Even on way out, Jessup is a leader

Aleader to the end. Even on the way out, UNLV’s soon-tobe former president, Len Jessup, was the leader this community knew him to be when we embraced him a little over three years ago.

He didn’t need to be as gracious and forward-looking and honorable as he was when he spoke to the UNLV Foundation Board members this past Wednesday morning — especially in front of a room full of UNLV community supporters who were still seething at the way the Nevada Board of Regents and Chancellor Thom Reilly chased UNLV’s dynamic leader out of town — but to Jessup, UNLV deserved the best of what this community could muster and not a devolution into some of our less-worthy instincts.

The UNLV Foundation is an amalgamation of some of the best minds, resources and passions of the Southern Nevada community whose responsibility it is to raise the funds necessary and provide the guidance required to help UNLV reach its fullest potential. We do that because, in the end, our community is only as strong as our university and as vibrant as the young, fertile minds UNLV graduates into the next generation of Las Vegas.

Around the foundation table sit some of the most dynamic Las Vegans who give their time, energy and experience to help grow UNLV into a top-tier university by any measurement. Oh yes, among the group also sit a few hundreds of millions of dollars of potential donations to higher learning. As best I can tell, none of those folks were forward-looking last week because the carnage that was wrought on Len and UNLV by the regents and chancellor was still evidenced by raw feelings and a sense of bewilderment. It was a feeling of “how did we let these petty people do this to our university, our city and our future?”

But not Len. Even though he will soon be off to his newest presidency of the prestigious Claremont Graduate College in California, Len was imploring the foundation members and UNLV family to focus on what was really important.

What is important is the growth trajectory of UNLV, its plans to acquire Top Tier status among the elite of higher learning institutions and its newly-minted medical school. The medical school is essential both to UNLV’s future and the