Harriet Barlow, who heads a multicultural academic resource center at UNLV, told a group of 275 African American students that she is “living proof of the value of higher education.”

Last time we were talking about efforts in Nevada to pass the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to outlaw alcohol sales. An initiative got the question on the general election ballot in 1918. It turned out to be like … a political campaign.

Thank you to Brian Greenspun for a wonderful column about UNLV (“UNLV now sits on a very short list,” Feb. 3).

Atlantic City has made progress in recent years to diversify its offerings.

But weather may be one of the largest reasons the city lives in Las Vegas’ shadow.

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced the collegiate teams that will be competing in the Solar Decathlon Build Challenge. Student participants work during a two-year period to design and build complete, functional houses that are powered by renewable energy and demonstrate creative solutions to current issues in the industry. Winners will be selected in the summer of 2020 in Washington, D.C., as part of the 2020 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

UNLV was one of just 11 universities worldwide chosen to compete in the 2020 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. The international contest challenges university student teams to design, build and operate solar-powered homes that are energy-efficient, affordable and attractive.

For Southern Nevada residents who may be on the fence about whether to support development of light rail, the Brookings Institution’s Adie Tomer offered some compelling food for thought during a visit to UNLV this week.

At first, there was no road at all, just a series of springs where the water table breached the earth’s crust.

Thomas Garrison pauses in the middle of the jungle.

“That’s the causeway right there,” he says, pointing into a random patch of greenery in the Guatemalan lowlands.