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)

A reality check for Trades at UVSC

The Deseret Morning News has milked yet another story out of the fact that UVSC pioneer Wilson Sorensen is displeased with the school's desires to become a university. This issue of the college's original mission and the realities of today cuts to the core of many of the internal rumblings on campus.

Old timers like Sorensen and others complain that the administration, "will eventually eliminate the trade and technical programs," and that "We'll completely lose our identity" as "Liberal Arts takes over."

But anyone who has spent time at UVSC in the past 15 years will tell you that it isn't Liberal Arts that is taking over Trades, it is Trades that has failed to adapt to the changing needs of students looking to stay competitive in an increasingly specialized work place. Some months ago The Pipeline spoke to an administrator at the Dean level who has practically grown up in the halls of UVSC. His father spent his entire working life in the school's Trades department. He said that the old guard has continually refused to update their programs to match the training indicative of a college campus. Efforts have been made by the administration to encourage those in the Trades to modernize curriculum, including offering NASCAR certification for the Auto Program.

It is the opinion of The Pipeline that the old guard of UVSC's Trade programs have refused modernization and as such have relegated themselves to increasing attrition. Sorensen is quite right...One day UVSC will no longer offer trade programs, but it is not Sederburg's fault, nor is it the influences of the Liberal Arts. The blame lays squarely at the feet of dinosaurs that refuse to evolve.

Take a look at a map of UVSC. The Sparks Automotive Building has the largest footprint of any building on campus (not the most square footage...but it does take up the most physical space). The Pipeline believes that all trades programs that don't offer curriculum that falls in line with a true university experience should move across I-15 to the MATC. Let's open up this valuable real estate to relevant programs with high student demand.

The college often romanticizes its Trade School past, pointing to it as evidence of their hard work ethic, a hands on approach to learning, and the nobility of blue collar sweat. They should be proud of the school's heritage. But that should not blind UVSC from its true mission...preparing today's young adults to be valuable workers, informed and involved citizens, and decent human beings. All of these skills can't be taught at the work bench. A comprehensive degree program is best suited to instill these values. Let the MATC fufill its mission of providing our community with trained trades people and technicians.

Sorensen slams UVSC's plans

Well, forget about Sorensen State University. In an article in Thursday's Des News UVSC pioneer Wilson Sorensen had some harsh critiques of Bill Sederburg's push for university status. It seems the 90-year-old Sorensen is none to pleased that his beloved trades programs are losing ground to more traditional college fare.

"They cut the welding program. Eventually, the liberal arts will take over," said Sorensen in the article.

Sederburg is quick to point out the flaws in Sorensen's logic, citing the declining numbers of students in trades as the reasons programs have been cut. Big Bill also points out that that many students interested in trades choose to attend the MATC across the street from UVSC, where classes can cost as little as $50, and they don't make you do all that fancy book learning.

While Big Bill is right on the money about the decline of trades, it was a poor move on his part not to get the Patron Saint of UVSC to sign on to the whole university thing from the get go. Instead of having this respected (yet senile) education pioneer singing your praises, Bill has to play defense and the school gets another front page story about being too big for its britches.

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.