Let's Talk UNLV

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU N v studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Dr. Sammie Scales 0:20
Hello and welcome back to another episode. KU NV, 91.5 Let's talk. UNLV, I'm your host. Dr Sammy scales, and today I have a very special guest that I will let introduce himself to the campus. But I'm sure you guys are all familiar with my guest, but gonna let him introduce himself.

Dr. Chris Heavey 0:37
Well, delighted to be with you today. My name is Chris hevey, and I am the new interim president of UNLV.

Dr. Sammie Scales 0:43
Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate that. My pleasure. Absolutely. Let's start, you know, with the students getting to know a little bit about you. Of course, we're going to start with you. Let's start with your origin story. On Again, for those that don't know, how do you ended up here at UNLV, if you can give us that background.

Dr. Chris Heavey 1:02
Yeah. So I got my PhD at UCLA in Southern California, met my wife there, and we got engaged, and we went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and we couldn't believe how cold it was there. It's a beautiful place, but by December, we were freezing cold, and we said we're gonna go back to the west. So we looked to come back to the west, and that brought us back to Las Vegas, sunny Las Vegas in the summer of 1992 and we've been here ever since.

Dr. Sammie Scales 1:22
Wow, excellent. I can imagine how cold it is there. So yeah, being here in Las Vegas looked like it's a total opposite, very cold there, but very hot here. So

Dr. Chris Heavey 1:32
I'll take the heat over the cold any day, every day of

Dr. Sammie Scales 1:36
the year, absolutely, with a nice air conditioner. That's right,

Dr. Chris Heavey 1:39
get out in the mornings and evenings. You can do stuff outside 12 months a year here

Dr. Sammie Scales 1:43
absolutely. So let us get to know you a little bit. I'm gonna ask you a few things here, and you tell me what you like most. So do you prefer Coke or Pepsi when it comes to Pepsi? Pepsi, okay, surfing or skiing?

Dr. Chris Heavey 1:54
Definitely skiing. Surfing is tough, but I love skiing. Yeah, skiing. I water ski and snow ski. Oh,

Dr. Sammie Scales 2:01
so do you do like, drive to somewhere like San Diego or a place in California

Dr. Chris Heavey 2:05
where we, for many years, our kids growing up, we had a boat at Lake Mead, and so we taught the kids how to water ski, and we would all go out there in the summers of water ski. Oh, okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 2:13
squeezing the toothpaste from the middle or from the end.

Dr. Chris Heavey 2:17
I mean, you got to squeeze it from the end. Come on, have a plan. Oh, okay, yeah, me

Dr. Sammie Scales 2:21
too. I'm from the end kind of guy. Also Krispy Kreme donuts or Dunkin.

Dr. Chris Heavey 2:24
You know, I'm gonna go with Dunkin there. They're both good, but the Dunkin is a little more substantial. Okay, okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 2:30
so let me ask you this. So now we're gonna, like, get into some kind of actual questions. What trends do you see that's happening right now in higher education?

Dr. Chris Heavey 2:40
Well, it's a, we'll call it an exciting or dynamic time in the higher education space, for sure. So, you know, within higher education, definitely the biggest disruptor is AI, and we're really trying to understand how that's going to impact the student learning experience and how we run every aspect of the university. And so we've got some different task force that have come together for looking at AI and teaching AI in research and even AI in administrative operations. And so I think that's a really big internal disruptor. You know, the internet changed society, and a lot of people say that AI is going to change it even more than the internet.

Dr. Sammie Scales 3:18
Wow, absolutely. I remember, you know, as a professor at San Diego State, my oval institution, when students would turn in paper to automatically go through turnitin.com and, you know, they can tell you what percentage of it is, you know, plagiarized, or if it's, you know, right, the breakdown of the paper. So I don't see anything like that with AI. Is there anything coming down the pipe that you know of maybe, right?

Dr. Chris Heavey 3:39
So some people are kind of taking a stance of figuring out how to detect if students have used AI and how to prohibit it. Probably that's not realistic, because, like you said, you know, there is no equivalent of turnitin.com anymore for AI, because the AI is so adaptable. You know, you can ask chatgpt to write you a paper that doesn't seem like it's written by chatgpt, and it will change the writing style. So I think we're trying to take the more brace AI approach. And you know, one of the sayings that I've heard that really resonates with me is that, you know, people are worried about a world in which AI is going to replace people's employment opportunities. What we say is, AI probably isn't going to take your job, but someone who knows AI might take your job if you don't know how to use it. So we really want to think of AI as empowerment tool, and have students graduate being ready to embrace AI and use it as a productivity tool in their life after UNLV, yeah,

Dr. Sammie Scales 4:41
absolutely, you know. And with you saying that, it reminds me of the progression from, like, the cassette player and then we had the desk, and you know, then it went to streaming. So it's either learn how to use it or get left behind, yes. So during my time as an undergrad, I remember going to the library. Were literally and having to find books to actually read and make notes and how to put it into a paper. I did all of that. So could you tell us what life was like for you as an undergrad compared to what students are getting now? Because they can just sit there in front of a computer and in two minutes or so have a you know, work that they can turn in. So what was life like for you as an undergrad? What are the things that you went through when you doing papers or research or whatever it was that you were doing?

Dr. Chris Heavey 5:26
Yeah, so I'm old enough now to have been really on the cutting edge of when computers first started to impact the educational space. And so I remember when I was an undergraduate student, I would go into a computer lab which had a mainframe computer and use a word processor, and people were amazed, because it was still the age of typewriters and and you could then edit your stuff and bring back a different version the next day. And sometimes that would surprise the professors about how you could change it so quickly without having to retype it. And so I've seen that whole evolution now to where, obviously, now every student is using computers for everything, and I think AI is going to be the same thing. It's going to be understood to be, you know, you're going to need that tool to be able to do the best possible work in the shortest amount of time. But it also is not going to replace human thinking. You know, if you ask chatgpt to write you a paper, it will give you a draft, but it probably that draft is not that good. And so now what we're going to be able to do is expect students to do better work in shorter amounts of time, being empowered with AI,

Dr. Sammie Scales 6:34
yeah, absolutely. That's a powerful statement. There is. And again, it's going to be either learn how to use it properly, or you're going to be left behind, because every day is changing, right? So what are your top priorities as President here on the campus of UNLV now? Yeah,

Dr. Chris Heavey 6:52
so, so happy to be the president of UNLV, and you definitely have to start with student success. You know what I talk about and think about every day is that students come here because they believe that the experiences they have will make their lives better and it will empower them to have greater opportunities after they leave UNLV. And so the first responsibility of everyone at this campus is to make sure we're living up to that promise. Students are spending their time and they're spending their money, and we need to make sure they're getting outstanding educational experiences and all the supports they need in order to be successful. Beyond that, obviously, we need to manage our resources carefully. We live always in a constrained budget environment, and so we need to make sure that we're using every dollar as efficiently as possible. We also need to make sure that we're out there supporting our community and getting our community to support us. One of the things I say about great universities is great public universities need the students. They need some help from the state, and they need some help from the community in terms of donors helping support the educational costs, and so really want to also lean into making sure that we're doing everything we can to draw support from the community into the university. You know, we're an access oriented university. When I talk to students, what they talk about is the challenges of paying for their education. And UNLV is affordable, but many of our students are working, and they're, you know, got other kinds of responsibilities, and we need to make sure that we have as many scholarship dollars and as many other ways to help them get through the educational journey that they're on as possible. Wow,

Dr. Sammie Scales 8:34
that's amazing. You know, when you talk about making sure that students get what they're paying for I took a tour of the engineering building, and that is an outstanding and amazing building. So I'm sure that the students you know enjoy that environment, being in that particular building, and getting to compete in some of the competitions that I've seen in some of the UNLV today newsletters. So I definitely think that those engineering students, along with other students as well here on campus campus, are definitely getting their money's worth when it comes to that. Yeah,

Dr. Chris Heavey 9:06
and that's a great example. Thanks for bringing that one up, because what it shows is that what a modern building adds to the educational experience, the one of the great features of the engineering building is the huge maker space that's on the first floor where students can do hands on work with all kinds of technologies that support their ability to make products and design things. And those kinds of modern buildings have those interactive spaces. And so one of the priorities, going back to, you know, your previous question, but related to what you've said here, is we need a new business building. We got a, you know, original business building that served us well for a lot of years, but it doesn't have as many interactive spaces for student learning, for group work, the kinds of stuff that modern business schools want to emphasize in the curriculum. And so that's another big priority, is, let's get ourselves a new business building that we can be proud of. Put it right at the front of the campus at our Maryland. And Parkway entrance, and that'll support the modern educational experiences that we want for our business students, absolutely,

Dr. Sammie Scales 10:07
and it'll draw in more students as well from all across the country that want to be a part of that you touched on something earlier that I think is very important also, when you talked about building you pretty much were talking about building bridges with the community, making the community feel like they're a part of so of course, those donors want to give and be a part of the UNLV community here, I definitely think that building bridges and making people feel like they belong and a part of something, they're more prone to participate, more prone to want to get involved, and more prone to want To support UNLV. So how do you plan to advocate for UNLV during the Nevada legislative sessions? Yeah,

Dr. Chris Heavey 10:47
that's going on right now, and it's changing by the day. And so I've been up to the legislature several times, and the first thing I'll say to our listeners is, there's a lot of love for UNLV in that building. There's a lot of legislators who are UNLV alumni, and everyone recognizes that UNLV is anchor institution in Southern Nevada, which is the economic engine of Nevada, and that we need UNLV to be successful in order to have the state that we're proud of and the educational experiences that students expect. So people do recognize the importance of what's going on in UNLV, but I will say that money is tight this session, and there's a lot of concern about how many dollars the state will have to allocate, and so they're going to have to make some tough choices. And one of the things I also say to every legislator I have the opportunity to talk with is, you know, thanks for your service, because they don't, they want to make sure that they're giving as many dollars as possible to support UNLV and the other really important things that the state does, but they have limited resources also, and so they're going to make some tough choices, but know that we are up there making the case for UNLV each session. We had a great UNLV day at the Legislative Building. About two weeks ago, we had maybe 50 people who were traveled to Carson City for that great event, and tons of support in the building. And we're hopeful that at the end of the session, despite the kind of challenging, economic moment that will come out feeling, you know, that we got the support that we need to move forward Great.

Dr. Sammie Scales 12:26
I'm sure the students would definitely be in a position, position where they would definitely say, thank you for being a strong advocate for UNLV during those sessions. How do you see the how do you let me? Let me go back to the background question, so how has your background as an Executive Vice President and Provost prepared you for the position that you're in now?

Dr. Chris Heavey 12:48
Yeah, thanks for that question. That's really happy to talk about that, because I've come up through the academic side of the house and so, you know, I started as a young professor and then been in many different roles, including department chair, Dean, Graduate coordinator, you know, and then eventually got to executive vice president, Provost, where I saw oversaw all of the academic mission of the university, and we put a great team in place, and we're doing really amazing work on academic side of the house. About two weeks ago, we had what's called our major accreditation review, looking at our mission fulfillment, and we got an A plus report card from our creditor that says that we are checking all the boxes, doing all the kinds of things that are expected of a great university. And so that background really helps me understand the majority of what's happening at the university, and so now as President, I just have to learn about a few other areas of the university where I've been less involved athletics. I'm spending a lot of time now with our athletic director and the athletic programs, learning about that philanthropy and alumni engagement and our business affairs and CFO, those were things that didn't report to me as provost, and now I'm really working closely with those three vice presidents who are all doing great jobs leading their respective areas. And you know, I think the bottom line is the kind of experience I have. And with 33 years almost, I'm finishing my 33 years now, wow, I'm hitting the ground running. So I know how this institution works. I know who the players are. I know the academic mission, and I'm going to be able to learn these other things. And, you know, not miss a beat and moving us forward. Great.

Dr. Sammie Scales 14:28
So those, those vice presidents that are in their respective roles where you said you was reaching out to them to learn more in those areas, because they didn't report to you, they've been receptive to opening up and having you come in and, you know, see what they actually do.

Dr. Chris Heavey 14:42
Oh, yeah. So I know those people well, you know, as the executive vice president Provost, I was a member of the President's cabinet, and so I worked closely with all of the vice presidents. And so I know the leaders in those areas well, and they're great partners in working together to make sure that we're doing everything necessary to support the Institute. Institution. That's

Dr. Sammie Scales 15:00
fantastic. So it sounded like the institution is in great hands right now. So I hope so knock on wood. Keep moving forward Absolutely. So how do you see the role of undergrad education evolving over the next decade here at UNLV? Yeah, so

Dr. Chris Heavey 15:13
thanks for that question. You know, we mentioned AI, and that's definitely going to be a big disruptor in the educational space, and I think broadly in kinds of skills that people are going to need. And so what we're gonna have to do as an institution is be nimble. And you know, in all honesty, higher education is not known for being that nimble. It's kind of tradition bound. And so we're going to make sure that we are really thinking about, what do students need to be successful? And you know, one of the things that you mentioned a little bit earlier is micro credentials. So micro credentials are basically bite size educational credentials that allow people to get specific skills. And so those are, by definition, more nimble than undergraduate degrees. And so we can look at what are the kinds of skills that employers are wanting out of recent graduates, and say, let's create a micro credential to make sure that the students have the ability to add that on to their educational journey and make sure that they can be employment ready when they get out.

Dr. Sammie Scales 16:19
Wow, that's something that Dr Nicole Hudson actually said in that exact seat, and talked about making sure that these students are ready for the work role work world, and when employers come in that they actually have people here at UNLV getting ready to graduate that can just fit right into those roles. So, yeah,

Dr. Chris Heavey 16:38
she's a great asset to the community, a really great leader in that space. Absolutely,

Dr. Sammie Scales 16:42
I've had several opportunities to speak with her and brilliant ladies, so I learned so much from her, and I don't even think she know that she's actually serving as one of my role models right now and one of my mentors. So I'll be sure to tell her, okay, all right, what strategies do you believe are most effective for supporting students mental health on the college campuses.

Dr. Chris Heavey 17:02
Yeah. So thanks for that. I'm a clinical psychologist by training, and so definitely I think a lot about mental health. And you know, one of the things that we've seen, you know, unfortunately, over the last 10 or 15 years is there have been increasing mental health challenges for young people. And what I think is happening here is that technology and social media in particular are not necessarily the student's best friends when it comes to mental health. And so I think the first thing is college campuses need to be vibrant places of interaction, because mental health is supported by having friends, having rich relationships, and being able to make sure that you're kind of not spending, you know, too much of your time only in the virtual world or by yourself. And so having the campus be a place of engagement is a really important part of supporting the mental health of our students. The Division of Student Affairs does a lot of great work in Student Engagement student organizations, and we have hundreds of student organizations that students can participate in. And so one of the things we say to students like when they walk in the door, is find your people and find a place where you feel like you belong. People have got some similar interests, and so if students take that advice, that will really help them develop the rich set of connections and friendships that will support their mental health, sometimes students get off track and they are having some mental health challenges, and we've done a lot to add resources for students who want some more focused mental health support through our Student Counseling and Psychological Services, and that's a great team over there. We did increase the student mental health fee, and the students broadly supported that initiative. And now we're ideally or luckily at a place where we don't have waiting lists for people going into seek counseling if they want that extra help, and so really, it's kind of the whole fabric from when students need the mental health counseling or support to making sure that they're having many opportunities for engagement, building friendships, and feeling a sense of pride in the progress they're making as a student. Wow, it's excellent

Dr. Sammie Scales 19:19
that you say that, because that's one of the things that we actually talk about in our housing meeting, Peter is, I don't know if you know Peter, Peter's Director of Housing, and that's one of the things that he's big on, is making sure that we have enough programming where students don't feel alone, they're able to connect and meet new friends at the events that we're having on their actual floors. And even if it's not on their floor, they they're free to go to any of the events held on any floor or here on campus. So to make them feel like, you know, I belong here, I've made new friends. I have people I can talk to. And we try to make sure that, you know, they're not just spending their all of their free times with the phone in their face, you know, being alone. So we try to make sure that they connect. Correct and actually talk and we have activities that they can participate in.

Dr. Chris Heavey 20:04
Well, I love that advice, and I just want to, you know, echo that is that sometimes students need to put their phones down and look at the people who are around them and have those conversations. Yes,

Dr. Sammie Scales 20:12
absolutely, absolutely, and usually myself, when I'm walking from South complex over to the student union or wherever, usually when I'm encountering students, I actually try to stop and make sure that I have a conversation with and don't just say hi and keep walking. I try to actually talk to them, because at least 75% of the students, I would say, open housing now in South complex, especially, know who I am, because I stopped I talked to them. Just yesterday, I was playing basketball over there with four different students that was out there, was just shooting the ball, and I stopped to, you know, do it with them, and talk to them. Get to know their names. They get to know my name. So, and as far as I'm concerned, that's how you actually build authentic relationships. You know, it don't always have to be in a classroom, or if they'll listen that some type of lecture just out on campus, you know, go and have a Jamba Juice and sit and talk with students. So I try to do that as well. That's amazing. So how do you balance your administrative responsibilities with your academic and research pursuits right now?

Dr. Chris Heavey 21:09
Well, I'm going to have to say that's one thing. I'm not doing that well, because right now I'm really focused on the administrative stuff. I do want to get back to work on a book about mental health, actually. But for the last couple years, the administrative work I've been doing has been so consuming that I haven't done much in the publishing space. Written a few articles here and there, but, but not too much. But I do want to try to carve out a little bit of time to see if I can make some more progress in my book about mental health.

Dr. Sammie Scales 21:38
Do you have any books that's been published already? Yeah, I published,

Dr. Chris Heavey 21:42
co authored a book with colleague A while back, and I've got maybe 30 or so different published articles, 30 or 40, I'm not sure exactly how many. So

Dr. Sammie Scales 21:51
if a student go online and look for those, they'll be able to find

Dr. Chris Heavey 21:55
your books. If they Google me, they'll find some stuff. Yeah, okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 21:58
fantastic, fantastic. So what advice would you give to students or researchers interested in exploring the field of consciousness studies or psychological inner experiences? Yeah,

Dr. Chris Heavey 22:10
so if they Google me, they find that one of the areas that I've done a fair amount in is studying the kind of normal, ongoing inner experience that populates people's awareness as they go about their day to day lives. And so it's an interesting field because it's so central to people's lives, but there's actually surprisingly little written about it. And so they can Google me, and if they Google me, they'll also find the name of my colleague, Dr Russell Hurlburt. Hurlburt, who invented a method of trying to study inner experience, one beep at a time, one moment at a time, because it's hard for people to characterize their general experience. What we find is that they're most able to answer questions about what's going on inside their mind, if you just give them one pinpoint moment. And so I've written a fair amount about that, and he's written a lot about that, and so I would say that that's a really good starting space if you want to understand kind of what normal consciousness is. And we've also written a little bit about how it relates to mental health and mental illness, because obviously when you talk about things like depression, or you talk about things like anxiety, things like anxiety, those are centrally about people's inner experiences, what goes on and their thoughts and feelings and sadness or anxiety. And so we've done some studies where we tried to really get a more detailed survey of what those experiences are like. And I think there's a lot more work to be done in that area, but it has some pretty important implications. Wow,

Dr. Sammie Scales 23:45
our school president actually does research and know this stuff. Wow. That is just pretty impressive. Well,

Dr. Chris Heavey 23:52
I came here as a psychology professor, and that's what I am at heart as a professor. Wow.

Dr. Sammie Scales 23:56
Okay, so let me ask you this question, and this is something that's not on the list, and according to we have two minutes left here. So let me ask you this question. So if money wasn't an issue at all for the campus, in addition to the one the building that you're talking about putting at the front of the campus, what else would you like to see for UNLV, if money was not an issue at all? Well,

Dr. Chris Heavey 24:21
an exciting project that our Vice President of Student Affairs is talking about is a new housing complex for freshmen right at the heart of campus, right over by lead library, to give us more capacity to house our incoming students and to put more student union space right in the middle of the campus. And so I think that would be an incredibly exciting project. We also need a, probably a new, modern research building. We have our science and engineering building, which is an amazing facility where we do a lot of high level research, but that's was built, you know, 20 or so years ago, and we need another one to give us more top quality laboratory space. We need. Fine Arts Building, Grant Hall is way past its end of life, and students are still doing some good work in grant Hall, but I know they'd all rather be in a more modern building, and our Dean of Fine Arts has an incredible vision for what that would look like. Also,

Dr. Sammie Scales 25:12
wow. Okay, what would be your best advice for staff and for students? So staff first and then students, what's your best advice for and just, you know, working at UNLV as as a staff member here or faculty, what's your best advice and then as a student, because you've worked with students as professor for many years here. So what would be your best advice for students as well?

Dr. Chris Heavey 25:35
So for staff, what I would say is that I think it's worthwhile to zoom out a little bit and reflect on the meaning of what we do. So oftentimes we get absorbed in the kind of challenges of the day to day and the anxieties of the broader world, where there's, you know, different kinds of challenges in higher ed now, but in the end of the day, we are all doing very meaningful work, providing great experiences to students, and so I hope feel people feel proud of that every day, and then they come to work and say, I'm doing something that matters in the world for students. What I most want to emphasize is opportunity. Students have an incredible opportunity to build skills and to build connections that will help them for the rest of their lives. I say that there's no richer place than a college campus, a r1 urban serving research university to build the platform for your future, but you got to do the work. Just showing up doesn't necessarily get it done. You got to take advantage of the opportunity. And so want students to really lean into doing everything they can while they're here. Thank you

Dr. Sammie Scales 26:40
so very much. Thank you so very much for coming back to be a guest in your new role as president here at UNLV. We definitely are looking forward to great things happening here at UNLV under your leadership. Thanks so much. It was great to be with you. Thank you so much, and that's a wrap

Dr. Renee Watson 26:57
for more. Let's talk UNLV. Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show, plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook at, let's talk UNLV podcast. Twitter at, let's talk UNLV and Instagram. At, let's talk UNLV. You.