UNLV President Carol C. Harter will be honored as the 2003 Educator of the Year at an Oct. 25 event sponsored by the Nevada Hotel & Lodging Association and the Nevada Restaurant Association.
The award will be presented at the sixth annual Hospitality Scholarship Gala, which will take place at 8 p.m. at the Rio Hotel and Casino.
"The NRA and NHLA draw their memberships from Nevada's principal industry, and UNLV is very closely tied to that industry through the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, the UNLV International Gaming Institute, and a host of other academic programs," Harter said. "By bestowing this honor on me, these two associations are recognizing UNLV's long-standing leadership in hospitality industry education and research."
Harter is the seventh president of UNLV, a post she assumed in July 1995. Previously, she served as president of the State University of New York at Geneseo for six years. Before assuming her first presidency, Harter spent almost 19 years at Ohio University, where she served in two vice presidential roles and was a faculty member and ombudsman.
Under Harter's leadership, UNLV has created 80 new degree programs (15 at the doctoral level), established Nevada's only law and dental schools, built 15 new facilities and acquired three more, renovated six buildings, and granted almost 23,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees. Enrollment at UNLV has grown to more than 26,000, and the faculty and staff to approximately 2,542.
Harter is guiding the implementation of a strategic plan to fulfill an ambitious mission: to have UNLV recognized as a premier urban university by peers and members of the community. One indication of the university's success under Harter's leadership was UNLV's rise to the category of Doctoral/Research Universities-Intensive in the rankings established by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching - the organization's second-highest ranking.
In recent years, Harter has begun a concerted effort to increase UNLV's research activities in support of business development, economic diversification, and community problem solving. Research and the corresponding transfer of technology and innovation to new businesses will allow the region to expand its manufacturing base and serve as a source for entrepreneurial activity; this will be the focus of a new UNLV research park that is being established in the southwestern area of the Las Vegas Valley.
As the leader of a $300-million organization, Harter is now recognized as one of the top female executives in Nevada. During her tenure as president, UNLV has raised more than $190 million in private funds, with another $95 million in pledges and
$106 million in known estate and trust expectancies for scholarships, program support, and facilities, including the state-of-the-art, 302,000-square-foot Lied Library. Among these gifts, Harter secured an Endowed Chair in Creative Writing, currently held by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.
