UCAT seeks real degrees, will this sink UVSC trades?

Once again top administrators at the Utah College of Applied Technology (UCAT) are asking the state legislature's higher ed committee to consider giveing them the ability to grant credit-bearing trades degrees, and thus be able to offer more applied associate degrees.

UCAT campuses seek degrees with credit
Higher-ed official says that would create overlap with what is already being offered (Slat Lake Tribune, May 20 2008)

Last summer the state's Board of Regents rejected a UCAT proposal to grant such degrees citing the fact that the system's eight campuses don't offer transferable credits. Now UCAT is asking the Higher Education and Applied Technology Governance Committee to circumvent the Regents decision.

This of course does not sit well with interim Regent chief David Buhler, who fears that a credit-bearing UCAT would compete with the state's traditional schools. Of course UVSC would be at the top of that list. For the past several years UVSC has lost market share as more and more Utah County trades students have chosen to get training at Mountainlands Applied Technology Center (MATC) located just across the street. If MATC started offering the same degree programs it would not be long before trades at UVSC would go the way of the Dodo.

Regents give final approval to UVU's first graduate degree program

Though there was never much doubt, it has finally been made official. Utah's Board of Regents have approved UVU's very first graduate program. Starting this fall students wanting a Master's in Education have a new choice.

UVSC moves by leaps and bounds toward university status (Salt Lake Tribune, March 23 2008

Regents OK master's for UVSC (Daily Herald, March 23 2008)

UVSC gets OK for first master's (Daily Herald, March 23 2008)

This first year the education master's program will only accept anywhere from 20-30 students.

UVU's first graduate program gets greenlight from Trustees

Last night, members of UVSC's board of Trustees approved the school's first graduate program.

UVSC board OK's master's degree plan
(Deseret Morning News, November 8 2007)

UVSC trustees approve first proposal for master's degree
(Daily Herald, November 8 2007)

UVSC approves first master's degree for UVU
(Salt Lake Tribune, November 8 2007)

As expected the first master's degrees will be in education, and if the proposal gets approval from the State Board of Regents the program could start in the August of '08. Classes would be at night to allow current teachers to continue working while earning their degrees. The school also plans heavier workloads for graduate students during the summer.

It is expected that the UVU will accept between 20-30 new students into the Master's of Education program each year.

Does mandatory health insurance make sense for college students?

Utah State University's student government will ask the Board of Regents to make health insurance mandatory for students enrolled in any of the state's public colleges and universities.

Salt Lake Tribune - USU student group to approach Regents over insurance

For years BYU has required all of its students to either be enrolled under their parent's policy or pay for campus health insurance.

But how could UVSC possibly afford to offer low-cost health insurance to its nearly 24000 students? How about dumping athletics?

Regents approve tuition increases for next year

The State Board of Regents has given preliminary approval for tuition increases for each of its colleges and universities. UVSC's first-tier tuition will go up 2.62 percent.

Tuition at state-owned colleges, universities to jump
(Salt Lake Tribune, October 26 2007)

The total tuition increase will be known when UVSC lays out their plans for their second-tier increase. The total will be presented to students during the mandatory Truth in Tuition forum, which usually occurs in March.

UVSC bucks statewide trend with positive enrollment numbers

The state Board of Education has released enrollment numbers for Utah's public colleges and universities, and while overall the numbers are flat UVSC gained the most students and had the second highest percentage of growth over last fall's numbers.

Enrollment remains flat at Utah colleges
Recruitment to become more competitive as numbers stay steady
(Salt Lake Tribune, October 12 2007)

While this news is no big surprise for UVSC, it is nice to see what numbers other schools are posting. Here are the headcounts for all nine schools:

U of U: 27,685 -2.15%
USU: 21,455 +1.10%
Weber: 17,089 -1.16%
SUU: 6,410 +4.94%
Snow: 3,202 -9.65%
Dixie: 5,209 -2.43%
CEU: 1,799 -3.95%
UVSC: 20,959 +3.44%
SLCC: 23,824 +0.01%

Higher Ed
Total: 127,632 -0.09%

If that number seems a little low for UVSC, who usually boasts of having 24,000 students we can only assume the state is not counting high school students taking in concurrent enrollment classes.

UCAT president leaves in disgrace

Robert Brems stepped down from his position as president of the Utah College of Applied Technology today, after a state-ordered audit found some, shall we say, suspicious fiscal irregularities.

UPDATE: UCAT president resigns after audit

If you need a refresher on the scandal within UCAT and the Mountainlands Applied Technology Center head here.

Regents rank Colleges' wish list for building projects

Last Friday, representatives from Utah's public colleges and universities met with the state's all-powerful Board of Regents and asked for a combined $328 million in construction projects. And while everyone wants something built, chances are only four projects will see funding this year.


Regents pare wish list
Higher ed pitches $328 million in projects; top 4 ranked
(Deseret Morning News, September 15 2007)

No surprise that the University of Utah and Utah State's projects top the list; both schools are looking to replace or renovate buildings that are several decades old. Salt Lake Community College is looking to add a classroom building, and Southern Utah University wants one building to house all of their science departments and programs.

Of course UVSC wants a piece of the funding pie, and they are looking to get the dough necessary to build an addition to the Pope Science building. But the competition between other schools, and the fact that UVSC got the library wanted two years ago, will likely knock the project off the list when it goes to the State Building Board. The remaining projects will then go the legislature, which approved $88 million worth of building projects during the 2007 session.

Utah college enrollment flat overall

Despite UVSC's positive numbers so far this year Utah overall only saw a meager .8 percent increase in college enrollment over last year's declining figures.

College enrollment shows a decline
(Salt Lake Tribune, September 15 2007)

But the important part of this story is that the Board of Regents anticipate that the state's Higher Ed system will experience an average of 3 percent growth annually over the next 20 years. According to their projections this is just the lull before the storm, and we should see real increase starting in 2013-2014.

So if the state as a whole is experiencing static enrollment right now, while UVSC is still growing, what does that mean for UVU when things really get hopping in a few years? UVU could have the largest student population in the state in just 10 years.

So you want to be a U? Dixie State ponders future

Dixie State College announced last Friday that it is considering hooking its wagon to the University of Utah and becoming a satellite campus in an effort to expand the possibilities of higher education in Washington County.

Dixie says it weighs becoming U. satellite
(Salt Lake Tribune, September 8 2007)


Dixie State seeks partnership with U of U
(The Spectrum, September 8 2007)

Dixie State College Announces Plan to Pursue Enhanced Affiliation with the University of Utah
(From the Dixie State College website)

Essentially Dixie could very well follow the path of UVSC and become a university with a community college emphasis and open enrollment. Which leads us to a very interesting question, will UVSC support this move? Just because Dixie and the U have talked about it doesn't mean it's a done deal...far from it. The proposal will need to get approval from the Utah Board of Regents and the legislature.

And that process could be moved along considerably with the help of UVSC's voices on the Board of Regents (Marlon Snow, Jack Zenger, and Lucille Stoddard) and Utah County's all-powerful caucus (Senate president John Valentine tops the list).

And we might have a little quid pro quo action happening here. You might recall at the signing of SB 70 this past March that St. George representative Dave Clark was not only present, but spoke, and was widely praised by others for his support of UVSC's transition. At the time the Pipeline thought it seemed a little fishy for a St. George guy to be all buddy buddy with Utah County. Our bet is that UVSC and all its cronies will be backing up Dixie's move 100 percent.

And perhaps that is not such a bad thing. One thing is for certain though...the transition is going to cost money.

Something stinks across the I15: MATC scandal blows up

For the past week or so there has been some quiet articles bouncing around the local papes concerning possible fiscal wrongdoing at the Mountainlands Applied Technology Center. But now it seems that where there was smoke a fire has been found, and that means Utah College of Applied Technology president Rob Brems, and MATC president Clay Christensen have some 'splaining to do.


UPDATE: Audit shows MATC officials broke laws (Daily Herald, August 22 2007)
Audit alleges illegal use of funds, cover-up by college presidents (Salt Lake Tribune, August 22 2007)


Other than the proximity of the two campuses, there isn't much of a UVSC connection here. The State Auditor found that some of the money Brem had received as part of a compensation package when he left MATC to run UCAT had been put into an endowment that his dependents used at UVSC.

But it should serve as a reminder to administrators need to operate above reproach. And favors to powerful folks like the Utah Republican Party will not go unnoticed.

Utah Board of Regents looks for new commissioner

Utah's Commissioner of Higher Education Richard Kendell announced at the end of June that he would be stepping down from his lofty post by the end of the year. Kendell, a graduate of the University of Utah, was a vocal supporter of UVSC's move to university status during the past legislative session.

Board of Regents Announce Search for Commissioner of Higher Education (Utah System of Higher Education Press Release, August 14 2007)

Is this the end of Trades at UVSC?

Back in January of 2004, UVSC's monthly Board of Trustees meeting ventured away from the cozy confines of their wood-paneled boardroom in the Student Center and braved the wilds of Heber City to visit the Wasatch Campus. Safe from the prying eyes of reporters from the local rags Trustees and various VPs were free to speak their minds without fear that it would end upon the front page the next day. And while you can find the planned agenda for this meeting on the Board of Trustees website you won't find any record of the actual minutes there. By the way, minutes from that meeting do exist, board members voted to approve the minutes from that meeting the following month, but for some reason they don't appear on the website.


After a few procedural votes, Bill Sederburg dispensed with the usual format and broke the participants up into several small groups to spitball ideas of where they thought the school would be headed in 5 years.

After 15 minutes or so, the groups reconvened and shared their ideas, with Big Bill writing the ideas on a giant whiteboard. Of course the idea of becoming a university was batted around by a few (most thinking it was still much further off in the horizon). When it came time to talk about the future of the Trades program, there were several participants that spoke of the Mountainlands Applied Technology Center and their expanding role in trades training. That is when VP Cory Duckworth spoke up and said "Maybe it is time we start discussing dissolving Trades?" The room went quiet, but nobody disagreed. The genie was out of the bottle

Since that time Trades at UVSC has seen a drop in enrollment, real estate, and relevance. In 2005 the School of Technology, Trades, and Industry was rolled in with the computer science and engineering crowd to form the School of Computing, Engineering and Technology. There has been a steady push by administration to push trades in a far more technical direction and bring their curriculum up to university standards. Old-timers in the Trades have fought the transition tooth and nail, and meanwhile enrollments at the much-cheaper MATC grew.

Which leads us to an article in this morning's Tribune that puts a new spin on the decline of trades:

Union between colleges studied:
Students would be able to earn applied science degree through the curricula at two schools (Salt Lake Tribune, July 18th 2007).

The article says their is a proposal on the table that would allow Utah College of Applied Technology school's to offer Associate of Applied Science degrees in cooperation with colleges and universities throughout the state. Currently UCAT schools, like the MATC, only offer Associate of Applied Technology degrees, which are only recognized within Utah. AAS degrees are a more universal standard, recognized by most states.

For many in the UVSC administration the fact that trades students could only get AAS degrees from them and not from MATC, was the difference that kept the program afloat. After all, why would students interested in an AAS degree go to UVSC when they could get the same degree from MATC for a fraction of the price?

Of course this proposal by UCAT is still in the preliminary stages, but if this happens it could be the beginning of the end for trades at UVSC.


UPDATE: An article in the Trib points out some of the advantages of choosing an applied technology degree over traditional higher education:

Nontraditional path to educational certificates paying off for many Utahns (Salt Lake Tribune, July 30 2007)

UVSC Board of Trustees shake up

At last week's Board of Trustees meeting a new chair was named and two new members were
welcomed into UVSC's highest governing body.

UVSC names new board of trustees (Deseret Morning News)

Former LDS Church auxiliary president Janette Hales Beckham, who has been on the board since 2004, replaces outgoing chair Dan Campbell (who will remain a Trustee). Fellow board members Karen Acerson and Ron Dallin have completed their terms and were replaced by Steven J. Lund and Terry Shoemaker.

Lund is the second banana at NuSkin, the valley's preeminent multi-level marketing company. Shoemaker is the superintendent of Wasatch Schools.

On Monday the school released the news via their Page One e-mail that goes out to all employees. Here it is:

UVSC welcomed new leadership for its Board of Trustees Wednesday, June 13. Janette Beckham was elected chair of the Board of Trustees, Tim Clark, vice-chair and Doyle Mortimer, secretary. They will form the executive committee of the Trustees. Beckham replaces Dan Campbell as chair. However, Campbell will remain a member of the Trustees. Karen Acerson and Ron Dallin completed their service as Trustees and have been replaced by Steve Lund, vice chairman of the board of directors for NuSkin Enterprises and Terry Shoemaker, superintendent of Wasatch School District.

UVSC Trustees are the College’s governing board, appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate of the State of Utah. They work closely with the UVSC administration. Part of their duties as liaison between the institution, community and Regents include approving the college mission, strategic planning, new degree programs, policies, budgets and honorary degrees. They are also involved in funding raising and alumni relations.

Beckham has been a Trustee since 2004. She served as general young women’s president of the LDS Church for seven and a half years, where she worked with youth and traveled the world. She has been a state Legislator and was also a member of the BYU Board of Trustees for six years. UVSC’s dedication to student success is what first drew Beckham to UVSC. “UVSC is very student centered; everyone is welcome,” said Beckham. “I like that a lot about UVSC,” she continued. “This coming year should be a great one, and I’m excited for my new position!”

Clark is president of TR Clark and Associates, LLC, a consulting and training organization that provides strategy, change management and process improvement services. He has served as a Trustee since 2005, and has been a member of the Trustee Audit Committee. Clark has donated much of his time consulting for UVSC and providing leadership training.

Mortimer is vice president of Alexander’s Printing and has served as a Trustee since 2005. He has been a member of the Utah State Legislature, a board member for the Provo/Orem Chamber of Congress and is on the board for the Utah College of Applied Technology. “We’re moving ahead becoming a university,” Mortimer said. “With this transition, the institution will be able to achieve their goals of greater prestige, increased funding and continued response to the community.”

One error in the above article is that Trustees are not appointed by the governor and appointed by the senate...that is the State Board of Regents.

Sederburg gets biggest raise among Utah's college presidents

Next time you see Bill Sederburg he just might have a big ol' grin on his face. That's because yesterday he and the other nine Utah public college presidents received a pay raise. And Big Bill's smile might be particularly wide because of all the raises handed out by the Board of Regents he got the highest percentage, no doubt reflecting the school's move to university status.

For all the details check the story out here:
Utah college presidents getting raises (Deseret Morning News)

Utah college presidents, commissioner to get raises (Daily Herald)

School presidents getting a pay raise (Salt Lake Tribune)

It is nice that UVSC's growth is being recognized and compensated accordingly. Now let's hope that this raise means Sederburg will be making more than Men's Basketball coach Dick Hunsaker.

UVSC scores another supporter on Board of Regents

The Salt Lake Tribune reports today that former chair of UVSC's Board of Trustees Jack Zenger has been nominated by Gov. Jon Huntsman to the all-powerful State Board of Regents. Zenger will be replacing Michael Jensen, a lawyer from Price. His nomination will need to be confirmed by the state senate.

Zenger will join Marlon "No High School Diploma" Snow on the Board, and the two will be the only representatives from Utah County. Still, that is one more than UVSC had yesterday.

According to the Board of Regents website Snow's term is ending this June. It will be interesting to see if Huntsman replaces him with another Utah County resident. Might we recommend Jeff "Pee Wee" Alexander, who recently retired from the legislature and probably wouldn't mind working a few days a month.

Regents get paid next to nothing (a travel per diem for their monthly meetings) but they hold positions of incredible influence and are treated like kings by schools looking to curry their favor. They also get to rub shoulders with Utah's best and brightest...in other words, it's a pretty good deal.

The Board is made up of fifteen regents, each appointed by a governor to a six-year term. The Chair appoints two non-voting members to serve unspecified terms. There is also a vote for the student regent, which is chosen every year and is usually a former student body president. Historically Salt Lake City has had the most representation on the board. Currently there are eight regents from Salt Lake serving on the Board.

UVSC adds three new bachelor degrees

Utah's Board of Regents recently approved three new degrees for UVSC's fall 2007 semester. Here is the press release that College Marketing put out:


UVSC adds Three New Bachelor Degrees
Beginning fall semester 2007, Utah Valley State College will offer three new bachelor degrees, two in the Foreign Languages Department and one in the Computer and Networking Sciences Department. The new four-year degrees include a Bachelor of Arts in American Sign Language and Deaf Education, a Bachelor of Arts in Deaf Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering. With the addition of these new degrees, UVSC now offers 54 bachelor degrees.

The American Sign Language and deaf education degree is a secondary education teaching program that will prepare graduates to teach in middle schools and high schools as well as prepare them to serve the deaf community. The deaf studies degree aims at serving the students and community and will offer an emphasis in general deaf studies and an emphasis in interpreting.

“There is a huge new surge in the market for signers because of Sorenson Communications in Salt Lake City, a service that helps the deaf use the telephone. We are responding to the need,” said Karl Worthington, interim vice president for academic affairs. “Deaf studies is a unique major and this degree proposal has been well received by other institutions and the deaf community. Many students, hearing and non hearing, will be involved in learning how to sign as well as teach.”

In addition to these two new degrees, software engineering is making the transition from an emphasis to a stand alone degree. “This will greatly assist students in the job market,” said Worthington. “Employers are specifically looking for those who have received a higher education in software engineering.”

A University by any other name would smell as sweet

In all of the hoopla over Utah Valley State College becoming a university the thing that garners the most attention is what to call it when it happens. Utah Valley University is supposedly the working title that the administration and the legislature are working under now, but things could change. Recently, The Daily Herald ran an editorial calling for the name to honor UVSC's founder Wilson Sorensen.

While we sort of like the sound of Sorensen State University one problem might be that SSU sounds a lot like SUU (Southern Utah University). And for a school that has always had an identity crisis, not having its location in the name doesn't exactly put them on the map. But Sorenson State might still have a chance as one administator mentioned the possibility in passing last month.

Others have suggested Utah Valley State University or UVSU as a viable candidate, and keeping the shorthand Utah Valley State (a moniker that Bill Sederburg insisted on when he came to UVSC...going so far as to chip the word college off of signs around campus). One problem with the abbreviation UVS is that it is already used by the Utah Valley Symphony.

Still others claim that the school should honor its technical roots and go by Utah Tech (like Georgia Tech or Texas Tech). This actually sounds pretty cool and it is easy to see students calling it U-Tech. But an administrator told The Pipeline some time ago that they had investigated the other Techs and had found that in order to be called a Tech you need a certain ratio of technical degrees to regular degrees, something UVSC doesn't currently qualify for. It also ignores the very reason most believe the name change is happening anyways. People want "University" on their diploma. You could call it Utah Technical University, but then it starts to sound like a unaccredited private college like ITT or Devry. Besides www.utu.edu is already taken by the Ulster Teacher's Union in Ireland.

Most who oppose the name Utah Valley University claim that that it is too location-specific, and that the school wants to be seen as a viable option from people outside Utah Valley. But Utah State University and The University of Utah, the two most general names, are already taken.

In the end it will be the State Legislature that will decide the name change, and you can count on legislators from Salt Lake, Ogden, Cedar City, and Logan protecting their turf. Most of them don't want to share "University" with UVSC in the first place. But if State Sen. John Valentine forces the issue and they are backed in a corner, look for the name game to be a big part of the negotiating table. In which case a dark horse like Sorensen State University might have a chance.