It's Vegas, baby.
That's how regents and search consultants explain how the candidate pool for UNLV's president blew the candidate pool for UNR out of the water.
Many candidates on the UNLV list are international "movers and shakers," search consultants Ann Die Hasselmo and Jamie Ferrare said. They were attracted to Las Vegas, the consultants said, as a growing, urban, international destination with unlimited potential and entrepreneurial spirit.
UNLV also is on a steep upward trajectory, having moved from being a mostly undergraduate, regional university to a doctoral-level research university with a law school and a dental school in just a decade.
While UNR, as the more mature land-grant institution in Reno, is ranked higher than UNLV, it does not have the same dynamics, regents said.
The UNLV and UNR presidential searches overlapped last week. The finalists for the UNR job were interviewed as UNR's committee prepared for a scheduled vote Monday on whom to offer the job, and UNLV got its first look Friday at the 10 top candidates applying for that post.
UNR's candidate pool included only two sitting presidents at lower-tiered schools and several provosts or vice presidents looking to move up.
In contrast, UNLV's candidate pool included four sitting presidents, all from well-respected regional universities similar to UNLV. And the provosts and vice presidents on the list are from major institutions - Georgetown, the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California.
UNLV's list even included an assistant U.S. secretary of state.
The final four candidates include Lt. Gen. Bill Lennox, superintendent of West Point; Marvin Krislov, vice president and general counsel for the University of Michigan; David Ashley, executive vice chancellor and provost for the new University of California, Merced, and Yash Gupta, former dean for USC's Marshall School of Business.
"I would never have imagined we could get such great people," said Regent Steve Sisolak, chairman of the UNLV search.
The UNLV candidates will be interviewed in person starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Also at UNLV, it's that time of year when officials encourage locals to "take a sip for scholarship."
The university's annual wine tasting fundraiser, UNLVino, starts at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Hard Rock Hotel with the Bubble-Licious night.
More than 800 wineries from around the country will be featured at the three-day event, sponsored by the Harrah College of Hotel Administration and Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada.
Since its inception in 1974, the event has raised more than $1 million for higher education, including $100,000 last year.
Tickets to each day's tastings range from $50 to $75 per person. The Grand Tasting and Wine and Art Auction will wrap up the event from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Paris Las Vegas.
For information, check out unlvino.com.
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