UNLV Track & Field alums Kaysha Love and Azaria Hill will represent Team USA at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics as part of the U.S. Olympic bobsled roster. The duo secured a silver medal together in the 2025-26 World Cup season opener and will compete for gold in the two-woman bobsled event. Former Rebel Football player Shaquille Murray-Lawrence will also compete in the bobsled event for team Canada.

The co-ed UNLV Rebel Girls & Company earned two national championships for the second straight year at the 2026 Universal Dance Association College Nationals in Orlando. UNLV won the Division IA Hip Hop and Division IA Game Day Dance titles, earning the program's seventh national championship in each of the two categories. The team has won previously in 2025, 2023, 2019, 2018, 2016, and 2013.

For the third consecutive year, UNLV began the semester with another record-breaking spring enrollment, surpassing 30,800 students and reflecting a 3.4% increase over last year. Strong fall-to-spring retention and growth in first-time students demonstrate continued momentum in recruitment and student support, positioning the university to advance future enrollment, retention, and graduation milestones.

UNLV earned its second consecutive Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement, retaining its status as one of the nation’s top community-serving higher education institutions. Retaining the classification required clear evidence that engagement is embedded in UNLV's practices, including how students learn, how research agendas are shaped, and how the university contributes to the public good. The distinction, awarded to just 2% of the nation’s postsecondary institutions by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education, is the gold standard for community engagement efforts at colleges and universities.

UNLV and CCSD will collaborate to address special education staffing needs through the Nevada Recruitment and Retention Grant, helping to alleviate the district’s shortage of special education teachers. Through the program, current CCSD teachers with general elementary or secondary licenses can receive approximately $6,000 in tuition and fees to complete a new graduate certificate program, the Nevada Collaborative on Autism, in exchange for serving three years in a “Strategies for Teaching Based on Autism Research” (STAR) classroom. The program has already placed 71 teachers in autism and STAR classrooms for the current school year, with strong enrollment projected for next year. The collaboration continues the College of Education's mission to create a sustained pipeline to certified educators to support special education students across Southern Nevada.

The William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV announced a $300,000 gift from alumni Sean Claggett and Louella (“Lou”) Claggett, pledged through the Sean and Lou Claggett Charitable Foundation. The donation sets a new record as the law school’s largest gift from an individual law alumnus and his family, and establishes the Claggett Family Endowed Scholarship. Combining both endowed and immediate-use funds, the new scholarship is specifically designed to support students with a strong connection to the Las Vegas community. This commitment strengthens Boyd Law School’s efforts to attract outstanding students from the local community and demonstrates the significant role alumni can play through philanthropy. The first scholarship award will be made in the 2026-2027 school year.

UNLV and Las Vegas Sands hosted the inaugural U.S.-China Dialogue Symposium, bringing together leaders from academia, business, and diplomacy to better understand and improve the complex relationship between the world's two largest economies. Members of Nevada's federal delegation and ambassadors from both the U.S. and China presented remarks focused on strengthening individual and institutional connections. The symposium was made possible through the partnership of Las Vegas Sands, the Sands Institute for Chinese Language and Culture, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. China Business Council, the Vegas Chamber, and the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce. 

NSHE received a $750,000 grant from NASA which will allow for collaborative work between UNLV, the Desert Research Institute, and the University of Nevada, Reno to study underground ecosystems powered by radiation instead of sunlight. Results from this study will aid in NASA's strategies for detecting life beneath the surface of Mars and icy worlds throughout the solar system. The team's collaborative findings from underground sites in Nevada and the Southwest will contribute to scientific progress while strengthening Nevada's role in meaningful research and innovation.