The Black Mountain Institute, formally called the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute, is the literary center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The institute provides various fellowships, programs, community events, and spaces in order to foster the literary arts in Las Vegas, specifically with an emphasis on climate and environmental narratives.
The Black Mountain Institute was established in 2006 by Carol Harter, then-president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who stepped down from her role to serve as the director the institute. [1]
In 2013, the Rogers Foundation, established by Jim Rogers and Beverly Rogers, donated $10 million dollars to the institute to support its operations, launch the $50,000 Black Mountain Institute Prize for Fiction, and open a new building now called the Beverly Rogers Literature and Law Building. [2] It also allowed more funding for MFA and PhD students and fellows. Later, in March of 2015, the Rogers Foundation gave an additional $20 million to the institute, which allowed it to add a literary nonfiction track to its writing curricula, a partnership with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas College of Fine Arts for dramatic writing, and an additional budget with which to hire faculty and graduate assistants. [3]
In May of 2015, Harter stepped down and passed the director role onto Joshua Wolf Shenk. [1] Later, in 2021, Shenk stepped down from his position due to an incident in which Shenk "exposed himself" on a Zoom call, which The Los Angeles Times reported on. [4] Soon after, several staff at the Black Mountain Institute and its Believer magazine penned an open letter contesting the Times report, stating that the Shenk incident was not an isolated event but rather one in a much longer history of "inappropriate and disrespectful behavior that belies a chronic lack of care and concern for the comfort, boundaries, and safety of the staff". [5]
After Shenk's resignation, John P. Tuman served as an interim director until 2022, when Colette LaBouff was chosen to serve as the institute's next director. [6]
The institute provides two Shearing Fellowships every year to writers who have published at least one book. The fellowship provides support for writers to live, work, and participate in the literary scene in Las Vegas over the course of a year. [7]
The institute also provides City of Asylum Fellowships to writers fleeing from persecution and/or censorship in their home countries. Past fellows have included Syl Cheney-Coker, a writer from Sierra Leone; Er Tai Gao, an artist from China; and Jorge Olivera Castillo, a formerly incarcerated independent journalist from Cuba. [8] [7] [9] The fellowship was started in 2001 by Sarah Ralston and professor Richard Wiley with help from various writers and community members, including Wole Soyinka. [10]
Every year, the institute hosts a festival at various venues in downtown Las Vegas featuring writing, music, film, and visual arts. Previously called the Believer Festival after the former institute-controlled Believer magazine, the institute took a two-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic and relaunched the festival as the Black Mountain Institute Festival in May of 2024. Authors in the 2024 lineup included Maggie Nelson, Roxane Gay, and Eve Ewing, and more. Community partners have included Nevada Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Discovery Children's Museum, and others. [11]
In partnership with departments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as well as The Writer's Block, the Beverly Theater, and other venues across Downtown Las Vegas, the institute regularly hosts events with authors such as conversations, book signings, and readings. Previous events have featured authors like Teju Cole, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Pemi Aguda, Danzy Senna, André Aciman, Vi Khi Nao, and Stephen Bright. [12]
In October of 2020, the institute launched Black Mountain Radio, a project featuring various hosts and guests in the arts and literary worlds, as well as involvement from fellows, students, and staff from the institute and University of Nevada, Las Vegas writ large. With episodes released between 2020 and 2022, it aired on KWNK and KUNV. [13]
In 2017, the institute acquired the Believer magazine from McSweeney's thanks to funds from philanthropist Beverly Rogers who donated a cumulative $30 million dollars to the institute as of 2015. Originally founded by Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, and Ed Park, the magazine kept Julavits and Vida on board as consultants while Shenk served as its editor. [14]
At the end of 2021, it was announced that the magazine would be shuttering after a final issue published in early 2022. The institute cited financial problems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a strategic realignment within its programming. [15] The institute sold the Believer brand to Paradise Media, a digital marketing company which replaced the literary content of the Believer website with articles designed to drive traffic. After public outcry, the Believer was sold to its original owner, McSweeney’s.
The institute currently publishes two magazines: Interim and Witness. [16]
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The 332-acre (134 ha) campus is about 1.6 mi (2.6 km) east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the Shadow Lane Campus, just east of the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, which houses both School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. UNLV's law school, the William S. Boyd School of Law, is the only law school in the state.
The Thomas & Mack Center is a multi-purpose arena located on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada. It is home of the UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball team of the Mountain West Conference.
Nevada State University (NSU), formerly Nevada State College, is a public college in Henderson, Nevada. It is part of the Nevada System of Higher Education and opened on September 3, 2002, as Nevada's first state college. The university is a designated Minority Serving Institute, Hispanic Serving Institution, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Institution. Its main campus is located on a 509-acre (206 ha) site in the southern foothills of Henderson.
The Believer is an American bimonthly magazine of interviews, essays, and reviews, founded by the writers Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, and Ed Park in 2003. The magazine is a five-time finalist for the National Magazine Award.
The William S. Boyd School of Law is the law school of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the only law school in Nevada. It is named after William S. Boyd, a Nevada attorney and co-founder of Boyd Gaming Corporation who provided the initial funding for the school. The school opened in 1998 and graduated its first class in 2001.
Carol Clancey Harter was an American academic administrator who was the 7th president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) (1995–2006). She is the longest-serving president in UNLV history, at 11 years. From New York, she held B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Binghamton University as well as three honorary doctorates. She was succeeded as president of UNLV by David B. Ashley on July 1, 2006. Prior to her tenure at UNLV, Harter was the 11th president of SUNY Geneseo, where she was succeeded by Christopher Dahl. She served as a faculty member and in two vice presidential roles at Ohio University and is the author of numerous articles and co-author of two books. Harter was the retired Executive Director and founder of UNLV's Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. She was Chair of the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute Advisory Board and a member of the Guinn Center for Public Priorities Board of Directors.
The UNLV Rebels football program is a college football team that represents the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The team is a member of the Mountain West Conference, which is a Division I Bowl Subdivision conference of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). The program, which began on September 14, 1968, plays its home games at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada.
Martin Stern Jr. was an American architect who was most widely known for his large scale designs and structures in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is credited with originating the concept of the structurally integrated casino resort complex in Las Vegas.
Earl E. Wilson Baseball Stadium at Roger Barnson Field is a baseball stadium located on the northwest corner of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus in Paradise, Nevada.
Richard Wiley is an American novelist and short story writer whose first novel, Soldiers in Hiding won the 1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He has published five other novels and a number of short stories.
Claudia Keelan is an American poet, writer, and professor. She received the Regents’ Creative Activities Award, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is a museum located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), established in 1967. The museum was originally instituted as a natural history museum with a focus on the natural history and environment of Nevada and the broader Southwestern United States. In December 2011, the Barrick joined the UNLV College of Fine Arts and became the anchor of the Galleries at UNLV. The six galleries and one museum that make up the Galleries are each entities in their own right linked via a common administration.
Witness is a literary and issue-oriented magazine published by the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. Each issue includes fiction, poetry, memoir, and literary essays. The magazine has been honored with ten grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and writings from the journal have been recognized in The Best American Essays, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize.
Hossein Mortezaeian Abkenar is an Iranian writer and screenwriter.
The Writer's Block is an independent bookseller, publisher, and literacy educator in downtown Las Vegas. It is the first independent bookstore in Las Vegas and second in the state of Nevada.
Jaquira Díaz is a Puerto Rican fiction writer, essayist, journalist, cultural critic, and professor. She is the author of Ordinary Girls, which received a Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Finalist. She has written for The Atlantic, Time (magazine), The Best American Essays, Tin House, The Sun, The Fader, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Longreads, and other places. She was an editor at theKenyon Reviewand a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.In 2022, she held the Mina Hohenberg Darden Chair in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University's MFA program and a Pabst Endowed Chair for Master Writers at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has taught creative writing at Colorado State University's MFA program, Randolph College's low-residency MFA program, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Kenyon College. Díaz lives in New York with her spouse, British writer Lars Horn, and is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University.
Edward A. Vance, FAIA, an American architect, is the principal-in-charge of design and CEO at EV&A Architects, a specialty architecture firm he founded in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2006. Vance has been a registered Architect in 19 states and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He served as the 2019 Chancellor of the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows.
Keith Eric Whitfield is an American psychologist, educator and gerontologist that currently serves as the President of University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He became the 11th and first black president of the university when he was appointed on August 24, 2020. Prior to the position, he was the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and a professor of psychology at Wayne State University. Whitfield has also served various leadership positions at Pennsylvania State University and Harvard University, as well as positions within the American Council on Education, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.
The UNLV Rebels women's volleyball team competes as part of NCAA Division I, representing the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the Mountain West. UNLV plays its home games at the Cox Pavilion.
Beverly Rogers is an American philanthropist. In 2014, she and her husband, Jim Rogers, founded the Rogers Foundation, a foundation trust specializing in education and the arts. In 2019, Rogers developed the Lucy, a literary and arts space, and in 2023, she debuted the Beverly Theater, a local film, performance, and arts venue, both of which are in the downtown Las Vegas area.