As we move through life, evolving from naive youth to accomplished adults, it is often advisable to — how should we phrase this? – LEGO of our childhood dreams.

For Rian Satterwhite that meant letting go of becoming a LEGO set designer.

“I was obsessed with LEGOS,”  the director of Service Learning and Leadership said. “I was so fascinated by the process of what went into designing it – how many different designs and iterations did a team have to come up with before they settled on this, which ultimately got sold? I thought, ‘How cool would it be to constantly be tinkering with Legos all day and come up with all sorts of options?’”

Subtract the Legos, keep the tinkering with options, and you have Satterwhite’s approach to improving his community: How many ways can he make it better?

As it turns out: A lot. But it takes a knack for leadership – both taking it up and passing it down.

“For me, the oldest question in leadership studies is: Leadership for what?” said Satterwhite, a winner of the university’s Top Tier Award.

“For a long time, the leadership development field has been dominated by a business and corporate perspective that can come down to quarterly returns and shareholder values. But for me that answer has always come down to the community. If you’re rooted where you are and if you’ve built relationships and ties and networks – whether you’re in a corporation or higher ed or a student just starting out – the answer has to lie in the community somewhere.”

Distilled to its essence, the department Satterwhite leads guides students in serving the community.

“He is part of an amazing team of colleagues whose work to engage, retain, and graduate UNLV students is strengthened through many on- and off-campus partnerships,” said Kyle Kaalberg, executive director of strategy and strategic initiatives, in announcing the award. “Together, their efforts have helped support efforts to secure UNLV’s Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement.”

Community Partnerships

Since arriving at UNLV in 2017, Satterwhite has distinguished himself by championing and directly contributing to initiatives that drive community partnerships – with 42 partners to date, from larger (Three Square Food Bank, Green Our Planet) to smaller (Broadway in the Hood). Many of those connections are forged through the Engelstad Scholars program, which places 100-plus UNLV students in long-term volunteer roles in Southern Nevada.

“No matter where (students) are placed, they get this long-term intensive inside look and essentially become a long-term employee of these organizations so they really understand the work of that organization, but also the nonprofit sector in general,” said Satterwhite.

Locking in that understanding early is vital, he added, so that it comes to mean more than bolstering corporate interests once they are out in the world. “Leadership can be this unattainable, distant concept for a lot of people and students, especially,” he said. “The opportunity to see peers making active choices about how they’re spending their time, how they’re investing their career to make a community a better place can really bring the concept down to reality, something they can be employing now, not when they become a middle manager.”

Over the last two years, Satterwhite also has helped raise more than $500,000 in grants and gifts to aid vulnerable student populations. Some program enrollees benefit from both community involvement efforts and those aimed at students with disadvantages.

One is Jenny Stiles, a journalism major set to graduate in December, who is a program assistant for UNLVolunteers, the student-led organization within SLL. “I was a Make A Wish child. From that I learned how the nonprofit industry works,” said Stiles, who has been studying at UNLV off and on for 13 years, largely due to extended breaks to tend to her health, and heads up the campus Service Day event every semester.

“I am a disabled person, have been my entire life. I just wanted to be a part of the university after I graduated high school in 2005,” Stiles recalled about joining UNLVolunteers. “I cried when I applied because this is the first time I’ve actually felt valued as a worker and not put down as less than. I am looked at as an important person, that I can do a job well and have value. That’s not how a lot of disabled people feel in their jobs. This is a department that wants people of diversity and (who) have actually lived lives.”

UNLV Programs for Students Coping with Housing Insecurity

Among his multiple projects that help bolster underprivileged students at UNLV, Satterwhite was integral to the launch of the Fostering Scholars program to support those from foster care backgrounds – the first of its kind in Nevada. “I had a relatively privileged childhood in Portland, Oregon, so I wasn’t exposed to it much, but it’s more driven by my values and core beliefs, which is around social justice and equity and access,” Satterwhite said of the way his parents raised him and his sister – which included his family hosting exchange students from around the world.

“My parents said, ‘We can’t afford to send you out into the world but we’re going to bring the world to you,’” Satterwhite said, explaining that this mindset powers much of his efforts, such as understanding the effects of foster care on students – and the cautious attitude it breeds. “The single biggest challenge there is relationship-building because they’ve been burned so many times. Quite understandably, they do not trust easily. It takes a lot of effort to demonstrate care and reliability and follow-through before those relationships kind of blossom.”

In that same spirit, Satterwhite's team supports the retention of students coping with housing and food insecurity through the HOPE Scholars program.  Another community-based program they support is Take What You Need, a series of pop-up pantry events in which donated goods are set up, grocery store-style, so students can take whatever they need for free.

“One of the invisible populations in our community is often college students,” Satterwhite noted. “There is an assumption that if you’re in college you have the resources to take care of yourselves, or your family does,” he said, pointing to a recent student survey revealing that half of UNLV students experience some degree of basic-needs insecurity – such as lacking basic toiletries, clothing, cookware, and hygiene products.

Service Learning Programs Spark Student Engagement

Another service learning-based program is Alternative Break trips, in which each sojourn is built around a particular social issue with nonprofit organizations serving as hosts and co-facilitators. One trip was to San Diego to examine border and immigration issues. Another was to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area to observe the suburban and natural landscape and discuss ecosystems and sustainability.

Whatever program students enter, it’s what they take out of them that most fulfills the former Lego designer wannabe who has turned “tinkering with options” into a boon for UNLV and Nevada. “I love watching a participant light up after a particular experience and come back and say, ‘How can I stay involved and learn more?’” Satterwhite said. “It’s really cool to see that passion ignite from an experience and seek out opportunities to help other students be exposed to the experience they had.”

All of Satterwhite’s projects combine to create a simple bottom line: the joy of service – and, coincidentally, the Top Tier Award. “It’s pretty amazing to get recognized in that way,” he said.

“(Soon) this will be the longest stay I’ve had at any university in my career. It’s rewarding to be in a place where I’ve been able to do so much in a five-year span. This is where I want to put down roots and continue investing and growing and learning. This is home.”