2-year status suits Snow

Marketing the school, Wyatt said, won't be difficult because good programs, including partnerships with USU, are already in full force. He said the school's math, science and pre-engineering programs are unrivaled in preparatory education. The students who transfer from Snow to finish four-year degrees elsewhere "are at the top of their class," he said. "We send a whole lot of valedictorians to the engineering program at USU."

Another award-winning program, the Horne School of Music at Snow, has garnered a reputation of being the best of its kind, even earning a partnership with New York's Juilliard School of Music.

"It's the only junior college in the country that has a relationship with Juilliard," said Snow spokesman Greg Dart, adding that the music program is "unrivaled." The programs are good, he said, because they can focus on being short-term.

"We're not in the business of offering four-year degrees," Dart said. He said existing partnerships with USU conveniently allow students to further their educational endeavors. "It seems to work well for our students."

Snow's former president, Michael T. Benson, now president of Southern Utah University, "finished the campus," Wyatt said. "He changed the landscape of our college, now we need to fill it." He plans to focus on what the school has to offer in order to fill it with more students and grow the institution as a two-year college.

"Our biggest advantage is that it's off the beaten path," Wyatt said. "But being off the beaten path is also our greatest disadvantage. So we have to work harder about selling what we have."

Wyatt doesn't plan to make any institutional or policy changes, especially at the beginning of his tenure. However, instead of passing out doughnuts to students on the first day of classes like his predecessor did, he'll be helping students move into the dorms the weekend before school starts.

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E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com