Ex-UNLV President Jessup lands $14m donation for current college
Claremont Graduate University in Southern California — led by former UNLV President Len Jessup — announced a $14 million donation, one of the largest in the university’s history.
The donation is from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in Highland, California, and will be used to buy The Claremont Colleges’ Huntley Bookstore building. The facility will be home to Yuhaaviatam Center for Health Studies, a health research center.
The private university in Claremont — part of The Claremont Colleges consortium of seven schools — was slated to make the announcement Tuesday, but provided the Review-Journal with a news release in advance.
Jessup, who has been at the university since summer 2018, said in the release the partnership between the university and tribe will allow for creating “powerful new collaborations on preventive and proactive responses to the kinds of chronic illness affecting so many today.”
In March 2018, Jessup, who served as UNLV’s president for three years, announced he would begin “looking at other opportunities.” It came a day after reports that he was being forced out of his job. And in April 2018, he announced he’d leave UNLV for a position as CGU president.
As a result of Jessup’s departure, the Engelstad Foundation announced it would rescind a $14 million gift for UNLV’s planned medical education building.
Jessup had been criticized by some Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents over rising costs for UNLV’s nascent medical school and the university’s handling of its dental school reusing a single-use instrument for dental implants on multiple patients.
In late October, the UNLV School of Medicine held a groundbreaking ceremony for its medical education building, slated for completion in summer 2022. The Nevada Health and Bioscience Corp., formed in January, is raising money to pay for the project, which will cost an estimated $125 million. The Engelstad Foundation is listed as one of the donors.
Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.
