Status of the transition

With the July 1st deadline looming, folks at UVSC are scrambling to get all things university in order.


UVSC transition under way
School will officially become a university on July 1, 2008
(Deseret Morning News, September 28 2007)

There are a lot of things that need fixin' on campus, just check out the comments section in the article above and you'll find folks bitchin' about things like the Math Department and student services. And how can you blame them?

But the best part of the article was this little nugget from our friends in the Athletics:

"Basically, our response is, we're ready to go through Division I transition," said Megan Kennedy, an assistant athletic director, explaining how UVSC is in its fifth of six years of provisional Division I status with the NCAA.


First of all, the move from college to university has nothing to do with the NCAA or Division I status. UVSC could start a Ph.D program tomorrow and it wouldn't change the fact that the school is not in a conference, and it is no closer to getting in a conference than it was five years ago.

Much like a certain war, UVSC Athletics has never come up with an exit strategy for when it fails to get into a conference next year. Will the school continue to be an independent? Can it afford to operate without conference funding, not to mention a far-flung travel schedule? Will fans support a team that will never develop rivalries with other conference schools? Will athletes sign scholarship agreements knowing that they have little to no chance of participating in national championships?

Yet the Athletic department says "We are ready!"