NSHE Notes
by Chancellor Dan Klaich
August 18, 2014
As chancellor for the Nevada System of Higher Education, I have a deep appreciation that our state's public colleges and universities are for the people of Nevada. We are your system of higher education and do our best to anticipate, understand and meet the needs of our citizens. Whether it's through workforce development, renewable energy research or the myriad of programs and certificates we offer to help our more than 105,000 students, we take great pride in our work.

An important aspect of that work is public accountability and transparency. It is one we take seriously with our students, parents, faculty, staff and taxpayers. They help us realize the public service, research and teaching mission of our eight institutions.

Every policy and budget we develop is vetted in front of the Board of Regents who are elected by the citizens of Nevada. Each regent meeting is open to the public and most are streamed on the Internet. Minutes from each meeting, going back to 1865, are available on our web site. The public can participate and we encourage that participation. You can even receive meeting notices and agendas, as well as other informational news, in your email inbox.

Another facet we are proud to share with the public is the data produced by our talented staff in institutional research. They have created online dashboards (http://www.nevada.edu/ir/) that allow anyone to view our enrollment, persistence, graduation, diversity, financial aid, and faculty data, as well as several other pertinent stats about NSHE.

Transparency is also promoted in our classrooms. As one example, UNLV is participating in the Transparency in Teaching and Learning Project. Started in 2010 by the University of Illinois, the initiative allows students to provide confidential feedback on their learning experiences in the classroom. Student data from the instructor's class and similar students in comparable courses from 27 other participating institutions is analyzed and given to the instructor to provide real-time insights on how to improve student learning. 

 

I encourage every Nevadan to stay informed and engaged and to learn more about their higher education community in our state. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how we can improve, please let me know.  

 

Nevada System of Higher Education
www.nevada.edu