Sandwiches and optimism at UVSC

OREM — Utah Valley State College President William A. Sederburg painted a positive future for the school during his annual "Sandwiches with Sederburg" activity on Tuesday.

Sederburg presented details on the school's financial status and plans during the traditional event, at which students and employees receive a free sandwich and listen to a financial forecast of the college.

Sederburg projects a $127.3 million budget for the 2008-09 school year. The total budget for 2007-08 was $116.4 million. This is compared with $76.7 million in 2002-03, which is the school year before Sederburg came to the college.

UVSC administration has responded to nearly 70 percent of its internal budget requests and funded 40 new faculty positions and 66 new staff positions for the upcoming school year, Sederburg said.

UVSC is expecting about 500 more students this fall, or a 3 percent enrollment increase. In fall 2007, enrollment was up by 472 students or a 3 percent increase, according to Linda Makin, UVSC director of budgets. She spoke with the Deseret Morning News after the event Tuesday.

UVSC administration wants to beef up its student advising program. The college plans to spend $377,928 to add six advisers and one support staff member. This will create a ratio of 408 students to one adviser.

College officials would like to get the ratio down to 375 students per adviser. The goal is to provide higher-quality, more accessible academic advising, Sederburg said.

The school has $420,640 available for scholarships, including ongoing funds to encourage academic preparation, as well as residential scholarships for honors students, and five new music scholarships.

The scholarship fund includes a grid on a Web page where potential students can plug in their grade point average and ACT score and figure out what scholarship they are eligible for from the school. Go to www.uvsc.edu/finaid/scholarships.

"The number of 'highly qualified' students wanting to come to UVSC is way up," Sederburg said. "It's a wonderful problem to have. Two years ago we couldn't give away enough of these scholarships."

In 2007-08 applications at UVSC, there were 245 new students who applied with a GPA of 3.5 and/or an ACT score of 26 and above, and so were eligible for UVSC's highest academic scholarships, including a four-year full-ride tuition and fee scholarship.