Wade Vandervort
The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Thursday, Sept. 21,2023.
By Hillary Davis (contact)
Friday, May 17, 2024 | 2 a.m.
The relationship between UNLV and one of its top donors broke down this week, with the benefactor, Las Vegas’ Engelstad Foundation, pulling millions of dollars that would have gone toward planned expansions of the medical campus.
Kris Engelstad, the CEO of the foundation, told UNLV President Keith Whitfield in a letter Tuesday that the charity will no longer support the university because of “poor and unacceptable behavior exhibited by the university’s leadership.”
“Despite numerous attempts to forge a collegial and productive relationship with UNLV for the benefit of all its students, I have been greatly disappointed,” Engelstad wrote.
The foundation has given UNLV about $43 million over the years, Engelstad said in an interview Thursday. Of that, $15million went toward the construction of UNLV’s $125 million Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine main education building. The building opened in late 2022.
The development of the medical campus, and relations with the medical school’s current dean, Dr. Marc Kahn, are at the core of the conflict that led to the deterioration of Engelstad’s relationship with UNLV.
She characterized UNLV officials as being ungrateful and wanting a one-sided relationship, describing incidents that included demands to hand over the keys to the school before it could be legally occupied, and demands for representatives of Nevada Health and Bioscience Asset Corporation, the public-private corporation that built the medical school, to stay out of the building.
Officials ultimately allowed a representative whose job was to check in on building maintenance to tour the building, with an escort, she said.
“They want us to pay for everything and then just give it to them and go away — very old-school kind of donor model,” Engelstad said. “And if that’s what works for certain things, that’s what works for me, too. But this was a partnership, and it was always laid out a certain way.
Wade Vandervort
Kris Engelstad, shown on Feb. 17, 2022, waiting to speak at a Nevada Board of Regents meeting, said in her letter that she “has been exasperated in my interactions with the past five university presidents (except for Len Jessup).”
“You’ve got a system that pretty much wants to go along like they always have, and that’s a very old style of giving and donorship, which works for some people — and that is, you’d write your check and you go away,” she added. “But when you’re talking about large projects like this, something that has to be sustained, the newer and, I think, more evolved way of giving is partnering. Unfortunately, you have to have the right partner.”
A spokesman for the medical school referred inquiries to university spokespeople, who provided a statement but did not immediately respond to follow-up requests to speak with Whitfield or Kahn.
The statement read, in full:
“UNLV would like to thank the Engelstad Foundation and Kris Engelstad for all of their generous donations to the university over the years, and for their continued support of scholarships for students in the Kerkorian School of Medicine and the UNLV Engelstad Foundation Scholars Program.
“For more than a year, UNLV has been in negotiations with the Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation (NHBC) to further expand health care capacity in Southern Nevada on nine acres of property owned by UNLV in the Las Vegas Medical District.
“During that time, the university has negotiated with NHBC in good faith to reach an agreement that is acceptable to all sides.
“We are disappointed by the announcement by the Engelstad Foundation but disagree with the characterization of facts from what has been a difficult negotiation.
“Again, we remain ever grateful to the Engelstad Foundation for their contributions over the years to UNLV.”
Clark CountyAssessor records showthat the Nevada Health and Bioscience Asset Corporation owns the land under the medical school. Engelstad said the university leases the land for $1 per year.
Engelstad said Kahn was resistant to the next phase of medical campus development that was to include a building worth an estimated $70 million to $80 million just to construct. The annex was to include mental health services, which Kahn reportedly said carry a stigma. Engelstad, a UNLV graduate who studied psychology and social work, said the psychiatric component was critical.
She said she complained to Whitfield about Kahn, but the president did nothing.
Although the conflict centered around the medical school is most recent, Engelstad said she’d had frayed relations with the past several presidents with the exception of Len Jessup, who led UNLV from 2015-18. Jessup was the last permanent president before Whitfield, who took the reins in 2020.
In 2018, Engelstad saidshe was pulling her contribution to the medical school building amid reports that Jessup was exploring opportunities elsewhere after facing pressure from some members of the Nevada Board of Regents. Engelstad said she trusted Jessup and then-med school dean Barbara Atkinson to see her gift through and not let it fall into the regents’ control.
Although Jessup announced his departure within weeks, Engelstad ultimately kept her financial commitment for the main building.
Now, she wants out. In addition to the adult and children’s psychiatric services, future plans were to include an expansion of UNLV’s autism program and an expansion of the pediatric cardiology program.
“It’s very difficult to chase people to beg them to take your money to make them better and then have them turn around and be hostile,” she said. “So I decided for myself, enough was enough.”
Engelstad’s late father, Ralph Engelstad, a successful Las Vegas developer, created the Engelstad Foundation with his wife, Betty, in 2002 to continue his philanthropy.
The foundation is a major donor to causes focused on education, medical research and support for at-risk people of all ages. It also donates to animal welfare, supports people with disabilities, and veteran and historical preservation causes. Most of its beneficiaries are based in Nevada, and in Ralph Engelstad’s home states of North Dakota and Minnesota.
The medical school has been the main recipient of UNLV’s recent gifts, but the foundation has also given money to the university’s college of hospitality and engineering, center for business and economic research, and hockey and men’s soccer programs, among other programs.
It has also invested heavily in scholarships. A hundred undergraduates and 25 medical students currently are being supported by Engelstad dollars. Engelstad said only these scholarships, and a state blood bank requested by the governor, will continue. Otherwise, the foundation is done with the university.
Engelstad said she doesn’t think the relationship can be repaired. She said she’s “been through too many presidents” of a university that needs “a complete system overhaul.”
“I’m not a high-maintenance human being. I don’t need parades, and I don’t need accolades or plaques for dinners or galas,” she said. “I just would like a thank-you and to stick to the original agreements.”
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