UNLV president Keith Whitfield responds to a question during an interview in his office at UNLV Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022.
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 | 8:09 p.m.
UNLV President Keith Whitfield used his annual State of the University address Tuesday to talk about steps the school is taking to prevent future violence like December's shooting that left three professors dead.
The university community is continuing to move forward and grow in the aftermath of the tragedy, he said.
“Truly, it’s been a year like no other, and while we are never going to forget Dec. 6, it’s always gonna be a piece of our history,” Whitfield said. “But that is not going to stop the trajectory of this university.”
Whitfield joined with the Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor and members of the NSHE Board of Regents as well as UNLV executives, faculty and students to deliver this year’s update on university operations. It is his first since the Board of Regents approved his contract for another four years at their last quarterly meeting last Friday.
Whitefield said he made a request for funding through the NSHE Chancellor Patty Charlton to the Board of Regents to help with campus recovery efforts, dubbed Rebel Recovery. Whitfield did not specify how much had been requested or what the money would specifically be used for.
Security has become one of the main focuses as the university moves forward, Whitfield explained. The Campus Security and Safety Committee, consisting of about 18 people, have discussed possible solutions to improve campus security. Whitfield said he believes their “preliminary thoughts” will be shared to the public at the end of the semester.
But it won’t stop there. The committee is actively researching new safety technology, such as locks on doors that teachers can control through their phones, Whitfield mentioned. These efforts include upgrading security for Frank and Estella Beam Hall where the shooting took place, which Whitfield said still has “a lot of work to do” regarding updating the building’s infrastructure.
Whitfield will be consulting with staff and faculty who work in the building to identify the best steps in moving toward a reopening, but he believes it will ultimately be a hard decision to make so as not to make anybody uncomfortable.
A permanent memorial is also still in the works to honor the victims of the shooting, led by the campus’ Faculty Senate. Whitfield said it’s the campus community’s way of saying “(UNLV) is not going to forget Dec. 6, but we’re not going to let it define us and we’re not going to let that hold us back.”
All updates on safety measures and actions in response to the Dec. 6 shooting continue to be uploaded to the UNLV Strong website.
“While we’re dealing with this horrific crisis that happened, the university’s continued on — we still taught classes, we still graduate students; we’re doing all of these things in the community,” Whitfield said at the end of the ceremony. “You can believe this, we are going to be stronger coming out of this. We are not going to let that define us; it is going to be something that makes this campus better in the lives of our students, in the lives of our faculty and staff, in the lives of our community, and in the lives of our world.”
Whitfield additionally discussed new additions to the university’s main campus — including the recently opened Advanced Engineering Building — as well as upcoming projects.
One of those was the new UNLV branch campus being developed in North Las Vegas. The space, which consists of about 2,000 acres of land, will sit above the 215 Freeway and North Las Vegas VA Medical Center as well as border the Nellis Air Force Range, according to a map shown during Whitfield’s address.
It’s a little over 20 miles away from the main campus, and about six times the size of the 332-acre main campus off Maryland Parkway — especially when considering the extra 3,000 acres of neighboring land owned by university partners, Whitfield said. The institution is currently in talks with North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown to “supersize” their northern branch campus, he added.
And Whitfield already has plenty of ideas on how to maximize that space. His team has been working on a plan to possibly build graduate student housing at the North Las Vegas campus to offer their thousands of graduate students a cheaper living space.
As of fall 2023, the university had 4,282 graduate students and is continuing to grow. UNLV currently boasts a “historic high” of around 29,000 students enrolled as of this spring semester, showing a 95% retention rate from fall 2023 to spring 2024.
There are also plans to create an educational center that would help support other populations such as armed forces members, an aquatic complex and a sports rehabilitation facility.
“We have become one of, if not, the sports capital; everybody knows that,” Whitfield said. “The question is, that we as the educational institution — one of the educational institutions in this area — what can we do to intersect, interplay, capitalize, support what’s going on with the growth in our facility? And so, a sports rehab facility would be a fantastic opportunity.”
