CONVEYING A MESSAGE

This past Friday morning, UNLV's campus, homecoming week. A pile of plywood awaited its destiny behind the architecture building.

A student with red hair and pink earbuds skittered alone across the courtyard. Another slept, his neck painfully askew in the computer lab, before a textbook on technical writing.

The student union stood there, almost dark, almost empty.

Starbucks rocked, as always.

And elsewhere, a coterie of the well-informed awaited the imminent hatching of their secret plan.

The plan starts with the plywood, which had been shaped to look like a pile of tombstones, painted gray, ready for the epitaphs added that evening.

Student leaders from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College for months have pondered how to entice their brethren to share their concerns over impending state budget cuts.

And, the student leaders contend, the cuts are not just trimming here and there. These are massive, across-the-board cuts to the state's higher education system that could lead to layoffs, canceled classes and perhaps even the elimination of entire programs.

Gov. Jim Gibbons has called for 14 percent cuts across the state because revenues are not projected to be as high as they once were.

Higher education leaders -- Chancellor Jim Rogers, in particular -- have derided the call for such large cuts as a threat to the very health of the system.

But on UNLV's campus, no one cares. Or, more precisely, they might care, maybe, if they knew what the heck was going on.

Take student Sky Hu, for example, who has pretty much the same answer as any student you ask about the issue. He was relaxing with a coffee and his cell phone Friday in UNLV's student union.

Hu is from China. He's studying hospitality management. He says it costs him nearly $10,000 a year in tuition, books, fees, and room and board to attend UNLV.

He doesn't know much about the budget cuts -- he can't even offer an opinion until the nature of the cuts is explained to him -- but he knows this: He's paying too much and not getting enough for it.

He wants better teachers. He wants more campus activities. He wants cheaper tuition.

None of which is going to happen, especially if the cuts go through as requested.

And so, the tombstones. A publicity stunt. A political move. A Halloween treat, with a purpose.

"It's our responsibility to get the knowledge out there," said Adam Cronis, president of UNLV's student body.

He and the leaders from the other Southern Nevada schools hatched their plan over months of meetings.

They'll paint epitaphs on the faux tombstones. They'll say things like, "R.I.P. Nevada Higher Education."

"We're just trying to think of out-of-the-box ways to communicate and get people talking about it," said David Waterhouse, president of the student government at CSN.

"It's a challenge to get students talking about an issue like this," he said. "Traditionally, students are very apathetic."

A case in point: UNLV's student government a few weeks ago invited President David Ashley to address the student body about the cuts. Two previous sessions for faculty filled a 300-seat auditorium.

The one for the students attracted a few dozen.

Cronis and Waterhouse and their cohorts in the student government wondered how to pique student interest. They figured a different approach was necessary.

They plan on installing the tombstones tonight. They're each fashioned out of 4-foot by 8-foot sheets of plywood, rounded at the top. They're huge.

They'll put 30 of them on UNLV's campus, and 15 each on NSC and CSN's campuses.

The messages will be clear: Budget cuts affect you, student.

They figure this knowledge could lead to a thirst for more knowledge.

That further knowledge could lead to a desire to change things. That desire to change could lead to activism, action, the lobbying of legislators.

Such activism could lead, they hope, to actual change.

"Every person you make passionate about this," Waterhouse said, "they go out and tell four or five people. That's how things change."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.