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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.

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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?

[00:01:30]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?

[00:02:00]Carl:

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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.

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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:[00:03:30]

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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?

[00:04:30]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.

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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.

[00:06:00]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.

[00:06:30]Carl:

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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:

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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.


[00:08:00]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:

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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.

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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.

[00:10:00]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.

[00:10:30]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:

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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?

[00:14:30]Carl:

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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:

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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.

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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.


Carl:

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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.

[00:17:00]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.

[00:17:30]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.

Genevieve: Once the day is over, we’re all going to look around and say, “What do we do next, right?”

Carl: That’s true. I think that many people who have been working night and day are going to take the next day off.

Genevieve:[00:18:30]

Suddenly, they’re going to have a lot of free time on their hands, I’m sure. Can I also talk to you a little bit about maybe the possibilities for UNLV after the debate? I mean we are going to be getting all this recognition, what might come out of that afterwards?

Carl: I think putting that in perspective, UNLV has great brand recognition across the country. I have family that lived on the East Coast and I regularly see people walking around with UNLV hats and sweatshirts and t-shirts.

Genevieve: Wow.

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Carl:

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People know who UNLV is. This gives us the opportunity to show ourselves not only in light of our existing brand, but now as a major research institution. Again, in light of our top tier strategic plan, this just fits perfectly. It’s going to show the institution into the future that we are a place that, yes, we have great basketball; but we have great academics, we have great research and then our brand is pretty well recognized across the country and it will reinforce that.

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Yeah, we are expecting that people are going to take a really close look at UNLV students that are looking for good opportunities; are going to take a good close look at UNLV, because they will see UNLV as hosting the debate. We have certain programs across the university that are already internationally renowned. We get students from all over the world for some of our programs. We get students, currently, from all over the country.

Genevieve: Yeah.

Carl:

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I think this debate will simply reinforce that. Reinforce our brand and we’ll start to see that folks recognize that UNLV is a place to go for good academics and good research, good scholarship. Yeah, I think it reinforces our top tier ambitions, it gets the word out. The PR that UNLV and Las Vegas is going to get from this, the last time I checked it was estimated to be $60 million worth.

Genevieve: My goodness.

Carl: Heading towards, probably, $100 million

Genevieve: Wow. That is incredible.

Carl:

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That’s just fabulous. I think that we will absolutely see students from all over the country really taking a close look at UNLV when application time comes and considering UNLV as an option for coming and working on undergraduate work, graduate work; really, the same for faculty, because we have to recruit faculty as well from around the country and around the world.

Genevieve: We want the best, right?

Carl: Exactly. Their ears are going to prick up when they start seeing UNLV and they’re going to look at us really carefully.

Genevieve: Okay. Hopefully, we can retain some of the high schoolers that are graduating from our local communities now.

Carl: Exactly.

Genevieve: We don’t want them to go out of state; we want to keep them here at home.

Carl: Yeah. One of the nice things we do as all communities do send students out of state


[00:21:30] for various reasons to go to college. We get probably 50% of them back. They come back to UNLV for an array of reasons. Yes, this shows UNLV is an institution that they should be taking a hard look at, and so we hope to see greater applications from really outstanding students within Clark County. Then even students that may have gone to some other institutions saying, “Hey, UNLV is a place that … I mean-

[00:22:00]Genevieve: I want to be part of that.

Carl: Yeah, exactly.

Genevieve: Perfect, okay. If there’s anything that you would like add that maybe we missed, something we should include that we didn’t talk about?

Carl:

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All I can say is this is just an incredibly exciting event. I think our students understand how exciting it is and how important it is. Our faculty, understand the significance of this event. I think that our community is rallying behind the fact that we’re having this huge political event in town. Nevada is a swing-state, politically.

Genevieve: That’s a good point.

Carl: This is just such an opportunity for people to see democracy in action and participate and be close to it. I just think it’s a unique opportunity that people should take advantage of and our students absolutely are taking advantage of.

Genevieve: Yes. I mean it’s big for the university, big things there, but maybe even bigger for the students and the people who are participating in it.

[00:23:00]Carl: Yeah. Now, I’m envious, because the only tickets that are going from UNLV are going

to students. We have the raffle.

Genevieve: I’m in the lottery myself.

Carl: Outstanding, outstanding.

Genevieve: I’m anxiously waiting.

Carl: We made a decision early on that the tickets were going to go to students, because this is very student-focused. I am envious of the students that are going to actually go sit in the auditorium and watch the debate live. That’s going to be a pretty special thing for the students that get that.

[00:23:30]Genevieve: Yeah. Soon, I can say, “I definitely appreciate the opportunity too, so thank you to

everyone involved in that.”


Carl: That would pretty cool if you get it.

Genevieve: My goodness. It would be. Thank you so much for talking to us today, some really great insight from you so thank you again.

Carl: Thank you so much for inviting me.


Mallika:

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It truly is an exciting time and we’re all watching closely to see the impact that Nevada will have on this year’s election. The first 2 presidential debates have been unpredictable and exciting to say the least. Before we hear our next interview, let’s check in with some of our speech and debate students to hear what they have to say about the debate process.

Matthew:

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My name is Matthew Gomez. I’m a political science major and this is my 3rd year at UNLV. One of my biggest concerns going into the presidential debates is there’s a lot of personality at play, but not a lot of specifics. One of the things I’m hoping comes out to kind of educate people who are undecided about what they’re going to vote for is what specific policies both candidates are kind of actually advocating for. The 2 candidates in this election, I’m sure it’s no secret are rather larger than life. We haven’t really had an election like this before, so it’s going to be really interesting, kind of like a heavyweight battle in Las Vegas. Normally, there’s UFC fights here, now we’re going to get like UFC of presidential debates is going to be held in Vegas.

Ember:

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My name is Ember Smith. I’m a freshman and brand new here. Right now I’m studying political science, but that’s very subject to change, I’m still kind of exploring that. I’m really excited to be on UNLV’s campus especially this particular year, because of the final presidential debate being here, so I’m really excited for that especially being involved in debate.

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I have a unique perspective, because I just barely joined in August, so that was my first experience. I just got back from my firs tournament yesterday night. I’m kind of new to the whole atmosphere, but I think everybody and especially Jake Thompson is extremely excited about it and really hoping that we’re the ones that win the lottery so we can see it live. Regardless, I’m really excited, because I live on campus so it will be right next to all of the action. I think it’s such a unique experience, which honestly, partially motivated my reason to go to UNLV in the first place. Yeah, so we definitely have tons of discussions about the presidential election within the debate community and it’s really exciting to see that.

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I think it’s a really great experience for Rebels in UNLV to kind of get out there nationally and show that they politically care. I think that a political advocacy and like understanding what’s going on in the world is really important. It’s really an opportunity that we can showcase our students, our university, et cetera to the entire nation. Also, I think in this election, probably, a lot of the entire world as well. Particularly, being the last debate, I’m probably the most contentious.


Alex: Alex Fincher. I go to Green Valley High School and I’m in the speech and debate program. Well, I think it’s actually a great opportunity for all of the high schoolers as well as the college students as we’re super involved with the RDI team here at UNLV, so all of the opportunities that we get, we get to kind of correlate between both debate teams. It’s really good to bolster both the growth between the high school team and the college team.

[00:26:30]Mallika: Next up, we decided to dive even further into our partnership efforts to learn more

about what are doing for students across the Las Vegas Valley. Professor and Executive Associate Dean, Danica Hays, spent some time with Genevieve Grippo to discuss a very special essay contest for the Clark County School District and how partnerships like this have affected our educational community as a whole.

Genevieve: All right, Danica. Thank you so much for joining us today and coming to talk to us.

Danica: Sure, I’m glad to be here.

[00:27:00]Genevieve: Yeah, absolutely. First, I just want to ask how you came to be involved with the

debate?

Danica:

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Sure, I am a member of the College of Education. I’m in the administration in that office and it was really important as a member of that college to be a part of this, because the partnerships that we already have, specifically with the Clark County School District and College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College. These are obviously important issues for our college and our university. This was a great opportunity for our college to be represented and it was important for me to be part of that.

Genevieve: Very good. Okay, so next, I just want to kind of talk to you about the partnerships that we do have with CSN with Nevada State and how those are all working together?

Danica:

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Sure, so our partnership with Clark County School District to begin with is probably one of the most prominent, I would say in the nation. CCSD is the 5th largest school district in the nation and it is also made up of demographics that the rest of the country, if they’re not there yet, will be there in the next 10 years. For example, in terms of racial mapping, diversity, its mix, constitutes 74%. There are over 320,000 students and the district in itself is phenomenal. We have a great partnership as a university with them already.

[00:28:30]Just to give you a sense of coming into the debate, some of the things that we’ve been doing in terms of working with the kids in the district. We’ve done things such as STEM education projects with them. We’ve also helped to recruit principals and teachers and retain them, as well as provide ongoing education for them. On a day-to-day basis, we’re working with the districts, whether our students are in the schools


[00:29:00]themselves doing various projects or whether they’re helping provide services to the students, the personnel or the teachers. It is a fantastic partnership.

Genevieve: Definitely, yeah.

Danica:

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In terms of College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College, obviously, a lot of our students can come from College of Southern Nevada and it’s really important for us to continue to maintain that partnership. The 3 schools essentially make up the institutions of higher education in Southern Nevada. It’s important for workforce development. It’s important for ensuring that the future of Southern Nevada, both economically and socially are strong. Those partnerships are certainly key. This opportunity to have these community members, these institutions of higher education, the school district come together to be a part of the debate process was. It’s a great opportunity for education. It’s a great opportunity for the economy as well.

[00:30:00]Genevieve: Absolutely, yeah. Definitely thinking in the long term as far as students moving into

the workforce in the future, what can you say about the debate and how it has impacted the education for students across the board in Southern Nevada?

Danica:

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Sure, so the big piece that I would want to start with is that community engagement is what UNLV does. It’s part of our top tier initiative. It’s one of the strongest pillars that we have. There’s a reason for that, community engagement is key to Southern Nevada, because Southern Nevada is such a tight-knit community. It’s a small town in a big city.

Genevieve: That’s so true.

Danica: Right. What’s really neat about this debate process is it not only brings together all these partners of the table, but it helps to showcase experts that we have in a broad area to kind of highlight some of the local community needs on a national scale, right?

Genevieve: Right.

[00:31:00]Danica: Things like immigration, water, land use, energy, the economy and so forth. Just in

that sense, bringing these partners, there’s so many experts both in the school district and in the institutes of higher education that can kind of speak to issues that the nation cares about. Starting with that, I think that’s important to say that the debate process itself in terms of bringing the community partners together and the K12 partners together is it offers unique learning opportunities for students of all ages.

[00:31:30] Whether it’s kind of in the class learning about the debates or the election process or it’s experiential learning as things kind of unfold in the news in terms of what does this mean for the debate process, what does it mean for the election cycle. There are multiple examples of how these learning opportunities have unfolded and the conversation in Southern Nevada has unfolded around that.


Genevieve: Perfect, so what about the different experiences that you’ve had so far with the debate?

[00:32:00]Danica:

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Sure, in terms of the community outreach working group, there have been lots of activities. I would say kind of in 4 major activities. One piece is that offering volunteer opportunities to both community partners as well as students has been a huge piece of what we wanted to accomplish in the working group and specifically in the Communications Marketing and Community Outreach Committee of the debate committee. Part of the reason for that is we wanted everyone’s voice to be involved. We wanted to everyone to have an opportunity to play a small part in this very huge event for Las Vegas.

Genevieve: Yeah.

Danica:

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That was one place that we certainly have been involved. The other place, I would say is that we have had an essay contest. It’s ongoing right now with Clark County School District. That has been sponsored by not only a school district, but Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority as well as UNLV. That as a contest is open to students in grades 9 through 12. We have collected the entries in just October 8th, we have judged, in terms of initial judging of those essays. Part of what we were trying to do with that essay contest is have these students have an opportunity to talk about why debates matter, if they do. The question that was posted in was, “Do debates matter? Why or why not?”

Genevieve: It’s a big question not easy to answer.

[00:33:30]Danica:

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Yeah, yeah. I got to serve as a judge for this initial round and it was really exciting to see these high school students think about not only the candidates, but the debate process itself and sort of the benefits and the opportunities of having debates; some of the outcomes that have happened historically, some of the potential outcomes that could come from this cycle, so it was just a great opportunity to kind of see what these students had to say. There is a $1000 scholarship involved with that for UNLV-bound junior or senior to win.

Genevieve: Okay.

Danica: There are other prices that students could win. We saw a lot of excitement from the students. We saw a lot of participation. Going back to community outreach, the judges themselves were very much a spectrum. We had student group members judging. We had community members. We had university faculty administrators.

Genevieve: Wow. Sounds like a big panel.

[00:34:30]


Danica:

[00:35:00]

Absolutely. It was really nice to bring those folks together in the same room to work on that. The other activity I would say that we’ve been doing with community outreach has to do with just the curriculum and voter education activities. We see this on several sides. In terms of CCSD, some of the things that they’ve been doing is developing for across their kind of kindergarten through 12th grade. Various kinds of activities to do in class, to teach about the debate process and the election cycle, as well as various activities in terms of Nevada Day itself.

[00:35:30]

Part of what their focus has been, is to make sure than on Nevada Day on October 31st, that students are not only aware of the Nevada constitution and what that means, but how this election cycle plays into that. They’ve been at the table with lots of different curricular activities and voter education activities that are important to their students. On UNLV side, we have offered courses to graduating high school students. For example, this fall, there were courses in history and political science that graduating high school students could take right off the bat coming into the university. Those were big pieces. We also held a voter education summit for high school students to learn about the election process.

Genevieve: Yes, yes. I heard about that on our campus.

[00:36:00]Danica: Yeah and that was sponsored by the school of law and that was a great event for our

high school students. I guess the last thing I would say is maybe more kind of the obvious community activity, were around the watch parties themselves. So far, we’ve had 2 presidential debates and a vice presidential debate and UNLV has hosted those. Those have been open to the public. The school district as well as the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College have also held their own watch parties. We have seen great attendance at those and great conversations coming out of that.

[00:36:30]Genevieve: Definitely conversations that we might not have had, otherwise, without having a

debate here. I think it’s getting the students excited. It’s getting faculty excited. It’s a really great thing to bring the community together in that sense.

Danica: Absolutely.

Genevieve: Yeah, definitely. I kind of want to talk to you about these partnerships that we have with CSN, with Nevada State, LVCVA, how do you think that those will move together in the future after the debate?

[00:37:00]Danica: Well, that is a great question, because part of my work with this committee. As we’ve

kind of unfolding the activities I’ve talked to you about, some of the administrations, specifically at College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College have talked about, “This is great. We want to partner more with UNLV.”

Genevieve: Right.


Danica:

[00:37:30]

Starting to talk about ways that we can make sure that each of our institutions are participating in the other’s activities that they hold. For example, there was a screening at College Southern Nevada, “No Greater Odds,” a documentary screening. We were a part of that and so that’s just an example of as we move forward, that’s extremely important. In terms of the school district, we’re looking at ways, particularly in social studies areas that we can kind of continue discussing voter engagement, voter education. How can our faculty with expertise in areas that will impact these students graduating and entering the workforce? How can we continue to offer learning in professional development?

[00:38:00]Genevieve: It sounds like there’s definitely going to be a greater focus on maybe political

communication and discourse here in Nevada all across K through 12 as well as higher education, so its’ really exciting.

Danica:

[00:38:30]

Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a very easy process to engage in community outreach, because we have great partners, we have great partnership. We’re all invested in Southern Nevada. It’s like no other part the nation, in terms of that. We all want our workforce. We want our children to succeed. We want to be a national exemplar for what could be an increasingly diverse population. I’m very proud of the work that UNLV has done in terms of this debate and outreach to our community partners. I’m looking forward to what the next day brings.

Genevieve:

[00:39:00]

I would have to agree with you, yes. I think that there was a sense of almost, maybe not boredom, but just a lot of students maybe didn’t really care about politics too much coming into this. Now, with the debate, it’s kind of like the forefront of many of the classes that we’re doing, many of the outside activities that the university is hosting. People who may be wouldn’t have been too thrilled with the idea of taking these classes now are suddenly really interested and really involved.

Danica:

[00:39:30]

Yeah, absolutely. You see that in the college population. You see that in elementary school population. Kids are starting to think about voter education and debates. They may not understand every concept of it, but they get what it means to have a voice. They are learning how to share that voice and in different ways and different parts of their curriculum, whether it’s in the school district or at College of Southern Nevada or Nevada State College or here at UNLV.

Genevieve: Okay, very good. Is there anything else that you can say about the debate and how it might affect UNLV in the future?

Danica:[00:40:00]

Well, this is an unprecedented opportunity; we’ve been hearing that in terms of media coverage nationally and internationally. In terms of how much it’s going to bring, in terms of highlighting what we’re doing in the schools and the universities, the community, just Las Vegas in general. I can only see positives coming from this. I think it’s going to expand the nation’s view of what Las Vegas is about, what our school systems are about, what our university is about and it’s going to be an exciting time


for years to come.

Genevieve: Definitely, I think that students here and the faculty here will remember this for probably the rest of their lives.

Danica: Absolutely.

[00:40:30]Genevieve: Have you had an opportunity to either volunteer at any of these events or maybe will

have the opportunity to in the future?

Danica: I have signed up to volunteer for the watch event on October 19th.

Genevieve: Okay.

Danica:[00:41:00]

I’m looking forward to that. Absolutely, I also was able to be a part of one of our faculty members, Jacob Thompson and our student leader talking with schools at the Student Government Association Meeting in June talking about how the school district can get involved with this election and bring that theme in their fall semester. The essay contest winners will be decided toward the end of October and I would imagine that by early November. That first week of November, we will have those announced, so it’s exciting.

Genevieve: How many essay contest winners will there be?

[00:41:30]Danica: There will be 5. There will be sort of a grand prize winner. There’s a $1,000 scholarship

that we are offering to UNLV-bound juniors or seniors. There also would be 4 additional prizes to various UNLV events.

Genevieve: Okay. Well, Danica, thank you again so much for joining us and coming to talk to us about this very important event hat we’re having on campus. I’m sure we’ll see you at the watch party. I just said you were volunteering there, so again, thank you for talking to us.

Danica: Thanks for having me Genevieve.


[00:42:00]Mallika:

[00:42:30]

We’re lucky to live in such an amazing community that supports our university in such big ways. I cannot wait to find out who wins the essay contest. This is Mallika Pal reporting from UNLV and I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode. If you like what you heard, let us know by subscribing on iTunes or Google Play. Also, be sure to leave us a rating and review. We would love to know what you think. We have a jam-packed season with some amazing interviews and coverage from our team of student journalists. Next week, we’ll release a special episode to coincide with the


final presidential debate. Stay tuned for more.


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