"President Carol Harter's departure removes one of the most serious impediments to educational progress at UNLV. In her 11 years, she failed to attract a distinguished faculty, the central task in turning UNLV into a distinguished university."
So says William Epstein, professor of social work at the UNLV.
Epstein's office is the size of an extra large master-bedroom in Building 9, a low-slung, carmel-brown, Rubic's Cube of an edifice in the Central Desert Complex, itself a series of copycat, we're-cramped-for-space-so-let's-drop-pods-where-sidewalks-should-be-type structures deposited between Frank and Estella Beam Hall (to the east) and the gargantuan Classroom Building Complex (to the west). His desk dominates the smallish room, so enter carefully: Swing it too far and you'll trap him in.
Of nondescript height and marathoner's build, Epstein's physical remarkableness lies in his Kojak haircut and a gaze that's a mix of a 1,000-yard stare and telekinesis, like he's looking through you as much as at you—reading you, deconstructing you, divining your motive. Epstein is a professor of social work and says he's among UNLV's most prolific academics. He's got tenure. Has written six books—the first in 1993, The Dilemma of American Social Welfare; 2002's American Policy-Making: Welfare as Ritual and coming out this year, Psychotherapy as Religion: The Civil Divine in America. Seven and a half pages of his 11-page résumé highlight 35 years of presentations made and articles published in book chapters and referenced in publications like the Journal of Applied Social Sciences, the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Epstein arrived at UNLV in the 1992-'93 academic year, coming off a two-year stint as a lecturer in the social work department at Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was the tail end of then-president Robert Maxson's era, a regime lowlighted by the very public jousting with, then ousting of, beloved basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. What little Epstein got to know of Maxson, he liked, particularly the former president's appreciation for higher education's role in civic discourse.
"[After UNLV] he went to a college in Riverside and I saw him on TV talking about the role of public education and I thought, ‘That's what I want someone who's president to talk about,'" Epstein says. "Carol Harter didn't do that. She failed as president. The nerve of her to say this place is world class." See where this is going?
On February 25, the Review-Journal published Epstein's letter to the editor. Headlined "Good riddance to Harter's era of mediocrity," it was a 604-word smackdown of his boss and employer. Some highlights:
• "The failure to attract and retain quality professors at UNLV was not simply a result of Ms. Harter's imperious style. She had little respect for scholarship. She appointed obsequious mediocrities to important administrative positions, who then appointed other mediocrities to academic positions."
• "Provost Raymond Alden laments that the Valley's cost of living hinders the university's ability to recruit stellar applicants. However, it's the academic climate at UNLV, not the cost of housing, that discourages competent applicants. After all, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, in spite of astronomical housing costs, have little trouble recruiting or retaining stellar faculty."
• "The members of the Faculty Senate are by and large failed scholars. They have not earned the right to a strong administrative voice. They should be quiet and get out of the way."
In person the words come faster, harsher, with more annunciated oomph: "There's no respect for scholarship here."
"The only reason we were in the fourth tier [of Newsweek's college rankings] is because there is no fifth tier."
"Professors here aren't focused on the production of knowledge." "Most of the faculty falls asleep after getting tenure. They're not engaged in the intellectual life of the students, the university or the community."
Epstein has been carrying on like this for years, bitching about UNLV's so-so reputation, firing off disparaging internal memos and getting flogged by administrators. It's not just UNLV brass he's pissed off, he says, but folks like veteran developer Irwin Molasky and casino kingpin Steve Wynn (accusing the Wynn-meister of skimping on corporate philanthropy). He and Provost Ray Alden have duked it out via e-mail and he's turned Harter into a punch line, nicknaming her "Three-Lane Harter," a reference to her plan to reconfigure Maryland Parkway from a busy street into the anchor of an educational/cultural corridor.
"She wants to narrow the street for what? So she can have a cappuccino?"
Long story short: Epstein doesn't think much of UNLV, the school he's spent the last 14 years of his life at, the institution that pays his salary.
Harter isn't the only one eating Epstein's verbal bullets; UNLV's faculty also gets hit with buckshot. Harter's repeated comparisons between UNLV and the University of California at Los Angeles drove Epstein to compare the schools, examining eight years of faculty productivity (1995-1999, 2000-2004) in producing journals included in the Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index and the Humanities Citation Index, which contain references from the world's leading journals.
UCLA's faculty produced 31,343 from 1995-1999; UNLV's, 1,371. From 2000-2004: UCLA produced 36,261 and UNLV produced 1,797. Even adjusting for UNLV's smaller faculty—881 to UCLA's 1,804—UNLV came up short, averaging .4 papers per professor annually to UCLA's 4.5.
"We're not even a tenth as productive," he says.
Even where UNLV is doing good, it's doing bad in Epstein's eyes. Big whoopee that it's 60 percent of the way to its $500 million capital fund raising goal, he says; UCLA and the University of Southern California raised $3 billion apiece in 10 years.
"We're supposed to be excited about $500 million? The goal should be $1.5 billion," he says. "Kiss my ass with building all these buildings, where's the money for the programs?"
"The poor quality of appointees to the committee charged with searching for her replacement and complaints about Chancellor Jim Rogers' decisions are indicative of the poor academic climate here. It is a fantasy verging on delusion to agree with Ms. Harter's claim that this place is world-class."—Letter to the R-J.
Epstein grudgingly admits there are pockets of amazing productivity on campus. His school, the School of Social Work, for example. Despite not having a doctoral program, he says it's better than 50 percent of those with them. The law school and hotel administration programs are top-notch, he says, there are a few quality professors here and there—18, maybe 20—but it's slim pickings after that.
But how can you attract quality professors to UNLV if one of its best continually berates it?
As far as Joanne Thompson is concerned, Epstein's got a right to say what he wants. Thompson, who directs the School of Social Work, won't comment on him as a professor or employee, but she will talk about her department, touting a faculty that has published frequently and landed competitive and prestigious grants, including a recent grant from the federal National Institutes of Mental Health to collaborate with the University of Washington on studying mental health in Nevada. "We're a very productive faculty in terms of scholarship," Thompson says.
UNLV excels on other areas, too. According to UNLV's Division of Research and Graduate Studies, the university received $69.4 million in research funding in fiscal year 2005, up from $46.7 million the previous year. "Rising levels of federal research funding help to build UNLV's reputation within the higher education community," wrote Paul Ferguson, vice president for research and graduate studies.
A highly placed university source, who requested anonymity, says professors like Epstein are among the biggest impediments to lifting UNLV's profile: "We have a lot of prominent people teaching at this university. I have problems with a blanket statements in that regard. The university is going to be going through significant changes not just in the next few months, but in the next few years with leadership changes. I think those statements undermine that process."
"Most worrisome, the committee mirrors the self-protectiveness of the Board of Regents and may discourage an outstanding candidate from taking the job. Again and again, after visiting with the undistinguished UNLV faculty and administration, competent candidates rescind their applications. Would it not help to attract a competent president to UNLV if all of its senior administrators—from the deans on up—placed undated resignations in a drawer?" —Letter to the R-J.
There is one thing Epstein likes about education in Nevada. His name is Chancellor Jim Rogers. Because he puts his money where his mouth is and is willing to buck the system—consolidate power in his office, bully university presidents and goad, cajole, unnerve ... basically whatever it takes—Epstein says Rogers is the best hope to keep public education from sinking.
"I just hope he doesn't lose his enthusiasm," Epstein says.
Letters to the editor are funny in that they can provoke more letters to the editor about the original letter to the editor than about the story or issue that prompted a letter to the editor in the first place.
Alan Simmons, chairman of UNLV's Department of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, wrote a letter titled "An improving university" that appeared March 4 in the R-J. Epstein is called a "glass half-empty sort of guy" and Simmons educates the disgruntled professor about the Ph.D program (an African-American Studies major and minor) his department created, the books it produced (11), articles and chapters published in leading journals and books (dozens), grants won from prestigious groups like the National Science Foundation and last year's hiring of faculty from Harvard, Northwestern and Wisconsin. According to the letter, Simmons says he's never heard of Epstein's vaunted exploits.
"I am not familiar with professor Epstein's Department of Social Work or the source of his disgruntlement, but I resent his broad-brushing of the caliber of the entire university's faculty," Simmons writes. "One would have to bury their head in the sand not to notice the upward trend in UNLV's faculty and programs over the past decade."