership comes the opportunity for a new vision, and for a revised and much improved building plan that would expand and improve the current version to include all necessary functions, while fully engaging donors and the private sector. To create the most innovative medical education building in Las Vegas, UNLV must provide major donors and key stakeholders a voice in the planning and operations of the facility, commensurate with their investment. The limited resources available to state government require such collaborative ventures.
The UNLV School of Medicine emerged against nearly impossible odds and significant, sustained opposition. Yet it is now ready to become an integral asset to Southern Nevada and the entire state. We urge political, business and community leaders to join together to create a UNLV School of Medicine education building we can all be proud of, and one that transforms Southern Nevada’s health care economy.
Robert E. Lang is a professor of public affairs at UNLV’s Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and executive director of Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute. Paul Umbach is founder and senior principal in the firm Tripp Umbach, and Jaewon Lim is an associate professor of public affairs at UNLV’s Greenspun College of Urban Affairs.
