Maple Canyon With The Student Body Officers

The Snow College student body officers spent a week in Ephraim this month training and preparing for the school year. They asked me to join them for an afternoon hike up Maple Canyon, a work class rock climbing destination, a few minutes from Snow College. Of course it didn't take me long to say yes to that request. We had a great day; some of the students faced significant fears (of heights) and did very well. We hiked up Box Canyon, climbed the "water fall" and then rappelled back down. These are a couple shots I took. What a fun day. Spending time with good students is among my favorite things about being a college president.

College Wedding

All in the day of a college president's family. Two of our students from Hong Kong were married last week. And without any family on this side of the Pacific, Kathy and I hosted them for the day at our home before and after the temple. All of our family were involved from Allie doing the bride's hair to Naomi and Abby serving at the wedding breakfast/open house. They were married in the Manti Temple a few miles from campus. We served Cantonese and American food. It was a very fun day. And, of course, I took more than a few pictures. Here are two of the pictures taken at our home.

Our New Karen H. Huntsman Library!

I took these pictures of our new Karen H. Hunsman Library this morning. It is almost complete. It has dozens of small group study rooms, a Borders-like cafe (you can eat anywhere in the library), a large outside terrace off the third level for good weather studying or group events, a large fireplace surrounded with beautiful fossil stone, updated technology, two high tech auditoriums, oh, and, books! It is expected to be a Gold LEED certified building (very green). In front of the library is our Heritage Plaza and in the middle stands our namesakes, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow. I should mention the project came in several million dollars under budget.

Snow College Commencement 2010

The best day of the year is Commencement. I am indebted to Greg Dart for these pictures.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Former president of Brigham Young University and member of the Quorum of The Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, delivered our commencement address this year. Many of our students transfer to BYU after completing their studies at Snow College. It was such a delight to have Elder Holland on our campus, and to hear his encouragement and advice to our graduating students.

Elder Holland's address was entitled, "Voices from the Past" and he pulled together a beautiful collection of life suggestions from such people from the past as Thomas Wolsey, Rudyard Kipling, and John Doone.

Towards the conclusion to his commencement address became more personal. He said, "Above all else you have learned here, may you leave this great school secure in the promise of God's unfailing love for you. You undoubtedly will, as Donne says, have days ahead when you may feel dark, cold, clouded, or eclipsed. But if you desire God's mercy, I promise that help will come to you, "not in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at [full] noon. . . . [banishing every] shadow." All occasions invite divine mercy, and in heaven it is always harvest time."

American Government 2010 Tour

At the end of each spring semester my American Government class finishes up the year with a tour of American government and history sites on the East Coast. We spent a day in Boston, New York and Philadelphia and two days in Washington D.C. In route from historic Philadelphia to Valley Forge we stopped at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to run the "Rocky Steps," a place of debatable significance in American history but a fun diversion nevertheless.

Pyramid Skylight

One of three identical pyramid-shaped skylights in the ceiling of the fourth floor of the Karen H. Huntsman Library.

Cleaning the Brick

A worker cleans the brick on our new Karen H. Huntsman Library. Contractors tell us they are well ahead of schedule, they should be mostly finished in five weeks.

Legislative Session and Budget Update

The Legislative appropriations subcommittees have finished their hearings and new revenue estimates have been released. Here is an update on the session and our state budget challenges.

First, a brief bit of recent history. Our base budget for this fiscal year (2010) was reduced by 17% and then built back up to nine percent with federal stimulus funds, for this year only. In December, the Governor reduced our base budget by an additional three percent and then, relying on the most current state tax revenue estimates available to him at the time, put together a budget proposal for next year (2011) that would keep all the colleges and universities at nine percent down. (His proposal is based mostly on one-time state funds and has the effect of extending the federal stimulus funding for one more year.) Last month, in the first days of this legislative session, the Legislature took the base budgets for all colleges and universities from 17% to 19% down.

February tax revenue estimates (official estimates used to complete state budget work) are out and unfortunately project that tax revenues will be $50 million less next year than what was projected from last December (when the Governor put together his budget proposal). It is not all bad news--although the December estimates projected stronger growth for next year than is projected in the estimates released this week--the current estimates still project tax revenues will grow in fiscal year 1011 by $140 million over fiscal year 2010. Maybe we have hit the bottom and are starting back up, albeit more slowly than hoped.

Based on state tax revenue estimates released this week the Executive Appropriations Committee voted on a plan to reduce the budgets of all colleges and universities by an additional five percent--we understand this five percent to be on top of the 17% for a total cut of 22%. This is apparently our bottom-level starting point for building next year's budget. From now until March 11th, the last day of the legislative session, the Governor and legislative leadership will be working to find sources of funding, including rainy-day funds, that they can use to reduce the 22% budget cut. We don't know yet where we will land but apparently the floor has been set at 22% and the ceiling is somewhere around 12 or13%. We have reason to hope that ultimately our final budget next year will only be down by 15 to 17% over where we started a couple years ago.

To keep all these numbers in perspective back at home, we have implemented a budget plan for next year at Snow College that is approximately 16% down.

We are at the low point for this coming year; things are bound to improve from here. Governor Herbert remains committed to help us and in the legislature we have many sympathetic friends.