Thinking of Sam

The Pipeline just heard the news that dean of Sciences and Health Sam Rushforth is undergoing emergency heart surgery this morning. Sam is one of the reasons why UVSC is a special place...we wish him all the best.


UPDATE: The Pipeline ran into Nancy Rushforth on campus and she says Sam is recovering nicely.

New Drawing of proposed Performing Arts Center

For the past year or so The Pipeline has been hearing rumors about the proposed Performing Arts Center (or Center for the Performing Arts...or Center for the Visual and Performing Arts...or The Arts Center for Performing Visuals...or whatever). But up until now it has been just talk...with not much to look at. But now Kinateder, "Utah's finest architectural illustration company" has released this:




Pretty cool looking. The question is will it ever get built. Chances are you won't see much in the way of state funding. This project isn't like the much-needed Digital Learning Center and we don't predict the legislature will be salivating over it.

But perhaps the school could scare up some serious donations from local deep pockets. The Arts center has been on the master plan for decades and many on campus see the building as their pet project.

At the top of that list is Kathie Debenham. Debenham ran UVSC's dance department for years and has been serving as an associate dean in the School of HASS. But with Dean Bill Cobb stepping down sooner than expected she has been named the interim dean (no doubt while the school conducts a national search for Cobb's replacement).

Debenham's promotion, no matter how temporary, comes at a critical junction as many on the campus consider the possibilities of splitting up the hulking school of HASS. Plans were on the table for creating a new school of the Arts with the departments of Dance, Theater, Art and Visual Communication, and Music on board. But at the recent HASS PBA (planning, budgeting, and accountability) meeting most in attendance got the impression that President Bill Sederburg wasn't sold on the idea of a split.

If a split did occur it might mean a greater push for a performing arts center. Like always, the college faces serious space issues. The DLC's nearly 200,000 square feet filled up quickly...and many administrators are licking their chops for more.

An arts center would pull Dance out of the Liberal Arts Building and rescue the other departments from Gunther Trades obscurity. There is even talk of bringing the Woodbury Art Museum from its current location at the University Mall and putting it in the new center.

The building is planned to be placed just north of the McKay Events Center. Yes, that means more parking spots will be sacrificed in the name of progress...but who didn't see that coming? If the performing arts center does end up there it might make the soon to be completed Lakeview Room at the DLC seem a little silly, as it will most likely block any view of the lake.

This drawing also most likely kills one rumor that circulated a few months ago. At a planning meeting over the summer local boy wonder Brandt Anderson suggested that it might be possible to get architecture legend Frank Gehry interested in the project. Gehry is currently producing Anderson's Traverse Mountain project at the Point of the Mountain. Of course that sent a million tongues a waggin' but we never heard another thing about it. The Kinateder site doesn't mention which architectural firm has drawn up this design...but considering Sederburg's relationship with Jacob Alspector (which stretches back to Big Bill's time at Ferris State in Michigan) we wouldn't be surprised if the New York based architect was involved.

Is Academics headed for a major change?

The Pipeline has been hearing rumblings from various corners of campus about a major shake-up in Academics for months now. There had been whispers about departments moving around, departments getting split up, and whole schools being overhauled. But nothing was ever definite....all just rumor and conjecture.

Well it still isn't official yet, but now at least there is a concrete document from VP of Academics Liz Hitch's office that lays out some of the plans. If even half of this stuff actually happens (it looks like it probably will) it will be the biggest change the campus has seen in many years. Check it out:

Organizational Redesign for Academic Affairs (doc)

The document is dated October 8 but the footer at the bottom of each page says September 20. We know that Hitch sent an e-mail to some faculty and staff that included this link recently.

As for what is going to happen, we will let you read the document yourself. But if you are really lazy here is the list of substantial changes listed in the report:


1. Aviation, Emergency Services, Fine and Performing Arts, Social Sciences, and Health Science become schools reporting to a dean.

2. There are no substantial changes in the School of Education.

3. Forensic Science moves to Biology.

4. The School of Business will divide the Department of Management into two smaller groups.

6. The School of Business will send Criminal Justice faculty to the department of Anthropology/Sociology in the School of Language and Social Sciences.

7. The School of Business will assume Culinary Arts faculty in hospitality management.

8. The College of General Academics will be renamed “University College.”

9. University College will include remedial programs as well as programs for high academic achievers, such as Honors, Debate, Integrated Studies and Humanities.

10. Speech Communication faculty from the current Communication Department will be assigned to the University College as a core academic skill. The debate program will be housed in or near Honors.

11. Honors will be in University College.

12. A centralized Graduate Office will be formed in the VPAA office.

13. ESL goes to the School of Adult and Continuing Education.

14. Turning Point, Wee Care, Women in Technology, and other appropriate programs that provide student services go to Student Services.


In other words...big changes. There is way more to this story, but we'll save that for future posts.

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)

Sederburg names new VPAA

This morning Utah Valley State president Bill Sederburg announced his pick for the vacant VPAA position. Here is the e-mail he sent out to employees this morning:

I am pleased to announce my selection of Dr. Elizabeth J. Hitch as the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Hitch joins UVSC from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse where she currently is serving as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. For your reference, a copy of the press release with additional information about Dr. Hitch and UW-LaCrosse is attached.

As I reviewed the finalists, I decided that Dr. Hitch provides us with the experience needed to move the institution to the next level. She is the academic leader of one of the most respected regional universities in America. She oversees a school of 20 graduate programs, with impressive graduate programs in education, science and health, and business. She has experience as an academic administrator with having served for seven years as a Dean and five years as a Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Finally, I felt that I and our leadership team would enjoy working with her and gaining from her experience, enthusiasm and leadership.

Dr. Hitch will assume this assignment July 1, 2007; however, she will be on-campus several times between now and then. Plans for a reception late afternoon of Friday, March 9 are underway; more information on this will be forthcoming.

I greatly appreciate the fine work of the search committee lead by Dr. Numsiri Kunakemakorn and Dr. Ian Wilson. I encourage all members of the UVSC community to join with me in warmly welcoming Dr. Hitch to campus and offering her your enthusiastic support. I am confident she will provide outstanding support and leadership to Academic Affairs and Utah Valley State College.

Of course this announcement will no doubt launch a thousand e-mails, with a very vocal majority of faculty having been such staunch supporters of in-house candidate Bill Evenson. You can count on some backlash.

The Pipeline has heard that at a recent Dean's council meeting the deans expressed their unanimous support for Evenson. At the end Sederburg stood up and said something to the effect of "well it sounds like you all agree that all three candidates are qualified, so it doesn't matter who I choose."

It is The Pipeline's humble opinion that Sederburg had to hire a woman for this job. When he came in three years ago he received flack for "re-assigning" female VPs and since then hiring white males for top positions. This perception that Big Bill took care of the boys no doubt rubbed plenty of faculty the wrong way. The fact that so many faculty members backed Evenson indicates that he was supremely qualified, so much so that professors who might normally have preferred to see a woman in this post chose Evenson over Hitch. This probably also speaks to how unimpressed many professors felt during last week's meet-and-greets with Hitch.

Hitch had been recently censured by her own faculty senate at her current position at University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. To her credit Hitch was quite up front about the incident, which she said came about because of a botched hiring process that hadn't followed school procedure. She told professors to feel free to call the faculty senate president at UW-L and ask about the censure.

What has to be in the back of most professors' minds is how Hitch will handle the often sticky issue of academic freedom, particularly in an environment that has had its share of town-and-gown issues. It is clear from the e-mails that have been circulating around that the faculty at UVSC are wary of someone who appears to be more of an administrator and less of a scholar. Will she fight for academic freedom or will she bend to pressure from donors, community members, and legislators? We will have to see.

It will be interesting to see if a real fuss is made over the issue before Hitch steps up in July. Sederburg has made it clear that he wants the troops to rally behind his choice. Who will stick their neck out?