Fall 1999
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 Billie Mae Polson, 1963 |
 Billie Mae Polson, 2000 |
Polson was employed at UNLV longer than any other person. She first arrived on campus in the summer of 1959 when the university was still known as the Southern Regional Division of the University of Nevada.
"When I first came here, they had just paved Maryland Parkway," Polson said. "But other than that, it was two buildings and desert."
Polson was one of two librarians hired by the university in 1959. She supervised cataloging and reference in the one-room library in Maude Frazier Hall; her duties remained the same when the library moved to Archie C. Grant Hall a few months later.
Polson went on to serve as acting head librarian for a two-year period in the early 1960s. During that time, she supervised the library's move into the first floor of the round portion of the Dickinson Library and then its move onto the second and third floors of the building as they were completed.
"The growth of this campus during my 40 years has been phenomenal," Polson said. "We have gone from 150 students to 20,000 and from a library budget of $17,000 to $3.2 million."
Before she retired, Polson was involved in designing the layout of the technical services department of the new Lied Library. As much as she admires the new facility, she is somewhat relieved that she doesn't have to help move into the new library.
"I've participated in moving the library several times already. I don't think I have the energy for another one," Polson laughs. "But the new library will be really great for everyone involved."
"You don't replace someone like Billie," said Kenneth Marks, UNLV's dean of libraries. "You clearly can't. We lost a lot of history when Billie left."
The new Aldec Digital Design and Processing Laboratory will contain 12 computer workstations, thanks to donations from Aldec Inc. and matching funds provided by UNLV.
Aldec Inc., a Henderson-based international software company, contributed more than $50,000 to acquire Gateway personal computers and also provided software for use on the equipment.
Aldec has also indicated an interest in participating in future UNLV teaching and research projects and may offer student internships.
This marks the first time UNLV has won in the College Television Awards competition run by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences — the same body that gives out the prime-time Emmy awards.
UNLV's winning entry competed against 37 others from colleges and universities around the nation in the news/sports/magazine category. Among those competing in the same category were the University of California, Berkeley, which took first place; USC; Syracuse University; Ithaca College; and the University of Florida.
"I am extremely proud of our students for winning this national award," said UNLV President Carol C. Harter. "The fact that we could take second place at a competition that draws entries from some of the best film and television programs in the country speaks extremely well of our students, faculty, and course offerings in the Hank Greenspun School of Communication and of the university itself."
Beyond the Game was produced to educate the local community about the human interest dimensions of student athletics at UNLV, said Dennis Mazzocco, a former communication studies professor who served as faculty advisor and executive producer. The program illustrates UNLV's compliance with federal Title IX gender equity requirements, while bringing public attention to the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity represented in the university's sports programs, he said.
The team of communication students responsible for the show was headed by then-student producer Darryl Richardson and student director David Williamson. Richardson, Williamson, and Mazzocco recently attended an awards ceremony in Los Angeles hosted by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
"When I got the call telling me we'd won the award, I was just shocked," said Richardson, who graduated from UNLV with a dual bachelor's degree in political science and communication studies in May 1998 and is now a law student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
"All of us who worked on the show knew we had produced a good program, but I don't think we expected that it would be award-winning," he said. "It's really a great accomplishment for UNLV as a whole."
Beyond the Game was produced as a class project in Mazzocco's broadcast practicum course during the 1997-98 academic year. It was first broadcast on UNLV-TV, channel 4, on Prime/Cox Cable in May 1998.
Rounding out the student team that produced the program were program hosts Aimee Deaton, Adam Mohr, and Laura Sambol and producers Paul Espinosa Jr., Jamie Hapip, Sonny Minx, Bryan Pahia, Malia Risner, Chad Simmons, Justin Vaden, Michele Webster, David Williamson, Michael Adashefski, Thomas Brede, Kenneth Chong, Gayle Haas, Jean Paul Hellendall, Wolfgang Muchow, Patrick Wiebeld, and Jamie Combs. Mohr also served as a producer.
Paul Ferguson, formerly a professor of toxicology at Northeast Louisiana University, has been chosen as dean of UNLV's Graduate College, and Richard Flaherty, a former accounting professor at Arizona State University, has been selected to head the College of Business. Gene Hall, who previously served as a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Northern Colorado, has been appointed dean of UNLV's College of Education.
Prior to accepting his appointment at UNLV, Ferguson had served as dean for graduate studies and research at Northeast Louisiana since 1993 when the post was created. In 1996 he added the duties of university vice provost.
Flaherty, who had been at Arizona State since 1978, served as director of the School of Accountancy there from 1988 to 1993. Before joining the faculty at Arizona State, he taught at the University of Illinois and at Oklahoma State University.
Hall served as dean of the College of Education at the University of Northern Colorado from 1988 to 1993. Prior to that he served as director of the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education and as a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin.
Douglas Robertson, a former education professor at Portland State University in Oregon, has been selected to head UNLVŐs new Teaching and Learning Center.
The Teaching and Learning Center is designed to enhance both the quality of teaching and of learning at UNLV by serving as a resource center for faculty and teaching assistants.
Center staff will provide individual consultation, conduct workshops and seminars, and provide related services, such as the dissemination of information about teaching and about learning technologies.
"I'm pleased to announce the selection of Douglas Robertson to head our Teaching and Learning Center," UNLV President Carol C. Harter said. "With his research emphasis in the field of college teaching and the work he did to establish a similar teaching and learning center at Portland State, he was the best candidate for the job."
Provost Douglas Ferraro said, "We at UNLV are committed to providing our faculty with avenues for improving teaching, and we see the creation of the center and the hiring of Doug Robertson as important steps in that direction."
Robertson had been at Portland State since 1987. In addition to being a professor in the university's graduate school of education, he served there as the coordinator of postsecondary, adult, and continuing education graduate programs.
He is the author of the book Self-directed Growth and has written a number of refereed journal articles.
Robertson earned a doctoral degree in cultural geography with emphases in urban social geography and Latin America and a masterŐs degree in environmental perception, both from Syracuse University. He also holds a bachelorŐs degree in cultural geography from the University of Oregon.
Paul Loveday
Paul Loveday, a professor emeritus in the department of management, died Jan. 2. He was 77.
He first came to UNLV in 1969 after 11 years at the University of Arizona. In 1972, Loveday was named chair of the department of management and held that post until 1988. During that time, he also served as director of UNLV's Small Business Administration program. Loveday retired in June 1990.
A veteran of World War II and the Korean conflict, he served in the Army, rising to the rank of captain. He was awarded the Korean Service Medal with two Bronze Service Stars, as well as the United Nations Service Medal.
Loveday received his bachelorŐs degree from the University of Omaha, his master's degree from the University of Arizona, and his doctorate from the University of Arkansas.
Boyce Phillips
Boyce Phillips, a professor emeritus in the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, died May 8 after a long illness. He was 76.
One of the founders of the hotel college, Phillips joined the UNLV faculty in 1967. He taught and served as an administrator at UNLV for 27 years before retiring in 1994.
Phillips helped the hotel administration program evolve from its early status as a part of the business college to its current position as a college that graduates about 400 students a year.
A WWII veteran, he earned his bachelor's degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1952 and his masterŐs degree from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla., in 1959.
Stanley Zehm
Stanley Zehm, a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction, died March 28. He was 63.
Zehm joined the UNLV faculty in 1990 and served as chair of the department for three years.
A respected researcher, Zehm authored more than 40 books, articles, and monographs and made more than 25 conference presentations.
He also received numerous accolades, including the 1997 Lilly Fong Distinguished Professor of the Year Award, the 1997 CSUN Outstanding Faculty Award, and the 1998 Kappa Delta Epsilon Award for Continued Excellence in Teacher Education.
Zehm held a variety of positions in the field of education during his career. He was an education professor at Washington State University, an assistant superintendent of schools in Selah, Wash., and the dean of the division of education and psychology at Heritage College, also in Washington.
A new 60,000-square-foot facility that will serve as a home for the UNLV womens basketball and volleyball teams — as well as a venue for small concerts, university events, and family shows — is under construction next to the Thomas & Mack Center on campus.
UNLV anthropology professor John Swetnam has been selected by the university's Alumni Association as the recipient of the group's Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year Award for 1999.