New and old

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

This week’s issue features our Join the Pack guide, an annual package of stories related to the University of Nevada, Reno and geared toward incoming freshman. This year’s guide features a lot of stories about the new—new programs, new majors, new classes, new research, new faculty, etc. But there’s something missing—both in our guide and from the university itself—the old.

Most of us here in the RN&R newsroom has a least one degree from UNR. All of us have attended classes there. Most have also taught courses there. We all have a lot of affection for the university, friends who work there, and fond memories of the place.

But, like a lot of local folks, we often feel like there’s a fundamental disconnect between the university and the rest of the community.

Nowhere has this disconnect been more apparent than in the university’s recent development plans. We wrote an editorial last week about how UNR President Marc Johnson was deaf to widespread community opposition to the university’s “gateway” project, which would remove a dozen homes from the area to make way for campus sprawl.

Over the weekend, the news came out that the university plans to demolish an additional eight homes a few blocks away on Evans Avenue to make way for yet more expansion.

This destruction upsets the community, but the university leadership doesn’t care.

So here’s some additional advice to incoming freshman: Welcome to UNR. But don’t try to live too close to campus, unless you want the university to buy your house so they can tear it down.