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With more than 28,000 students and 3,000 faculty and staff members, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is located on 340 tree-lined acres in one of the country’s fastest-growing and most enterprising cities. Founded in 1957, UNLV is home to 19 colleges and schools and offers more than 2 00 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees to students from 47 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a host of foreign nations.
Ranked in the category Doctoral/Higher Research University by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, UNLV is home to the world-renowned William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration as well as Nevada’s only law and dental schools. In the fall of 2017, the new UNLV School of Medicine will welcome its first class.
The library is the heart of any university campus, and the Lied Library is a superb facility that utilizes the newest technology, including the Lied Automated Storage and Retrieval (LASR), which integrates industrial automated materials handling technologies with the online library catalog system to provide an innovative solution to long-term library storage. The library also houses a Special Collections department with materials relating to such topics as Nevada history and gaming, among others.
UNLV also has many on-campus research facilities and well-equipped laboratories to serve a growing undergraduate population and more than 5,000 graduate students. Further information on these and other research centers may be found elsewhere in this catalog.
The campus’ spacious lawns and walkways are shaded by trees and complemented by desert foliage. In fact, the entire 340 acre campus, dubbed “The Emerald in the Desert,” has been designated an arboretum. Just outside the campus are apartments, restaurants, shopping centers, libraries, hospitals and all the other hallmarks of a modern urban area.
To keep pace with the tremendous growth of the University and the community, UNLV in 2004 dedicated its first regional campus at Shadow Lane, which is home to the school of dental medicine as well as a state-of-the-art biotechnology research center.
Dozens of musical, dramatic, dance and artistic groups have been formed under the auspices of the university and perform regularly for campus and community audiences. Each year, a number of popular stage and screen performers and recording artists from every musical category are featured in concert in the university’s events centers.
Many other campus activities are scheduled for students and the general public. The Consolidated Students of the University of Nevada (CSUN), the student government, sponsors film series’, lecture series’, dances, intramural athletics, concerts, and special events throughout the year. The “Rebel Yell” student newspaper, UNLV-TV, a campus and public-affairs television station, and a nonprofit radio station serve the UNLV community.
The university also has excellent sports facilities for use by students, including lighted tennis courts, playing fields, a 50-meter Olympic swimming pool, two gymnasiums, handball/racquetball courts, dance studios, gymnastics and weight-training rooms, baseball and soccer fields, and a full size track for jogging enthusiasts.
UNLV is a member of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, the Western Association of Graduate Schools, the American Council on Education, and the Western College Association. In addition to full accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, the university is recognized by the Nevada State Department of Education for preparation in all fields for which it conducts programs.
Las Vegas and the Southwest
Southern Nevada has many attractions. Like any other large metropolitan area, it has fine libraries, museums, community theater, art galleries, and renowned parks which are enjoyed and supported by nearly two million local residents. University cultural events provide yet another form of entertainment in a city that bills itself as the Entertainment Capital of the World. Two of the university’s yearly series, the Charles Vanda Master Series and the Barrick Lecture Series, are extremely popular with students and community residents.
The Charles Vanda Master Series offers visiting performers of the caliber of Isaac Stern, Andre Segovia, the London Symphony, and Itzhak Perlman. The Barrick Lecture Series brings well-known persons to campus for free public lectures on a variety of topics. Lecturers have included Walter Cronkite, Ken Burns, Louis Rukeyser, Benazir Bhutto, Arthur Ashe, Henry Kissinger, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jimmy Carter, and Cokie Roberts. The series also has featured important scientists and academicians like Carl Sagan, Jane Goodall, Mortimer Adler, and Richard Leakey.
Of course, any college experience includes more than the intellectual stimulation of the classroom and the physical confines of the city and campus. It also takes color and character from the university’s larger environment. For UNLV, this is the Southwest.
Mild desert temperatures make outdoor recreation possible throughout the year in Southern Nevada. Within a 30-mile radius lie the shores of Lake Mead, massive Hoover Dam and the Colorado River recreation area, the snow-skiing and hiking trails of 12,000-foot Mt. Charleston, and a panorama of red rock mountains and eroded sandstone landscapes. In addition, the city is only several hours by car from the beaches of Southern California and the national parks of Utah and Arizona.
Las Vegas enjoys a mild year-round climate, but there are noticeable seasonal differences. The annual average temperature is 79 degrees, but it is not unusual for the mercury to hit the 110 degree mark during the summer and dip into the 30s in the winter. Annual rainfall amounts to only 3.5 inches, much of it falling in the winter when it is snowing in the nearby mountains.
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