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Supporting, facilitating, and promoting engagement
between the university and its many communities
Summer, 2025
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UNLV Day at the
Clark County Commission
The Clark County Commission declared Tuesday, August 19th, UNLV Day in honor of the university’s service to and impact on the County.
The day started with a performance by the UNLV Mariachi Band. During the Commission meeting, UNLV President Chris Heavey provided an overview of UNLV, as well as updates on several programs and recent activities. Following his presentation, the Commission presented President Heavey with a Proclamation recognizing all that UNLV makes possible for individuals and organizations in Southern Nevada. UNLV’s Dental Public Health Residency Director Christina Demopoulos also provided comments to the Commission regarding several services the UNLV School of Dental Medicine provides in multiple districts throughout the County.
Additionally, UNLV Graduate Admissions, Alumni Engagement, School of Dental Medicine, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, UNLV PRACTICE, Boyd School of Law, and Government and Community Engagement teams visited with Commissioners, civic leaders, members of the public, and Clark County employees, including many who are UNLV alumni. They were joined by President Heavey following his presentation to the Commission for an informal reception.
UNLV is grateful for its many partnerships with Clark County, for the support it receives from the Commission, and for the opportunity to share the many ways Rebels Make It Happen. Together, we are improving the lives of all who live and work in Southern Nevada.
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Federal & State Government Updates
UNLV’s Office of Government and Community Engagement monitors Federal activity, assesses its impact, and advocates for the needs of the UNLV community on an ongoing basis. Information related to UNLV’s current and past Federal Appropriation Requests can be found on the links below.
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The Nevada Legislature Interim Committees
The 20-month period between the Nevada Legislature’s biennial sessions is referred to as the "interim." During this time, interim committees created by the Legislature work on issues that arise between sessions. Learn more on the Interim Committees website.
| | Rebels in Action - Government | | |
6/3 – UNLV President Chris Heavey joined Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert, CCSD Trustee Emily Stevens, and Deputy Superintendent Jesse Welsh to address administrators and talk about how UNLV can support the important work they do with 300k CCSD students.
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6/4 – UNLV School of Public Health’s Dr. Haboush Deloye and Dr. Erika Marquez met with staff members at Congresswoman Susie Lee, Congresswoman Dina Titus, and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s offices, and attended the Battle Born Breakfast in Washington, DC.
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6/17 – UNLV’s College of Hospitality Tribal Education Initiative and the Muscogee Nation formally established a historic partnership to educate and prepare students for careers in tribal gaming.
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6/16 – Nevada State Senator Julie Pazina joined Dean Alison Netski, Associate Dean Kate Martin, and medical school residents for the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine’s New Residents Welcome Dinner and provided remarks regarding her Graduate Medical Education bill (SB262).
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7/8 – President Heavey and several UNLV Athletics team members were on-hand for the signing of SB293, which provides additional safeguards for student athletes and enables UNLV to provide them with guidance during sponsorship negotiations.
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7/12 – Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy, NSHE Regent Heather Brown, and NSHE Chancellor Matt McNair joined President Heavey at the NBA Summer League.
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8/4 – President Heavey and Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine students, staff, faculty, and leadership joined Governor Joe Lombardo and Nevada State Senator Julie Pazina for the signing of SB262, a bill championed by Senator Pazina which will provide funding needed to expand graduate medical education and increase the number of healthcare providers in Nevada.
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8/5 – President Heavey was joined by NSHE Chancellor Matt McNair, and Board of Regents Chair Byron Brooks and Vice Chair Stephanie Goodman, at the Southern Nevada Leadership Summit which brought together higher education and Southern Nevada’s private and public sectors to explore ways of ensuring a prosperous, competitive, and attractive future for our region.
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8/6 – UNLV’s President Heavey, Chief of Staff Tondra De, and Government and Community Engagement Vice President Constance Brooks met with members of Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo’s staff, including Chief of Staff Ryan Cherry, Policy Director Isabel Graf, and Southern Nevada Director Amber Stidham to explore additional ways to support growth and innovation in our State.
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8/9 – President Heavey and UNLV Foundation Vice President Bo Bernhard joined community partners from Southwest Gas at the Nevada Donor Network’s Inspire Hope event where City of Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley was honored with the Inspire Hope Life Award.
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8/12 – UNLV Government and Community Engagement Vice President Constance Brooks joined Nevada State Assemblymembers Tanya Flanagan, Max Carter, Rebecca Edgeworth, and Duy Nguyen, as well as Nevada State Senator Melanie Scheible and Onda Housing Group Vice President of Government Relations Cedric Crear, at the Vegas Chamber’s Business Power Luncheon where the mayors of the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson shared the stage to discuss the future of Southern Nevada.
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Updated: UNLV Community Engagement Dashboard
UNLV’s Office of Government and Community Engagement facilitates the university’s annual Campus Community Engagement Inventory and administers the annual UNLV Community Partner Survey. These efforts help the university better understand the many ways the campus connects with our community, as well as community partner perceptions of the university’s community engagement activities. The UNLV Community Engagement Dashboard contains key indicators gathered from these two data collection efforts. The Dashboard was recently updated to include FY25/AY24-25 data.
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So, You Want to Change the World? The Importance of the 'We' in Public Health
Dr. Erika Marquez, an assistant professor in the UNLV School of Public Health, who also serves as the project director/principal investigator for the Nevada Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, and co-director of Health Equity Research for the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition, spoke with Dean Gerstenberger about her path into public health, working to prevent childhood lead poisoning in Nevada, and the importance of community partnerships in improving health outcomes locally and globally. The conversation touches on the importance of staying nimble and open-minded while navigating a career in public health. Click here to listen to or watch the episode, or to access any of the previous episodes.
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Safe Streets for All Action Plan - Your Input Needed
The Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Action Plan is a community-driven initiative that aims to reduce traffic-related deaths and serious injuries. Traffic deaths and serious injuries have risen dramatically in recent years in Southern Nevada, especially among people who walk, bike, take the bus, or ride a motorcycle. Your input is needed and critical to helping us understand roadway safety issues in your neighborhood in order to identify and prioritize specific design features to make our roads safer and more comfortable for everyone. Please take a moment to share your feedback!
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Call for Roundtable Session Proposals: Hot Topics, Timely Conversations
So much has changed in higher education in the last six months. The Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) would like to know what UNLV faculty, staff, and students are doing to address emerging issues. To that end, CUMU has issued a special call for proposals for the Roundtable Session at this year’s annual conference, taking place in Baltimore, October 26 – 29, 2025. Proposals should be designed to bring people together to explore challenges, share strategies, and spark new ideas around pressing issues. Submissions are due by September 12th. The Roundtable Sessions will take place on Wednesday, October 29th, 10–11:15 am.
| | Rebels in Action - Community | | 6/5 – President Heavey joined the Let’s Talk UNLV podcast to share more about the incredible things happening at UNLV and what we can all do to better support students on their educational journey. | | | 6/19 – UNLV hosted the 11th annual Nevada Women’s Film Festival to showcase powerful and inspiring work of women in the film industry in Nevada, as well as 13 other countries. | | | 6/26 – President Heavey, Provost Kate Korgan attended the Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada’s Bottles for BizTown event. UNLV’s Beta Alpha Psi received the Volunteer of the Year award, and the university was honored with the Junior Achievement Spark Award. | | | 7/4 – President Heavey joined the Rebel Hockey Team and helped showcase their national championship at the annual Summerlin July Fourth parade. | | | 7/7 – High school students attending UNLV’s weeklong Nurse Camp were welcomed by President Heavey as they began their hands-on exploration of nursing careers. | | | |
7/9 – President Heavey joined community and business leaders at the Vegas Chamber’s event focusing on the future of higher education and UNLV.
| | | 7/13 – President Heavey, UNLV Athletic Director Erick Harper, and Labron James connected at the NBA Summer League hosted at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center. | | | 7/15 – Kristina Ramos, Engagement Event Coordinator, represented UNLV at the Asian American Pacific Islander Alliance meeting hosted by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Office of Community Engagement. | | | |
7/17 – UNLV President Chris Heavey and Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine Dean Alison Netski joined City of Las Vegas Councilman Brian Knudsen at the Campus for Hope groundbreaking which will help address the needs of the unhoused in our community.
| | | 7/17 – Kristina Ramos, Engagement Event Coordinator, represented UNLV at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Southeast Area Command Coalition meeting which provided insight into upcoming community events and needs that UNLV can help address. | | | 7/21 & 7/22 – Nevada HAND hosted two resource fairs aimed at improving quality of life for families who reside at their properties. UNLV was on hand both days to connect families with medical, dental, mental health, and legal resources designed to meet their needs. | | | 7/24 – Myles Henderson, Community Engagement Student Worker, represented UNLV at the Parkdale Recreation Center’s Food and Gove Resource Pantry event, where he supported families from the center’s neighborhood by helping to organize and distribute healthy food to those in need. | | |
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Noah Claypool
While working as an Army medic for the U.S. Special Forces and a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Infantry for 21 years, Noah Claypool had a moment of self-discovery. He knew he liked connecting with others on a personal level, and, through that connection, he wanted to help people make a difference in their lives. The desire stuck with him after leaving the military and opened a path to a profession in healthcare. Specifically, he ended up enrolling in the UNLV School of...(more)
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EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
Laurie Cantwell
Though it’s not a team of superheroes, the name “Salesforce” sure could sound like one. The Office of Information Technology's Center of Excellence assembled the team to keep the customer relationship management (CRM) services operating smoothly across the UNLV campus. The leader of this team? Laurie Cantwell, director of the Center of Excellence. In fact, her CRM powers have earned her the 2025 Academic Faculty Award for Leadership Excellence…(more)
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COMMUNITY PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
College of the Muscogee Nation
The College of the Muscogee Nation (CMN) and the Tribal Education Initiative at UNLV's William F. Harrah College of Hospitality have established a historic partnership to educate and prepare students for careers in Tribal gaming and hospitality enterprises. On June 6, 2025, leaders from the UNLV Harrah College of Hospitality visited the CMN campus in Oklahoma to sign an articulation agreement that allows CMN students to transfer up to their first two years of coursework to the College of Hospitality. Those who are admitted to UNLV will be able to earn their bachelor's degree in approximately two…(more)
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Ready for the Sequel? UNLV Interns Get Their Time in the Spotlight
If you've ever tuned into a film or TV program, chances are you've seen an office intern relegated to menial tasks, like endless coffee runs. If that’s all there is to internships, why do them at all? Over the summer, students combined their classroom knowledge with real-world experience to meet corporate vice presidents, design AI models, manage teams, and more. To differentiate real life from the big screen, we've paired up UNLV interns with film and...(more)
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UNLV Contributes to Historic Breakthrough in Alzheimer's Detection
A cutting-edge diagnostic test is transforming how Alzheimer’s disease is detected, and part of the research behind its approval was conducted by leading experts in UNLV’s Pam Quirk Biomarker Laboratory in the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience. The test, called Lumipulse® G pTau 217/β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio, is an in vitro diagnostic (IVD) developed by Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc., a company specializing in healthcare diagnostic...(more)
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Building Nevada's Cyber Future One Summer Camp at a Time
Jhaell Jimenez is exactly the kind of success story that the UNLV GenCyber Camp aimed for when it launched in 2018. “It was a series of events, beginning with GenCyber Camp, that led me to my current path,” says Jimenez. He is now pursuing a doctoral degree in cybersecurity while working as a research intern at Sandia National Laboratories — and he is a great example of the power of UNLV programs to address workforce needs. Jimenez was a senior at...(more)
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Rebel Recovery Program
Since the December 6th tragedy, the Rebel community continues to experience kindness, support, and encouragement from so many. We would like to express our sincere appreciation and gratitude for all those who have helped and inspired us as we continue our recovery process. Don’t forget to check-in for the latest updates as we continue to progress on our Rebel Recovery Program. Please visit the UNLV Strong website to learn more.
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Invitation to Support Our Work
Great universities and great communities go together, and this is certainly true for UNLV and Nevada. The needs in our communities are many and there is so much more we can do to help solve some of our most pressing challenges. But, we cannot do it without you. We invite you to support our work by visiting the website, clicking the “UNLV Fund” option, and then selecting “Community Engagement” from the options listed. Thank you for your consideration!
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