Keith Whitfield and I started our tenures as Nevada university presidents at almost the same time. Dr. Whitfield officially started as UNLV’s 11th president in August 2020. I was appointed the 17th president of the University of Nevada, Reno a month later, in September 2020.
From the very beginning, Dr. Whitfield has proven to be a friendly, highly collaborative and entirely encouraging person and leader. And throughout my time as president of our University, in my travels to Las Vegas, during Board of Regents meetings, on social occasions in both of our communities, I have not only found Dr. Whitfield to be this way, I have time and again seen these same wonderful qualities exhibited by the students, faculty and staff of UNLV.
The events of Dec. 6, which saw three UNLV faculty members killed and a fourth critically wounded during a mass shooting on the UNLV campus, has left a feeling of pain and unimaginable loss among the UNLV community. These are deaths in a family — in the UNLV family, certainly, and in a larger sense, in the human family of higher education of which we are all a part.
“From the moment I arrived at UNLV, I saw in our people grit and determination. I have no doubt that, together, we will emerge from this tragedy stronger.”
– UNLV President Keith Whitfield message to the UNLV community, Dec. 8, 2023
I wrote on the day of the shootings that we are all Rebels, and I still believe this to be true. As students, as teachers, educators and scholars, as staff, as alumni, as community members in both southern and northern Nevada, we are all connected. A long period of caring and healing is now underway at our sister institution.
We feel for the people at UNLV in the deepest and most sincere ways possible.
We honored the loss of life at UNLV during our commencement ceremonies on Dec. 9. We wore scarlet and gray in honor of our friends at UNLV on our campus the day before. We held a campus vigil in front of the Joe Crowley Student Union on Dec. 11. We pledged from the beginning of that awful day on Dec. 6 to be there to help in any way possible for the people of a great university. We continue to be there for our friends at UNLV.
UNLV’s institutional mission could not be more clear, nor more timely than right now. This is an institution whose depth of character will continue to bring “the best of the world” to all of us.
This is a time for UNLV to heal, and for all of us to offer our hearts so that these family members know they are not alone.
These are our friends, our colleagues, our family members. The Wolf Pack and the Rebels are one. Together, as President Whitfield put it so well, we will emerge from this tragedy stronger.
Brian Sandoval ’86, President