Utah soldier killed in Iraq has UVSC ties

Yesterday Sgt. Nathan Barnes was laid to rest in American Fork. Barnes was killed in Rushdi Mullah, Iraq on July 17. His mother Donna is the herbarium curator in the biology department at UVSC.

Utah soldier laid to rest: Bronze Star, Purple Heart awarded to American Fork sergeant (Salt Lake Tribune, July 29 2007)

Condolences to the Barnes family for their loss.


UPDATE: The College Times has done a nice piece on Donna Barnes and the loss of her son.


UVSC employee loses son in Iraq
 (The College Times, July 30 2007)

Former UVSC point guard to sign with Utah Jazz

Former UVSC point guard Ronnie Price, who for the past two seasons has been playing for the Sacramento Kings, has agreed to terms on a multi-year deal with the Utah Jazz according to an update on the Des News's website:

Utah Jazz agree to terms with former UVSC guard Price (Deseret Morning News, July 26 2007)



Congrats to Price, who has always been a stand up guy, and a great ambassador of UVSC. And we are sure Carlos Boozer will be looking to settle the score during team practices this year.

UPDATE: The Pipeline just spoke with former UV SportsZone producer Johnny Boyd who said he had been in contact with Ronnie and that the man was very happy to be heading back to Utah.

UPDATE 2: The Tribune did a nice little article about Price coming back to Utah, including plenty of quotes from UVSC head coach Dick Hunsaker. Check it out:

Jazz sign former UVSC, Kings guard Price (Salt Lake Tribune, July 26 2007)

UVSC students attempt to archive Africa

Chad Clark, a friend of The Pipeline, just sent us this e-mail keeping us up to date on an UVSC trip to the African nation of Namibia:


This is Chad Clark just giving you an update on life sorta. I'm in Africa right now and lovin it! If you want to follow along with what's going on check out my blog here: csclark.blogspot.com

I am posting as many photos as I can as well here: www.flickr.com/photos/csclarkphoto

I am here with my department at UVSC... well five students and two professors, and one grad student from Utah Sate. We are starting a Digital Archive for the country of Namibia. DNA or Digital Namibian Archive is the new official name. I am responsible for the Digital Imaging part of the project. It's been interesting to work with the students here in Africa. We are partners with the Polytechnic of Namibia. It's quite a task to digitize all the records, photos, audio recordings, and videos for the whole country. I'll be here for about a week longer. Feel free to pass this along or send me a message if you have any questions or what not.

Good luck to Chad and all those with him!


UPDATE: Here is the link to the Official Digital Namibian Archive blog:

http://dgm3a.uvsc.edu/Projects/GET/blog/GET%20Namibia/Welcome.html

SLCC president makes student retention a top priority

Salt Lake Community College president Cynthia Bioteau is taking retention into her own hands by calling students personally if they haven't registered for fall classes yet.

Haven't registered for classes yet? You might get a call from SLCC president (Slat Lake Tribune, July 20 2007)

Maybe there is a lesson here for UVSC president Bill Sederburg. He is always moaning about the time-honored Wolverine tradition of waiting till the first day of class to register, and the headaches, network traffic, and long lines this inevitably causes. Perhaps Big Bill should get on the horn and convince procrastinating students to get on the ball.

UVSC prof fights the text book cartel

UVSC sociology professor Ron Hammond is fed up with text book companies ripping off starving students. That is why he refusing to use them in his classes, instead he's using the vast resources of the internet to provide plenty of up-to-date study material for his students.

UVSC prof. quits books (Daily Herald, July 20 2007)

Pricey Textbooks Prompt UVSC Professor to Stop Using Them (KSL.com, July 20 2007)

Textbook prices too much, so UVSC prof eliminates their use (Salt Lake Tribune, July 20 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)

New UVSC fact book online

UVSC's Office of Institutional research has put out their annual fact book, which you can find online here.

Enjoy!

New residency rules in effect

The following was included in a campus bulletin that was e-mailed out to employees this morning:


The new Residency rule (R-512) will go into effect on July 1, 2007. This rule requires 1) residing in Utah for 12 continuous months, and, 2) being Financially Independent (student is not claimed on a tax return of any person who is not a resident of Utah, beginning in at least the 2007 tax year.)

There will be NO RETROACTIVE application of the 12-month waiting period. This means the rule goes into effect on July 1 of 2007 and the earliest a new, non-resident student may obtain residency will be July 1, 2008.

A student who has been attending school under the 2006-2007 law, may still obtain resident status upon completion of 60 credits or upon submitting documentation of maintaining continuous residency in Utah for 3 years, regardless of credit earned. Objective evidence demonstrating domicile in Utah must also be submitted with a residency application (ie Utah drivers license, car registration, etc.).

Residency application deadline for Fall semester is August 1, 2007. Applications are available at One Stop (BA 106) or by printing a form from the Admissions web site.
Please refer residency questions to Anne Morrey at extension 8464 or through e-mail at morreyan@uvsc.edu.

This change is significant and will no doubt alter enrollments at UVSC for the foreseeable future. According to the latest data, out-of-state enrollment has stayed fairly flat for the past 4 years. Of course leading the list of states that send their kids off to UVSC is California , and now that it only takes a year to establish residency look for kids from the Golden State to rush back to UVSC.

DLC construction moving along

On the front page of this morning's Daily Herald is a nice little story about the progress of UVSC's Digital Learning Center, the soon-to-be-university's $48 million library.

Digital Learning Center on time, budget (Daily Herald, Monday July 16, 2007)

To check out the progress of the new library head on over to http://www.uvsc.edu/library/newlibrary/webcams.html

Owlz back down on stadium name

It was reported in today's Daily Herald that The Orem Owlz have apologized to the local press for insisting that the ballpark they play in be called "Home of the Owlz", and it looks like the media's side of this story has come to a conclusion. Herald executive editor Randy Wright has said coverage of the minor-league team will resume; no word yet if the Deseret Morning News will follow suit.

Orem Owlz give in on stadium name (Daily Herald)

If there are those out there who still give a hoot (hoot, Owl...get it?) here is the link to a an open letter posted on the Owlz' website. In the letter are several links to fun little nuggets, like the e-mails that went back and forth from the team and the media, and the actual contract that the team and the school had been working under to find a naming sponsor. Enjoy!

What should be pretty to clear to everyone is that the Owlz reacted poorly, and attempted to put the media in a tough spot, going so far as to threaten pulling media credentials from outlets that had the audacity to mention Brent Brown Ballpark. The local papers called their bluff, and now the Owlz are backing down. Of course they aren't going to go out with any class....case in point is minority owner Jason Taylor's whiny post on the Herald website:

I wanted to clarify a couple of things. We, The Owlz, did not "give in" on the dispute with the naming of the stadium. We chose to not involve the working media moving forward. The apology was more on a personal level to the Executive Editor for the "misunderstanding" of why media creditentials would be at risk. We, as a Team, appreciate the hard work of the beat writers covering the Owlz, and felt it appropriate to slightly change our position on how the local media was treated. We stand by our position and will continue to try and keep constructive dialogue with the College until it is resolved. The Orem Owlz have had a great sponsorship relationship with the Daily Herald and want to continue that and grow the foundation of that relationship. We are not condoning or approving of the name change to the Stadium, we are only allowing the media to cover it as they see fit. We are going to continue to refer to the Stadium, as we are contractually allowed to, as " The Home of the Owlz." Unless you are personally affected by this situation please keep your opinions to yourself. There is alot of information, available on our website, to substaniate our claims.

Regards,

Jason Taylor

Of course, since The Pipeline has not been "personally affected by this situation" we should probably just keep our opinions to ourselves. Really professional there, Mr. Taylor.

Transition to UVU: Sweating the details

The clock is counting down...less than one year before little ol' UVSC graduates to Utah Valley University, and an article in today's Herald spells out some of the logistical headaches that are in store for the school, in particular the IT department.

Changes loom for UVU transition (Daily Herald)

For both of you who are wondering, the answer is yes...The Pipeline will more than likely change its name to uvupipeline on or around July 1, 2008.

UVSC secures Hunsaker for another five years

We here at The Pipeline can't believe we missed this one, but better late than never. It was announced two weeks ago that Wolverine Men's basketball coach Dick Hunsaker has signed another five-year deal with the school.

UVSC's Hunsaker signs five-year contract extension (Daily Herald)

While the piece does not include how much Hunsaker will be making, what is made abundantly clear is that the coach knows how to win. During his first five seasons as head coach he garnered an impressive 104-43 record.

While it is important for an athletic program to keep winners around, The Pipeline wonders if the contract is a smart move seeing how the school's Division I provisional status is winding down, and it doesn't look like the school is any closer to being accepted into a conference.

The big question remains, what will happen to UVSC Athletics when their provisional clock runs out in 2009? One thing is for sure...Dick Hunsaker will still be collecting a paycheck.

HASS to host benefit luncheon for Paxman Scholarship

An e-mail went out to employees today from Bill Cobb, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at UVSC, concerning a benefit luncheon for the Shirley and Monroe Paxman Scholarship for Humanitarian Service.

If you have ever attended any kind of function at the college, chances are you have seen the Paxman's (pictured here). Their support of the college is legendary.

Here is the what Dean Cobb had to say:

The School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences will honor local humanitarians Shirley & Monroe Paxman at a benefit lunch at the Outback Steakhouse in Orem, on Wednesday, July 18th, at 11:00 a.m. All proceeds from the luncheon will go to the newly established Shirley & Monroe Paxman Scholarship for Humanitarian Service.

Life-long residents of Provo, Shirley and Monroe had their first date 72 years ago – a midnight mass at St. Francis. When asked why a young Mormon couple had their first date to a midnight mass, Monroe responds, “It was the cheapest date I could find.” Monroe is a retired 4th District Juvenile Court Judge in Utah. Shirley is a retired nurse and nursing instructor at both UVSC and BYU and former owner/curator of the McCurdy Doll Museum in Provo. They are the parents of seven children.

When Shirley heard about President Sederburg’s Community of Engaged Learners, she said, “I like that phrase. That is what we try to do.” Among their many humanitarian projects through the years are the non-denominational chapel at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, the preservation & restoration of Academy Square in Provo that is now the Provo City Library, the recent attempt to save the historic St. Francis Catholic church in Provo and the Brockbank Foundation Education Fund, which provides for the education of young women in South Africa. At last count, 71 women have received scholarships through the fund, established by Shirley and her sisters.

The Paxmans’ association with UVSC began during the administration of Wilson Sorensen. Now in their late 80s, they haven’t slowed down a bit. It is difficult to attend a lecture, concert or fundraiser at UVSC and not see the Paxmans there. They are among our greatest advocates. The scholarship established in their names will go to a student who exemplifies the humanitarian service given by the Paxmans.

For tickets to Outback Benefit Lunch honoring Monroe & Shirley Paxman, please contact my office, LA209, ext. 7435 or Campus Connection. Tickets are $20 per person. If you have any questions, please contact myself or Barbara Hammond, my assistant dean.

Thank you,

William W. Cobb, Jr.

Dean, Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences

Local papers boycott Owlz coverage

The Daily Herald and the Deseret Morning news have pulled all credentialed writers and photographers from covering the Orem Owlz season in the wake of the baseball stadium naming controversy at UVSC.

Newspapers stop covering Owlz (Daily Herald)

Sparks fly over Owlz name: Papers forgo coverage after intimidating e-mail (Deseret Morning News)

Clearly The Owlz have come out the losers on this fight.