UNLV Ep:03 – Partnerships for a Successful Debate Event
Mallika: / The city of Las Vegas was built on a foundation of hard work, opportunity, entrepreneurship and partnerships. Without these things, the entertainment capital of the world might not have become what we know it as today. From UNLV, I’m Mallika Pal.[00:00:30]
[00:01:00] / Community partnerships have lead to unbelievable growth for UNLV throughout the years. These partnerships have afforded unique opportunities to our students and faculty that are not always available at other universities. With the final presidential debate upon us, the leadership team at UNLV has doubled down on our community partnership efforts in order to take advantage of this amazing time. Our first segment today will focus on this very topic. Student journalist, Genevieve Grippo, sat down with senior vice provost to discuss how UNLV was chosen to host the debate and special curriculum to promote student involvement.
Genevieve: / We are here today with Carl Reiber. He’s going to talk with us a little bit about the debate here at UNLV. Hello, thank you so much for joining us today.
Carl: / Thank you for inviting me. It’s exciting times here at UNLV.
Genevieve: / It absolutely is, yes. First, could you just tell us a little bit about your capacity here at UNLV, how long you’ve been here?
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Carl: / Sure, I’ve been here for 24 years. I started as assistant professor in the department of biological sciences and currently, I’m the senior vice provost and professor in life sciences, but most of my time is now dedicated towards administration.
Genevieve: / Wow, that is a huge job especially in light of everything exciting happening on campus this year.
Carl: / It’s a lot of fun.
Genevieve: / Yeah, I’m sure. Okay, so prefect. First, we can talk here about a little bit of the curriculum, how the UNLV debate is affecting the curriculum, how it’s focusing on that?
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Carl:
[00:02:30] / Sure, so just a little background, what we wanted to do when we learned that we were getting the 3rd and final debate on October 19th was to get the students involved. The best way to get them involved was to go to the faculty and see if the faculty would develop some courses to engage the students. The faculty, we’re more than happy to do so. The primary departments that are involved in course delivery would be communications, journalism, media studies, political science and history, although there are other departments on campus that are offering courses or supporting some of the activities.
[00:03:00] / We have between 12 and 15 classes that are being offered that are focused on the debate ranging from 100 level 1st year seminars all the way up to fairly in-depth and sophisticated graduate level courses. They span gamut from historical perspective of debates to active engagement and debate activities and how debates have shaped the political landscape, so cross-section and being very well received by the students.
Genevieve: / Absolutely, it’s such an incredible opportunity for the students here in such a historical event, so why did you feel that it was important to focus on that during the curriculum this semester?
Carl:
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[00:04:00] / Really, this debate is about the future of the United States and to a great extent, the world and the students of the future. We really felt that getting as many UNLV students involved in various aspects of the debate whether it’s in the courses or whether it is the volunteers. We have almost a thousand student volunteers. They’re going to be working with the media on campus and some actually in the debate area in the Thomas & Mack, others on campus. We wanted to get the students involved with this so that they can become informed. They’re part of now our political process in the country and that’s exciting and that’s something that they will take with them for the rest of their lives and probably share with their families, which is what democracy is all about.
Genevieve: / Definitely, so it seems that you’ve been pretty successful in getting the students involved. I mean I know there’s a lot of excitement on campus both for the classes and the partnerships that we have. Would you say that this involvement is what you expected or more or less or how does that scale?
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Carl: / I would like to say it’s what I expected. It’s far better, it really is. When I was going to college, we had a primary on the campus that I was attending and it was very exciting. I wanted to make sure that when this debate happened it was exciting at UNLV and it’s far beyond what I could have imagined. I started to really see how much steam it had picked up when we had Move-In Day for the incoming students in the dorms.
Genevieve: / Yeah.
Carl:
[00:05:00] / They were talking about the debate on a regular basis. They were excited, they all knew about it. That’s when I realized that we’ve sort of captured that component that we wanted to capture. The students were aware of it. The class is all filled up. We have the Seminar Series that’s been going on. They packed house, the 1st watch event that we had for the 1st presidential debate. We had over 250 students attend.
Genevieve: / Wow.
Carl:
[00:05:30] / It’s well known on campus. The students are talking about it. We opened up the watch event we’re having for the debate night in the Student Union, in the ballroom. We’re providing tickets for that. As soon as we open that website up, we were flooded.
Genevieve: / I can imagine.
Carl: / It’s pretty exciting and it really surpassed what I thought would happen. What I’m hoping now is that when students start graduating over the next year or 2 that they look at the debate as a salient event of their time at UNLV.
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Genevieve: / That would be incredible, absolutely, for the rest of their lives and for the legacy here at UNLV. To kind of facilitate that student involvement, what special resources have been provided to the students on campus?
Carl: / Well, we developed the classes and we provided resources for classes. We provided resources for the lecture series. Resources can be defined in different ways, sometimes we are adding a section of a class and so we have to pay someone to help teach the class.
Genevieve: / Of course, yeah.
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Carl:
[00:07:00] / Sometimes, its pizza and soda is the resource, but across campus you can see that the campus is a buzz. The campus is cleaned up and looking great. If the red had faded on something, it’s now bright and shiny, new red, because we want our campus to look nice. There are signs up all over campus for the debate and you’ll see more of that happen as we get closer to the debate. We’ve got, I believe they’re called gobos, they’re the projectors and so we’re going to have the debate logo projected, actually on the side of this building up where it says, “UNLV off of Maryland Parkway.”
Genevieve: / Yes.
Carl:
[00:07:30] / At the top of Greenspun Hall, right below it will be the debate logo and it will start showing up in the evening as the sun goes down. Yeah, there’s a whole number of things that we’re doing to try to promote the debate, but also some logical things we know we’re going to a lot of new people on campus. 5,000 credentialed press members potentially on campus for the debate and they’re not just going to sit over Thomas & Mack, they’re going to be all over campus wanting to talk to students and talk to faculty. We’re providing a lot of new signage on campus, which will stay up forever and so it will help in the future for people negotiating a rather large campus.
Genevieve: / Absolutely.
Carl: / There’s a number of resources we dedicated that are specifically for the debate, but then other areas that we’re using the debate as a means by which we can spruce things up and make the campus look nicer over the long term as well.
Genevieve: / A perfect chance to do that, of course.
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Carl: / Absolutely.
Genevieve: / Where UNLV is going to be really in the spotlight nationally, internationally even; do you hope that there is kind of an influx of students that recognize UNLV and say, “Hey, I want to go there”?
Carl:
[00:08:30] / This is probably equivalent to when UNLV went to the NCAA Final Four back in the early 90s. That’s the level of press that UNLV is getting and in a very different light, in this case, it’s an intellectual scholarly atmosphere because of the debate. I think it fits perfectly with UNLV’s strategic plan, our top tier strategic plan. We’re already a top 200 institution in the nation.
[00:09:00] / We want to move to a top 100 institution in the nation. I think the press that we’re getting nationally is showing that UNLV is moving in that direction, that we are an institution that has a serious scholarly component behind it, outstanding educational activities and opportunities; and that UNLV is in the national spotlight for the fact that Las Vegas is a 21st century city and UNLV is a 21st century institution.
[00:09:30] / It’s just really showing you UNLV off for what we all know what it is to the rest of the country in the world and we’re really proud of that. It’s just a fabulous opportunity. I have to say at the end of the 1st debate and the debate with the vice presidents when the moderator at the end listed the cities and the institutions of the next debates will take place in, they both said the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and that’s pretty impressive.
Genevieve: / Its home, yeah, definitely.
Carl: / Yeah.
Genevieve: / We’re all proud to be Rebels here, I know that.
Carl: / Absolutely.
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Genevieve: / Definitely, for sure. Okay, so talking about UNLV, it’s definitely not a production. The debate is not a production that we could have put on by ourselves. Can you talk with us a little bit about the partnerships that UNLV has during this debate?
Carl: / Sure, so our partner in town is LVCVA. They’re huge in helping support this logistically, financially, all aspects. They’re just a vital partner to this, but also the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is the nonpartisan group that puts on the debates across the country.
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Genevieve: / Okay.
Carl: / Between UNLV and the LVCVA and the Commission on Presidential Debates, as a partnership, we’re making this happen, doing all the logistics, organization, providing all of the infrastructure, et cetera, to really have what is the Super Bowl of political events.
Genevieve:
[00:11:00] / Yes, it’s a prefect way to describe it, definitely. What about the curriculum not only at UNLV, but maybe K through 12? What do you know about the partnerships, you know, it’s something everybody in Vegas wants taken advantage of?
Carl:
[00:11:30] / We’ve been working with Clark County School District for many, many months, really starting mid-spring of last year talking to school officials. There are curricular opportunities that have been developed for the kids, the K12 students. There’s a voter education programs for the seniors in high school. We have an essay contest that CCSD and UNLV are sponsoring. In fact, the deadline was last Monday.
Genevieve: / Okay.
Carl:
[00:12:00] / We have our essays in from the high school students. We will be evaluating them and we’re going to be coming up with the winners of the different categories. We’re releasing those names in the upcoming weeks. Yes, we have engaged CCSD. We’ve also got CSN students that are going to be on campus for various events and Nevada State students that will be on campus for various events. This is really not just UNLV, but a regional activity for CCSD and the other Nevada System of Higher Education partners.
Genevieve:
[00:12:30] / What a time to come together as a community just for learning and for the chance to experience this together? Can I also ask you a little bit about some of the things I’m sure you’ve heard over and over again are, “What are we going to do about parking? What are we going to do about this and all the man-hours that go into it?” This is an incredible event. It takes a lot of hands in the pot. What makes it worth all of that effort to produce something like this on campus?
Carl:
[00:13:00] / I guess I’ll start from the top, which is we’re participating in our nation’s democracy. The debate is an opportunity for the nation to see both candidates and hear their perspectives and watch them interact so that they can become informed voters. This is the third and final debate. It’s the one that is right before the election and so it’s going to be particularly significant in this election cycle.
[00:13:30] / Beyond that, this is an opportunity for our students throughout the valley and at UNLV to really see democracy in action. That is, you can’t get any better experience than being a part of this whether you’re directly part of it as a volunteer or whether you’re coming to one of the watch events on campus to really engage in an intellectual discourse with your friends and compadres in a civil way.
[00:14:00] / Really talk about the issues and show that you’ve engaged in some of the course work and some of the discussions on campus and how it has formed your opinion. I think all that’s just a remarkable opportunity. Yeah, we can talk about parking issues, but frankly, this opportunity so far outweighs some of the minor inconveniences that will come up that it just it pales in comparison. This is just a tremendous opportunity.
Genevieve: / Its apples and oranges, right?
Carl: / Exactly.
Genevieve: / Okay, that’s actually a great explanation to that, so thank you for that. If you were a student at UNLV during this time, what would be kind of the main thing you would want to focus on being here?
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Carl:
[00:15:00] / Well, at heart I’m a biologist. We all have our disciplines. Students have their disciplines and I think that every student on campus can bring their passion, their academic interest to the table, because you’re learning about a national and a global environment from the perspective of your discipline. I would have to really work hard to think of a discipline that didn’t engage in some aspect of national politics at this point in time.
Genevieve: / Yes.
Carl:
[00:15:30] / As a biologist, I’m interested in global change. I’m interested in environmental issues. I’m interested in biomedical issues, health care issues. This is a really great opportunity to take the information that you have been learning in your courses. Even if you’re brand new at UNLV, you have information that you’ve either obtained in high school or from your courses and you can start talking about the issues with your friends and learning.
[00:16:00] / Not everybody knows everything and so being open-minded is the best way to approach this, but really taking advantage of the environment of free speech, the environment of intellectual curiosity, the environment of scholarship. Engaging your friends and in good in depth conversation about the direction the United States and the world is going towards is what this is about. Now, beyond that, we have lots of opportunities now for you to do that. At the watch events, on campus the days leading up to the debate, there’s going to be lots of people talking about these issues.
Genevieve: / Absolutely.
Carl:
[00:16:30] / This is a great opportunity for students to talk to their friends, to people on the quad, talk to their instructors and get their opinions and impressions of the various areas that the debate is going to focus on. We know it’s going to focus on a whole broad array of international and foreign affairs to domestic policies, health care. You name it; they’re going to talk about it. This is an opportunity for students to really start talking about the issues and informing each other.
Genevieve: / Yeah, that’s great too; the conversation that might otherwise not have existed between students and between faculty is now in place, because we’re hosting the debate here, so that’s great. Do you know about how UNLV came to be the host for the final presidential debate?
Carl: / It’s a fairly long and involved process.
Genevieve: / I’m sure, yes.
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Carl: / You had to put together a proposal that went before the Commission on Presidential Debates. The commission came out to Las Vegas and UNLV several times for site visits and discussions with the presidents and the vice presidents to make sure that we have the capability and facilities to host the event properly. Clearly, there were security issues that needed to be looked at.
Genevieve: / Right.
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Carl: / They had many sites that had proposals and they narrowed it down. There were 4 sites for the presidential debates. There was an alternate and Hofstra, the site of the 1st presidential debate was the alternate site, because one of the other institutions chose to drop out.
Genevieve: / Yes.
Carl:
[00:18:00] / There was a lot that went into it, a lot of planning. Just a good thorough review of the capabilities of the city, the LVCVA and UNLV's abilities, and we were chosen. When we were chosen, we had a big announcement. Since then, it’s been exciting and busy all leading up to October 19th 6:00 o’clock for the debate.