UVSC seeks state OK

OREM — Utah Valley State College President Bill Sederburg says he's now looking to state lawmakers for approval of a request for university status, since he's already received approval from state higher-education leaders.

"The attention really shifts to the Legislature," Sederburg told UVSC's board of trustees at its monthly meeting Thursday night.

On Dec. 8, a handful of college administrators and trustees presented an argument for university status to the governor-appointed Utah State Board of Regents. They acknowledged to the regents that UVSC is not currently ready to be a university but, with time and money, it could achieve the goal.

"They've all indicated they're supportive," said Dan Campbell, the trustees' chairman. "The remaining issue is funding."

The price tag is $10 million to make improvements at UVSC such as increasing the number of full-time faculty members and beginning graduate programs, which are conditions for university status.

Sederburg hopes money will be supplied by the Legislature, but higher-education leaders in the past have said that some of the money will need to come from fund raising.

Cameron Martin, special assistant to Sederburg, said UVSC administrators foresee the Legislature funding UVSC's quest for university status under one of three scenarios:

• Lawmakers could fund the entire $10 million in February, and the school would become a university with a law that would be enacted in July;

• The Legislature could fund $5 million this year and $5 million next year and anoint the school a university in 2008; or

• The lawmakers could fund it in increments of $3 million and $4 million over the next three years, with the school becoming a university the final year.

Sederburg hopes that the money and name change will occur this legislative session.

On Tuesday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. unveiled his budget, and it did not include any specific money for UVSC. Yet Sederburg is confident the governor is supportive of university status for UVSC, based on public comments that Huntsman's spokesman made in September about university status.