Name: Leilani Shive

Degree: ‘22 Ed.D. Executive Educational Leadership

Current Employer: CCSD | Summit View Youth Center, Jean Conservation Camp Adult HS, and Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center Adult HS

How did you help the educational programs that you’ve created in the alternative schools you work at?

I helped pass a Senate bill so that, even if you’re seventeen, you could get into the adult program, as long as you'd gone through four years of high school and didn’t graduate. Also, I testified for AB35, which was another one that I helped to bring the Internet to the adult prison system. We’re one of the only states that didn’t have the Internet in the adult prison system. Now, we do.

What are you most proud of from your UNLV experience?

I’m just proud that I accomplished my doctorate. That was always a goal. But it still feels unreal. My goal was to get it done by the time I was fifty. I walked across the stage on the nineteenth of December, and on the twentieth, I turned fifty in 2022. I was one day ahead of schedule.

How did UNLV prepare you for your career?

To be like, “Okay, I went from high school dropout to having a doctorate.” That’s what I always tell my kids, anything is possible. It’s not about where you finish. It’s about continuing. No matter what you get, whether you start with a GED or a high school diploma, you can still go to college. You can still be anything you want to be. UNLV has very much prepared me for that.

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