ASHE sets up shop at UNLV

February 19, 2009 by Yamini Piplani 

Organization arrives in Las Vegas after Michigan

The Association for the Study of Higher Education recently chose UNLV’s department of education as its headquarters. 

M. Christopher Brown II, a professor and dean of the college of education said the transition officially began with the start of the year.  

“ASHE is the nation’s only association that is comprised of researchers, which means mostly faculty who study the way colleges and universities work as well as systems of governance in higher education,” Brown explained. “It has more than 2000 members who write the books [and] manuscripts and who train people who will ultimately become, typically, college administrators. They write the books…that call for effective university administration.”

Vicki J. Rosser, an associate professor in the education college and a new board member of ASHE added, “ASHE is really considered the premier scholarly organization for the field of higher education…[It] promotes collaboration among the members… and studies higher education through research, conferences and publications. We conduct research through our members, we have an annual conference…and we have a scholarly journal that is considered a top-tier scholarly journal called the Review of Higher Education.”  

“Moving the headquarters here included bringing funds from the national organization to UNLV,” Brown said. “It is a five-year contract between the professional association… and the university. So it looks much like a grant would. Those funds provide [pay] for a reduced amount of faculty time so we buy out some time of one of the faculty in higher education to assist with this unit.”

Brown went on to explain how funding from the ASHE will be used to hire graduate assistants and a program director. 

According to Rosser, ASHE’s presence has already started increasing the number of graduate applications to the college of education. “We have more applicants for fall than we’ve ever had,” she said.

“When I saw the call for headquartering the office I knew this is the kind of thing that UNLV should be involved in because it has a positive impact on your institutional ranking, it has a positive impact on your ability to recruit graduate students and faculty and it impacts your overall U.S. News and World Report ranking,” Brown said. “So I thought we should bid on it, so we did, and we were successful.”

Brown said that UNLV was chosen to house the ASHE out of the 1,142 colleges of education in the U.S.

“This speaks to the quality of the faculty that we have had for some time, to the capacity of the new faculty we have hired and to our vision for the future,” he said. 

Rosser said that having the organization at UNLV “puts UNLV on the map in terms of scholarly organizations.” She continued, “It will bring us national and international reputation.”

Brown agreed, “Any time someone goes to an ASHE Web site, they see UNLV. I think those kind of changes will have a lasting impact long after the five years have passed and ASHE is no longer with us. People will remember that we were one of the schools that were selected.”

Brown explained that students coming from UNLV will have a great name on their résumé thanks to ASHE. “It would be the equivalent of being a science or engineering student and working on an National Science Foundation or NASA grant. It’s an impact that can’t be measured,” he said.

ASHE was at the University of Missouri at Columbia for five years before moving to UNLV when its contract expired.  ”Institutions can reapply, but the rigor of the selection process changes so much from year to year that there has not been any school in recent history to have their contract renewed,” Brown said.    

Brown added that “typically, you get 10 to 15 schools applying; you really have to be in the position to handle it and manage it. Then they narrow that down to five or six schools they do investigations on and then they make typically three site visits and then they begin negotiating with the institution they have chosen.”

Rosser explained, “The bid [was] put out by the ASHE board.  The ASHE board made a site visit and interviewed all of us, including the students, and felt that this was the best place to develop and grow the organization.”

ON THE WEB:

Association for the Study of Higher Education: http://www.ashe.ws/