Herman van Betten Papers (MS-00805)

Herman van Betten served for 15 years as an English professor and Director of Freshman English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). In 1982 he took an administrative position at the Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN), where he served for 13 years as Director of the Division of Arts and Communication, Executive Director and later Dean of the Henderson Campus and as Dean of the Division of Business and Industry. Both at UNLV and CCSN, van Betten developed a number of new courses, including Black Literature, Ancient Mythology, Classical Literature in Translation, Latin, Dutch, and the Literature of the Holocaust.

Herman van Betten was a founding member of the Nevada Humanities Committee. In 1974 he was elected to the Clark County School Board, in 1975 he became a member of the Clark County Regional Planning Council, and from 1975-1978 he served as Chairman of the Clark County Housing Advisory Committee. In 1978 he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the College Board, representing 12 western states.

Nevada Governors Miller and Bryan appointed van Betten to the Commission on Health/Mental Retardation, where he served for four years as its chairman. He was a contributing editor of Las Vegas Magazine and wrote political columns for that magazine from 1978-1983.