Described as “a man of genuine kindness and friendliness,” Brown was a Civil War Veteran and former Ohio commissioner of education who was working as a bank cashier when the Nevada Board of Regents selected him as the first president of Nevada State University’s new Reno campus. Brown had previously taught for 20 years.
In service of the University’s land-grant mission, Brown oversaw curriculum development in agricultural, mining and “mechanical arts” (engineering), as well as liberal arts and the “normal school” (education).
With the passing of the Hatch Act of 1887, land-grant institutions were encouraged to establish scientific research centers to investigate difficulties and potential improvements to food production and agribusiness. The Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station, campus’ second building, was completed during Brown’s tenure in 1889.
During his two-year presidency, Brown grew the University to 10 faculty members and 127 students.
Steven Jones was educated in classical languages at Dartmouth and universities in Germany. He was working for a high school in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before becoming Nevada State University president.
Jones served during a transformative time, which included the graduation of the University’s first class. Frederick Bristol, Henry Colman Cutting, and Frank Norcross earned degrees from the School of Liberal Arts, and their historic ceremony took place at the McKissick Opera House in Reno.
In 1892, Blanche Davis was celebrated as the first woman to graduate from the University. The School of Mines and School of Agriculture graduated their first classes, and electric lights were installed on campus.
Despite pushback from administration, University students managed to publish the first issue of the student newspaper, The Student Record, in 1893.
During Jones’ presidency, the faculty expanded to 15 members, and student enrollment increased to 179.
Joseph Edward Stubbs brought stability and vision to a University that had seen six principals and two presidents in 20 years. During his tenure, campus life flourished.
Students formed the Independent Association of the University of Nevada, and graduates organized the Alumni Association of the University of Nevada. Lincoln and Manzanita Halls opened. A men’s football team began competing in 1898, and the University adopted silver and blue as the school colors the following year.
In 1906, Nevada State University officially became the University of Nevada.
The family of Comstock pioneer John W. Mackay donated a statue in his likeness and supported a new mining building, athletic field and training house, and landscaping for the Quad.
Stubbs prioritized extension work, taking University resources into rural Nevada for the first time. The University became the fourth university in the nation to offer a four-year business degree.
Stubbs died unexpectedly in office.
Born in Canada, Archer Hendrick was president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, when he was asked to lead the University of Nevada.
The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 reinvigorated the Cooperative Extension program, leading to the creation of the Agricultural Extension Division.
The first graduates in electrical engineering earned their degrees in 1915. In 1917, the University purchased 213 acres to establish the University Farm.
Hendrick was hired to run the University more like a business. However, his tenure was marked by missteps and mistrust among faculty members and locals, ultimately leading to his resignation.
Walter Clark was born in Ohio and attended Ohio Wesleyan University and Columbia. He had gained a reputation for his distinguished 15-year teaching career at City College of New York and his scholarly research in economics and business.
In the 1920s, the University saw substantial growth and needed new facilities to accommodate the ever-expanding student body. Under Clark’s administration, the education building, the Bureau of Mines building, the agriculture building, Mackay Science Hall and the Alice McManus Clark Memorial Library were all built. The football stadium was also expanded.
Clark left behind an incredible legacy and guided the University into a period of stability that it had not enjoyed for some time. He was well known for his support of academic freedom and often defended his faculty in its name.
Leon Hartman rose out of the faculty ranks to succeed President Clark, who was in poor health during the final year of his presidency. From acting president in 1938, Hartman was formally inaugurated in 1939. He insisted on academic freedom and welcomed faculty participation in the University’s affairs. He was the second University president to die in office.
Originally from Texas, John Moseley earned a liberal arts degree from Austin College and attended Oxford. He was a Rhodes Scholar and served as a professor of Latin at the University of Oklahoma, president of Central State College and acting dean of students at the University of Tennessee, prior to his tenure at the University.
Described as “a southerner in manner and speech, with an appealing smile and traditional charm,” he was inaugurated Oct. 12, 1944, the University’s 70th anniversary.
In the years immediately following World War II, the University saw a brief upsurge in enrollment, as students under the G.I. Bill flocked to college campuses. During Moseley’s tenure, the University acquired benefactor Max C. Fleischmann’s 258-acre farm near east Reno.
Several Hollywood motion pictures were filmed on campus during this time: “Blonde Trouble” (1944), “Margie” (1946), “Apartment for Peggy” (1948) and “Mother is a Freshman” (1949).
Malcom Love received his advanced training at the University of Iowa. He welcomed input from faculty and students about the direction of the University, and an academic council was established to advise his administration. Love met regularly with the Student Life Council and was considered a forerunner of how modern university presidents seek student participation in an institution’s affairs. He was seen as gracious in manner and appearance and was well-liked by all in the University community. His administration came to later be known as the “era of good feelings.” There was general disappointment when Love submitted his resignation after fewer than two years to assume the role of president at San Diego State College.
Minard Stout had a stern leadership style and “startled a number of faculty members with his tough talk in early meetings.” Many felt his chainof-command administration style ran counter to academic freedom.
After several professors expressed their views about maintaining high entrance standards, they found themselves fighting for their professional lives, as Stout made efforts to remove them. This led to the resignation of several key faculty members, including famed novelist, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, son of former President Walter E. Clark. Van Tilburg’s words, which indicted Stout for wanting to create “manageable mediocrity” at the University, appeared in Time Magazine.
In 1956, more than 300 students demonstrated against the Stout administration under the Reno Arch. Without a hearing, Stout expelled seven of the student protesters.
The American Association of University Professors censured the University for its treatment of faculty. Stout was eventually fired. The Stout era is regarded as a grim chapter in the University’s history.
For the first time in the University’s history, a president was selected on the formal recommendation of an elected faculty committee. They chose Charles Armstrong, president of Pacific University in Oregon, a student of the classics with degrees from Harvard and the University of British Columbia.
In his inaugural address, Armstrong spoke of a new beginning for the campus, promising “an atmosphere of freedom, and of the responsibility inherent in freedom; an atmosphere in which all members of the University community, students, faculty, and administration, may work toward our common goals in mutual confidence and respect … an atmosphere, in sum, wherein the concept of human dignity and worth is practiced as well as preached.”
Armstrong created a time of healing and sense of purpose for the University. Faculty morale and trust improved. The bitterness that divided the University under Stout dissipated. Armstrong supported research, erected Getchell Library, founded the University of Nevada Press and implemented a sabbatical leave program to spur faculty productivity.
Before becoming University president, N. Edd Miller served as the chancellor of the northern campus of the state’s two universities, the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Low-key, friendly and popular among students, Miller handled many campus issues that were a reflection of student activism and war protests across America.
Miller was so popular that students held “N. Edd Miller Day” to counter the occurrences on other campuses where protesting students had been teargassed. More than 2,000 students attended.
Following discussions about lack of opportunity for minorities, Miller created an Educational Opportunities Program to assist members of underrepresented groups. With copious input from students, an Honors Program, Ethnic Studies Program and Environmental Studies Program were established.
One of Miller’s proudest achievements was moving commencement to the Quad: “It took an awful lot of arm-twisting and persuading, but I think it’s just the perfect spot for University commencement, and I’m willing to gamble year after year that the rains don’t fall.”
Max Milam was born on a 40-acre hill farm in Arkansas and attended Oklahoma Baptist University. Before coming to the University, he worked as a political science professor and director of the Arkansas Department of Administration.
Milam had a “scholarly shock of white hair and horn-rimmed glasses,” and would sometimes “stare in what seemed a pensive manner during conversation.” He offered his talents as a business and political manager to the University, making important changes in the institution’s methods of operation.
Eventually, Milam’s approaches became controversial with some people. He was dismissed by the Board of Regents after fewer than four years on the job, many of his plans unrealized.
After joining the University as a professor of political science in 1966, and serving as chair of the Faculty Senate, Joe Crowley was appointed interim president in February 1978. A year later, he officially assumed the presidency.
Crowley was friendly (“just call me Joe”), accessible (his home number was listed in the phone book) and well respected. He is credited with an institution-wide rededication to, and enlargement of, the University’s land-grant mission, development of a new core curriculum and an ambitious effort to enhance sponsored faculty research. He served a concurrent twoyear term as president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
When Crowley stepped down in 2000, he was the longest-serving president at a single institution among the nation’s principal universities. Fifty percent of the University’s facilities had been acquired or built under his transformative leadership, along with the founding of the College of Human and Community Sciences, the Reynolds School of Journalism, KUNR and KNPB.
A Louisiana native and son of a Baptist minister, John Lilley came to Nevada after serving as president of Penn State Erie for 21 years. He brought a demonstrated ability to tackle major problems and an uncanny ability to plan far into the future.
Lilley led the campus through comprehensive strategic planning, expansion of external funding, and the creation of new research centers and institutes to further scientific outreach. He challenged campus to think beyond single fiscal years to five, 10, 20 years into the future: “Some people say that when you get out planning past five years, you’re wasting your time. That’s not true. You need to be bold.”
Through private fundraising and collaboration with the state government and student body, he achieved approval for approximately $400 million in new buildings. His efforts paved the way for the simultaneous construction of the Joe Crowley Student Union and the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center.
Milt Glick was appointed president following a distinguished career as a chemistry professor and provost at Arizona State. He won the campus over with his engaging personality, wide-brimmed hat and focus on student success.
Glick stressed the value of creating a “sticky campus” — a vibrant university environment with spaces and programming that engage students outside the classroom. With the opening of the Joe Crowley Student Union (what Glick called the University’s “living room”) and the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, he strengthened student ties to campus.
Under Glick’s leadership, the University set all-time records for enrollment, graduation and freshman retention rates, and was named a U.S. News & World Report Tier I school and National Merit Scholarship sponsor.
Glick died unexpectedly in 2011. His portrait hangs in the Joe Crowley Student Union next to a quote from his inaugural address: “The next Comstock Lode is not in the mines of Nevada. It is in the minds of Nevadans.”
Marc Johnson, a native of Kansas and an economist by training, came to the University from Colorado State University to serve as provost in 2008. Upon the death of President Glick, he served as interim president until he was named president in 2012.
During his tenure at the University, Johnson strove to create a culture marked by student success, faculty-led and world-improving research and creativity, and statewide engagement with communities and business. In 2018, the University achieved Carnegie R1 classification for very high research activity, ranking among the nation’s top doctoral universities.
Under Johnson’s leadership, the student body grew to nearly 22,000. Numerous capital improvement projects were completed, including the Innevation Center, the William N. Pennington Student Achievement Center, the E. L. Wiegand Fitness Center, the William N. Pennington Engineering Building, the Civil Engineering Large Scale Structures Laboratory and three living-learning communities, along with renovation of several historic campus buildings.
University President Brian Sandoval ’86 (English) and First Lady Lauralyn (McCarthy) Sandoval ’92 (journalism). Jeff Dow
Brian Sandoval is a 1986 graduate of the University with a degree in English. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from The Ohio State University Moritz School of Law in 1989. He is the first person of Hispanic origin and first alumnus to serve as the University’s president.
Sandoval previously served as governor and attorney general for the State of Nevada, and as United States District Judge for the District of Nevada.
During his tenure, Sandoval has stressed student accessibility; diversity and success; faculty and staff achievement and excellence; and innovation, partnership and impactful engagement through the University’s research and outreach efforts.
Sandoval’s achievements include a dual enrollment program with the Clark County and Washoe County School Districts to create pathways to the University, a merger with Sierra Nevada University, a student-facing digital initiative with Apple, a partnership with the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, and a generational agreement between the University and Renown Health.
