Autumn Color at Snow College!

Autumn has arrived at Snow College! I walked around campus this evening and took a few pictures and visited with students. Earlier in the day Kathy and I watched the Snow College Badgers school Eastern Arizona in a 30 - 24 victory in perfect football weather. Last night we attended Star Wars in Concert at Energy Solutions Arena where 60 Snow College choral students were honored to perform Star Wars music in a large interactive concert with the Symphony. It was great. The lady badgers Volleyball team won three straight games against the College of Eastern Utah last night. And homecoming is next week. Life is good here.

Heritage Plaza

I grabbed a couple shots of the work being done on Snow College's new Heritage Plaza this afternoon. In the top photo workers put finishing touches on the Heritage Wall of Honor which surrounds the plaza. The inspiration for this wall comes from the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington D.C. The names of hundreds of people who have donated money to the College for scholarships are engraven on the granite wall. When a student stands in the plaza and looks at the sea of names around her she will be reminded of the sacrifice that hundreds of people made to help her and others succeed. Scholarship money does not fall out of the sky--it comes from the pockets of people who selflessly give for others' dreams.

You can see the landscaping work in the lower photo. As part of our goal to obtain a LEED certification for the Karen H. Huntsman Library, the landscaping associated with the library is designed to minimize water use. Around the plaza workers are planting shrubs and ground cover rather than grass. And the plants will be watered with a underground drip system rather than sprinklers. I asked the landscape contractor today how many plants they are putting in--18 trees (flowering Pear in the middle ring and London Plane on the outside); approximately 300 shrubs of 15 varieties; and (I am not kidding) approximately 12,000 separate ground cover plants of three varieties. Wow.

The plaza should be mostly finished next week. The fence will be removed by Homecoming next Saturday, October 24th.

Snow College Experiences Unprecedented Growth

Well--drum roll please--the third-week enrollment numbers are in and Snow College's growth this fall is the most impressive of any college or university in Utah. There are a variety of ways to look at the numbers but the most meaningful is the budget-related FTE (full-time equivalent) student count. The FTE number is counted by adding all credits taken at the college and dividing that number by 15 (15 credits is one full-time student). In other words, a student who is taking 15 credits is considered one FTE student; three part-time students who are taking five credits each are considered together as one FTE student.

Snow College's student FTE grew this fall over last fall by 24.4% or 578 students--a full two-and-a-half times the average growth rate for colleges and universities in Utah. Snow College had 2,369 FTE students last fall--2,947 this fall. The total number of full and part-time students (we call this the headcount number) at Snow College is 4,368. Dixie State College is the only institution that grew by a higher percentage than Snow College. Their growth was 25.14% but according to the System press release, (October 5, 2009) Dixie's growth was largely a result of adding four-year programs. Much of their growth came, not from new freshman students, but from sophomore students who can now stay on for two more years to finish a bachelor's degree. Behind Snow College, the next largest percent growth in student FTE was seen at Salt Lake Community College. SLCC realized a 14.62% increase of students, or approximately 60% of Snow College's growth rate. SLCC has ten separate campuses in Salt Lake County.

Snow College is the second smallest institution in Utah. Consequently, a smaller percentage growth rate at a large university might still result in more students at that institution. Nevertheless, take a look at the numbers for all other rural institutions: Snow added 578 new students (24.4%); CEU added 174 (12.91%) and Southern Utah University added 393 (6.83%); Utah State University added a combined total of 621 in Logan and all its rural, regional campuses combined (3.93%). USU has three regional campuses and fifteen educational centers accross Utah, in additon to their main campus in Logan.

The percentage growth rate for the urban institutions is as follows: The University of Utah 4.26%; Weber State University 10.31%; Dixie State College 25.14%; Utah Valley University 11.98%; and Salt Lake Community College 14.62%. The sluggish economy naturally drives students back to college in urban areas. The students coming to Snow College are less economy motivated, which suggests a more permanent growth trend.

It has been difficult for employees at Snow College, particularly in the student success offices, to accommodate this year's growth but they have worked very hard and have done an excellent job. Additionally, the growth has forced the college to add large numbers of sections of high demand classes pushing a fair number of our faculty and our financial resources. With state budgets being cut by 17% this year the massive growth has required us to work harder and smarter than ever in the past. We teach our students how to improve and grow--this year we get to model what we teach. I asked our student body officers how students feel about the growth this fall and was told they feel a great deal of excitement and energy they did not feel last year.

As a college we are expecting our growth to continue. We have created a strategic task force consisting primarily of the Academic Deans, Faculty Senate, College Council, President's Cabinet and students to work on the issues needed to accommodate growth while maintaining the small class size and individual attention that has made Snow College the best place in Utah for freshman and sophomores to prepare for life, further academic studies and the workforce.