UNLV counterterrorism institute spends $9 million with little to show for it

Here we go again. Remember Jerry (“Tark the shark”) Tarkanian? He was the coach of the University of Las Vegas (UNLV) basketball team from 1973 to 1992. He has two distinctions: First, with a 990-228 career coaching record (81.3 percent) across all college divisions, Tarkanian has more collegiate wins than any coach in history; second, every college program with which he was involved was embroiled in corruption and NCAA rule violations. In 1990 UNLV (who can forget?: Stacey Augmon, Greg Anthony, Larry Johnson, David Butler, Anderson Hunt) defeated Duke 103-73 to win the NCAA championship, but in 1992 UNLV president forced Tark to resign in order to clean up the basketball program at the school.

What brings Shark to mind? Earlier this week UNLV officials expressed embarrassment and confusion over what happened at a secretive UNLV counterterrorism institute. The UNLV Institute for Security Studies has little to show for the $8.9 million, mostly in federal money, that it has received over the past three years. Jim Rogers, chancellor of the university system, said he would ask incoming UNLV president David Ashley to “look into this and any other related matters” after he takes office on 1 July. Two university regents, Steve Sisolak and Mark Alden, said they also will push for the Board of Regents to conduct an internal audit of the institute’s dealings. Alden said, “It appears to be featherbedding. It looks like they’re taking care of their own little group. We need a full explanation of what they’ve been doing with the money.”

The Las Vegas Sun reported that the institute, since winning board approval and applying for its initial federal funding three years ago, has abandoned several of its key objectives and has come up short on others, including a pledge to make UNLV a leading academic authority on homeland security. The institute currently has no academic program and primarily has been conducting the kind of technical lab research performed elsewhere in the country. It also has handed out much of its homeland security preparedness work to private consultants, some of whom once worked with the institute’s interim director, Thomas Williams, a former Energy Department manager at the Nevada Test Site. Several of the institute’s fourteen employees, who records show receive annual salaries ranging from $79,000 to $160,000, formerly worked for Bechtel Nevada, the private firm that helps the government manage the Test Site.

Rogers said the institute’s conduct may be part of other management troubles during the tenure of outgoing UNLV President Carol Harter, whose resignation Rogers orchestrated earlier this year. “People know I’ve had great concern about the management style at UNLV,” he said.