Dixie State College on track to become a university

ST. GEORGE — Less than four years ago, Dixie State College was shrinking. Officials bemoaned a lack of bachelor's degree programs as the number of students declined two years in a row.

Now, as it celebrates its 100th anniversary with exploding enrollment and the addition of several new four-year degrees, Dixie State is on an upward trajectory that could make it a university, offering graduate programs in as soon as three years.

College leaders will present a plan today to the state Board of Regents that would expand Dixie State into a regional university role similar to that of Weber State University and Utah Valley University. Conceptually, the plan to have a regional university in the north, center and south of the state fits into the Utah System of Higher Education's goal for two-thirds of Utahns to have college degrees or certificates by 2020.

Thirty percent of Washington County residents have at least an associate degree, compared to 39 percent statewide.

"The regents and our peer institutions and the community all recognize that with the growth of the population (of southern Utah), we need more trained people," Dixie State president Stephen Nadauld said in an interview. "This is just a normal kind of evolution."

But to get there, Dixie State will have to overcome several hurdles, each with its own price tag.

College officials say they would have to hire 61 full-time faculty and 50 staff and add nine new bachelor's degrees. The total tab over the next three years, including operating budgets and equipment costs, would be just under $9 million.

And the proposal comes at a time when college resources are strained by enrollment that has grown 47 percent since 2007 to almost 9,000 students.

Dixie State already crossed one major item off its list last year when legislators approved construction of the $35 million Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons. Housing a library, classrooms and student services, the building will become the intellectual hub of campus when it's finished in July 2012. It will also allow old buildings, including the current library, to be retrofitted for new math and science programs.

The college plans to add four-year degrees in stages: ophthalmology technician, criminal justice, history and visual art this year; and Spanish, chemistry, geology, environmental science and social sciences in 2012. The regents will consider two new bachelor's degrees, mathematics and mathematics education, which would bring the college's total to 18.