From Deseret News archives:

Senate chief says UVSC will be a university someday

Published: Friday, Nov. 11, 2005 9:51 p.m. MST
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
OREM — The president of the Utah Senate says Utah Valley State College should be a university.

"In my mind, it's not if — it's when," Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, said Friday afternoon while meeting with students and faculty at the Orem campus.

Valentine's public statement — made while discussing a proposal to add a four-year engineering degree at UVSC — was his first regarding the college's not-so-secret quest to gain university status.

College administrators have long said they have met with the senior legislator to discuss plans to move past its ranking as a four-year state college.

On Friday, Valentine told the Deseret Morning News that he has had "several dozen meetings" with UVSC President William Sederburg to talk about the issue.

"A degree that comes out of Utah Valley University will mean a lot more," he said.

Another Utah Valley legislator, Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, echoed Valentine's statements.

"As Sen. Valentine said, it won't be long until (UVSC) becomes a university," said Hellewell, who also meet with students to talk about the engineering-degree proposal. Hellewell graduated from the school in 1972 in business management and marketing.

Story continues below
The criteria for designation as a university varies from state to state. In Utah, a college must offer graduate degrees before the governor-appointed Board of Regents gives it university status.

Utah County, with more than 360,000 residents, is the "second largest county in population," Hellewell said. "We have a private university, but we don't have a state university. It's kind of crazy."

Valentine said he does not have a timetable for when the school, which counts more than 24,000 students, could obtain university status.

Among the factors that will play into the school's possible college-to-university transformation will be the perception that the school has liberal leanings, Valentine said.

"When you're in the process of trying to make university status and you ask the taxpayers to be supportive, you have to be reflective" of the community, he said.

Last year's visit by "Fahrenheit 9/11" filmmaker Michael Moore, performances of "Vagina Monologues," concerts by rap-music stars, and the offering of a gay literature class on campus have upset many Utah County residents, considered among the most conservative in the state.

UVSC cannot pretend to be an "East Coast or West Coast" school, Valentine said. Activities on campus cannot deviate from the community's values.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image

John Valentine

previousnext

Latest comments

Wounded Utes limp home

To Loose Moose, Um, let's see, BYU 7, TCU 38 on your home turf, with a...

It must have been cold there in our shadows Coog fans. And to think we...

TCU 55, Utah 28

TCU beat us. They are a better team this year. They beat BYU. They are a...

Isee today that BYU is 19 Utah is 22. HUH...what do you think of that?...

There are way too many cynical people who comment on these articles. Take...

How about we "restore" all of the sales tax and other exemptions given to...

TCU stays 4th in AP; Y. 19th, U. 23rd

I agree with you to a certain point. In most years, those teams are good....

If it is this bad for Medicare and I suppose Medicade is about the same, what...

gotta love the support for this team in utah.. I wish i coulda been there...

BYU 19---------Utah 22........HUH It says something to me. No you...

Advertisements
Advertisement