Follies on Maryland Parkway

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has just broken a champagne bottle over the bows of a $60 million “student recreation and wellness center” and a new $50 million student union. The recreation center may well occupy more ground space than any other campus building.

At the same time that this glass palace is opening, academic programs are being cut by $6 million to pay for a budget shortfall created in large part by mismanagement — the deficit may yet grow to $13 million with disastrous effects on vital academic programs.

The campus is also short of classrooms, and many of the growing programs are already short of faculty. Most problematic for its desire to become a research institution — that is, a quality university — UNLV has few if any legitimate endowed professorships. The new president has inherited a headache.

The enormous expense of the student recreation center was incurred in order to attract more students. Enrollment has not kept up with population growth in Southern Nevada. UNLV receives state subsidies proportionate to the number of its students.

The center is being financed through mandatory student recreation fees rather than through state funding. Students who enroll for more than three credits per term are charged $173, almost $350 per year, a substantial increase over tuition. Putting the costs for increasing the enrollment on students themselves looks like a cunning way to finance student recruitment. However, the recreation fee has the perverse effect of burdening those students least able to pay it, discouraging university preparation among one of the principal groups for whom public higher education is intended. Part-time students who are probably the neediest end up paying the most per credit and over the long haul.

The student recreation center is a waste of money. The UNLV consultants who prepared the feasibility study — “Campus Life Facilities Study” — were predictably enthusiastic about a new recreation center, but their actual data, such as it is, undercut the wisdom of the project. The consultants ran nine informal contact sessions that included a total of 104 participants, “intercept” interviews with 50 students, and a convenience survey of 741 students in classrooms. The survey data suggest a student body that does not participate in campus recreation, does not want to, and does not have the time to.

Most students live off campus and many at considerable distance; only 10 percent of students live on campus. About 70 percent of students work part time or full time. Two-thirds of students are involved with no campus organization. Sixty-four percent of students never use the existing recreational facilities. Only 13 percent said they use the existing recreation facilities at least twice per week.

The crucial survey questions probed whether students would use improved facilities. Aside from the fact that reported intentions poorly anticipate actual behavior, students were not enthusiastic. More than two-thirds stated that they would never use the improved recreational facilities. Nevertheless, the consultants concluded that their “market analysis showed support for … a new Student Recreation Center.” The report and research cost approximately $130,000, a small amount for good work but a fortune for bad information that encourages an expensive mistake.

Indeed, a recreation center is a weak asset to attract students. As reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 74 percent of almost 14,000 American students who responded to a survey by the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers, felt that the facilities for their major were “extremely important” factors in selecting a college, followed by the library (54 percent), sophisticated technology (51 percent) and classrooms (50 percent). Only 32 percent considered student recreation facilities to be extremely important.

In fact, large numbers of UNLV students bypass the free and ample facilities already available to them. In any event, the idea that a research university should pursue students who are drawn to a recreation center is ludicrous; these students should start their careers in physical education at a junior college. Moreover, gym fees in private health clubs in Las Vegas can cost less than $350 per year.

The recreation center also appears to be a concession to student-centeredness, the public relations ploy of universities and colleges with weak faculties that do little research but profess deep concern for the emotional, psychic and social progress of their students. However, an institution of higher education should be learning-centered, not student-centered.

A university contributes to every portion of society through knowledge and disciplined criticism. Students are one part of the enterprise — but as neophytes, apprentices who come to learn. Their total existence is not the responsibility of a university. The metaphor of students as “consumers,” as though they were the principal constituents of university activities, ignores the overriding responsibility of a university to the society itself.

The allocation of $60 million to student recreation is farcical when the core of UNLV has not been established. Whatever the putative problem of student wellness, UNLV’s struggle to recruit and retain quality faculty is much greater. A university is judged by its faculty, not by its buildings, administrators, athletic teams or alumni.

For all the hype about grand science and spectacular scholarship at UNLV, it still lacks a culture of scholarship and perhaps even respect for it. The faculty cherish attendance at meetings (“service”), reflected in the annual apportionment of merit pay. The small academic gains at UNLV over the years resulted from an increased number of faculty and the buyers market for young Ph.Ds rather than actual improvements in faculty productivity. Few distinguished scientists are willing to bring large grants and important discoveries to a fourth-tier university, let alone relocate to a community without decent public services.

UNLV’s laudable goal of becoming a nationally ranked research university may be inconsistent — at least in the short run — with allocating its own strained resources to promote growth and economic diversity in Las Vegas. Scarce water limits the size of Las Vegas; more growth will exacerbate existing problems of physical development and human services. Moreover, globalization, which seems irresistible, encourages both specialization, the very reason for the existence of Las Vegas, and interdependence.

The recreation center, painless financing, student-centeredness and short-term assistance to local economic development are the sorts of ideas that glow with ever-greater brilliance in isolation from critical analysis — the incisiveness and intelligence that competent administrators offer to prevent their presidents from making bad decisions out of vanity and ambition. UNLV is not getting value from its grossly overpaid vice provosts, assistant provosts and deans — with few exceptions, a group of failed academics who make Lord Acton look very smart for having written, “There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Turnover solves many problems including farce.

The student recreation fiasco also indicts the elected members of the Board of Regents for failing to fulfill their oversight obligations; the Strip corporations for failing to support public institutions; and the Legislature and the governor for failing to allocate sufficient funds for higher education.

The Board of Regents does not seem to understand higher education or have the dedication to find out. An appointed board would be more attentive.

The Strip corporations are not good citizens. The condition of public services in Nevada — child welfare, public education, higher education, health and mental health care, public health and so on — is a warning of what happens when predatory corporations dominate a community’s civic life. Indeed, Nevada’s gambling corporations suffer from the gambler’s disease of compulsive selfishness.

The University of Southern California has raised more than $3 billion over the past decade while in competition with many other universities and colleges in Southern California, including UCLA. Southern Nevada has proportionate wealth but its only university is struggling to meet modest fundraising goals. In lieu of local taxes, $600 million from Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Sheldon Adelson and Harrah’s Entertainment, and a few hundred million more from the smaller gambling corporations, would make nice gestures of apology for past stinginess. Together with current donations, UNLV’s endowment would reach $1 billion.

Politicians reflect their constituents. This is the rub. The people of Nevada have not demanded quality services. An open society rises to the level of its citizens’ expectations. The apparent complacency of Nevadans is the challenge to leadership.

UNLV can talk directly to the people of Nevada about higher education without filtering its aspirations through the business community.

William A. Epstein is a professor in UNLV’s school of social work.