The UNLV Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost announced today that Lee Bernick, chair of the UNLV Department of Public Administration, will serve as the interim dean of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs, effective June 1, 2008.

"I appreciate the opportunity to work with my colleagues from across the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs as we transition to a new era," Bernick said. "In the next year, we will use the opportunity of moving into a one of a kind facility, Greenspun Hall, to highlight the role that the College and the University play as central actors in improving the quality of life for the citizens of Clark County and the entire state of Nevada."

Bernick, a faculty member at UNLV since 2000, is an expert in the fields of public administration, state and local government, survey research and public policy. During his tenure here, Bernick has served on various campus-wide committees, including the executive committee for the College of Urban Affairs, the committee on reorganization of health sciences, and the new program evaluation committee for the graduate college. He also chaired the committee that established the university's Ph.D program in public affairs and served on the Clark County Task Force on Ethics in Government in 2003.

Prior to UNLV, Bernick was a professor of political science at University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1979 - 2000, and at Iowa State University from 1974-1979. Bernick received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in political science, each from the University of Oklahoma.