A week ago today, a UNLV faculty advisory council voted unanimously against a proposal to allow a Las Vegas-based public research center to become part of the university.
It was a good call made in the name of protecting the university’s best interests. Specifically, council members concluded that the institute wanting to join the university, the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, hadn’t proven it could remain financially self-sustaining in coming years. Therefore, UNLV ran the risk of having to absorb the center’s operating costs if it lost its funding.
Another valid concern raised by the council was that UNLV is already well-stocked in terms of public policy research, as home to such centers as Brookings Mountain West, the Lincy Institute and the MGM Resorts Public Policy Institute. These organizations are not only well-respected but are financially rock-solid thanks to support by private funding and grants.
The council, which advises the vice president for research and economic development on requests from research institutions, labs, museums and the like to join the university, essentially concluded that the proposal was a classic case of wrong place, wrong time. Nothing against the Guinn Center, but UNLV didn’t go into the pandemic needing another public policy research center and definitely doesn’t need to gamble on adding another one in a time like this.
So, end of story, right? Wrong.
Today, the matter is going back before the council, which, depending on who’s talking, is either the university simply going about due diligence to fully explore the proposal or is an attempt to strong-arm the council into reversing its decision from last week.
What we know is that the deal went back on the agenda to allow the Guinn Center director to make a presentation to the council, answer questions and address some of the concerns raised last week.
But what we’re told by sources familiar with the situation is that the council members were asked to reconsider their vote because powerful people were behind the proposal, including Gov. Steve Sisolak, UNLV acting president Marta Meana and prominent donors. That sent a message: Get on board or risk getting on the bad side of people with influence over your career.
Whether that’s true is unclear. Sisolak’s office didn’t respond to an inquiry — which is hardly surprising, given everything on his plate right now. In fact, it would be astonishing if the Guinn Center issue is remotely in his thoughts, which lends more mystery to why his name has come into this.
Meana isn’t on record either way with the proposal.
But the fact that the proposal was rushed back onto the agenda and the rumors about the involvement of big hitters are prompting worry and speculation among faculty and others in the campus community. Some suspect that the name-dropping and the urgent push to reconsider the vote may be coming from the state Board of Regents and the Nevada System of Higher Education, which have pushed things down UNLV’s throat in the past.
NSHE, which oversees the state’s universities and colleges similar to how a superintendent’s office manages public schools, didn’t directly respond to questions about the proposal from the Sun. Instead, it issued a statement saying it was focused on COVID-19 and that it was up to faculty governance to decide whether to send the proposal to the regents for approval.
“If this matter progresses, it will be reviewed by the system office in the normal course,” the statement read.
The Guinn Center declined to answer questions pending today’s meeting.
Maybe all of this — the hasty rescheduling, the name-dropping, the reason for reconsideration — will be explained in today’s faculty council meeting. But going in, the situation smells odd.
Whatever the case, though, here’s a vote of confidence in the members of the council. They made an excellent decision last week to defend UNLV, and we encourage them to maintain that protective stance with whatever happens today.
The upshot is that if there’s demand in the UNLV campus community to bring in the center, it’s awfully quiet. On other hand, the wariness is evident.
Meanwhile, it would seem like there are better options out there. UNR doesn’t have a policy research center – why not let the Guinn Center go there and leave UNLV out of the picture? And if the Guinn Center would like to keep a footprint in Southern Nevada, Nevada State College also doesn’t have a research center.
There’s no compelling reason to ram through the proposal as-is. The question is simple — what’s the rush?