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Show , u WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2000 N I V E s V I ACademic prioritization • 1n progress BY KIRSTEN TATE SENIOR STAFF WRITER The systematic process of weighing academic programs has begun. Academic prioritization will be used by the administration to determine how to use suu·s resources, said Michael D. Richards, associate provost. · This process will judge which programs have decreasing or increasing student enrollment. Academic prioritization is predicted to take approximately one year. The process has already begun with the accessing the physical science department and business department. Other departments are on the schedule to be evaluated in the near future. This is the first time SUU has evaluated all the departments on campus in a systematic way. Richards said other schools do this on a regular basis by evaluating one college at a time. "The deans have approved an order of what departments are done when. After these first two, we'll learn a lot of ways to streamline and modify this process. Over the summeFsome fine tuning will occur and we will see what we have in the fall,· Richards said. Academic prioritization involves all the faculty in a department. The faculty members begin with a definition of a program and a list of programs to evaluate. There are two general categories of evaluative criteria: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative criteria evaluates a program's qualities and how it helps the university. The quantitative criteria includes the external demand statistics such as national employment numbers and internal demand based on student credit hour enrollment. There are also criteria for determining how the program benefits SUU and if any of the specific features within the program had been in any way detrimental to SUU or its stljdents. The criteria the faculty follows is specific so nobody is able to push a program through just because they want it to be continued.. The Deans' Council, Faculty Senate and faculty determine the criteria before anything is finalized. ·we want programs that will strengthen the academic offerings of the university so there is greater relevance and greater opportunities for students,• said Richards. Richards said the administration is aware of students in the "pipeline." Before a program will be shut down, students will have time to get through. Criteria for eliminating a program would also depend on whether or not students involved in the program could transfer to another program or department still offered. "Program discontinuance needs a lot of review. The deans and administration are very aware of the fact that a few students are in the pipeline, but if it isn't generating any student credit hour enrollment, then why have it?" Richards said. Before a program is discontinued it will be • announced and not appear in the next catalog. Similarly, if a program is to be implemented, a start time will be announced and it will appear in the next catalog. This process will benefit SUU and its students by evaluating the programs needed and desired by students and discontinuing those which do not benefit the school. This will allow the extra money and resources to be utilized by the other programs, said Richards. Jake Garn Dixie Leavitt Aileen Hales Clyde Speakers for graduation set E. J. "Jake" Garn, a former United States senator who spent seven days in space aboard the space shuttle Discovery, will be the commencement speaker May 6 at ceremonies where degrees or certificates will be awarded to 1,117 students graduating from Southern Utah University. Garn. Utah civic leader Aileen Hales Clyde, and Dixie Leavitt, who has established a successful multi-state insurance network, will be awarded honorary doctorate degrees at the 9 a.m. graduation exercises to be held in the Centrum Arena. "This will be the 101st annual commencement ceremony for the university since it evolved from Branch Normal School, Branch Agricultural College, College of Southern Utah and Southern Utah State College,• Steven D. Bennion, SUU president said. ..... "Activities will involve the recognition of students and faculty while at SUU and recognition of the contribution that outstanding citizens have made to the campus, state, and nation." Clyde, who has served for 11 years on the Utah State Board of Regents, will receive an honorary doctorate of humanities. Garn , who also served as mayor of Salt Lake City, will be awarded an honorary doctorate of science degree. An honorary doctorate of business degree will be presented to Leavitt, who has been active for years in state and local civic affairs. "Our honorary degree recipients have distinguished themselves by contributing freely of their considerable talents, abilities, and insights for the welfare of others,· Bennion said. "The university is pleased to be able to recognize these outstanding citizens who have achieved so much and whose lives offer such positive examples for our graduating students." The 1,117 graduates include 880 students who will receive bachelor's degrees, 111 who will be awarded master's degrees, 88 who will be presented associate's degrees, 30 who will be awarded special certificates, and eight who are receiving bachelor's degrees in nursing through a cooperative SUU-Weber State University program. Following a traditional academic processional, the graduation ceremonies will include a student graduation address, conferring of honorary degrees, a commencement address, presentation of master's degree candidates, and music presentations. After those ceremonies, expected to last about 90 minutes, bachelor's and associate's degree candidates will move to five separate locations where they will receive their degrees at individual academic college convocation exercises. · The vniversity's 2000 honorary degree recipients are: Aileen Hales Clyde Aileen Hales Clyde, who currently serves as vice chair of the Utah State Board of Regents, is a person who has sought diverse life experiences to satisfy her need to "have some sense of knowing as well as a sense of doing." After graduation with high honors from Brigham Young University, she began a life which has included civic leadership positions in Utah's criminal and juvenile justice system, higher education, future planning, and in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Along the way she taught English for ten years at BYU and became certified as a construction flag person (where she "learned about a different world of work," and was surprised by the uproar her unconventional employment evoked). At the invitation of the Utah Judiciary, she chaired the Utah Task Force on Gender and Justice which studied the possible effect of gender bias in Utah Courts. She was the citizen chair of the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice until she was appointed to the Utah State Board of Regents, the governing body of the state's nine institutions of higher education. She has served for 11 years as a regent, and she is currently also a member of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Clyde served from 1990-97 as a member of the general presidency of the LOS Relief Society. She is currently a special adviser to Envision Utah, and she is the immediate past chair of the Coalition for Utah's Future. Other interests are manifest in her membership on the board of directors of the Utah Symphony and on the Utah board of directors of the Nature Conservancy. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the Amicus Curiae Award by tlie Utah Judicial Conference for uncom,:non commitment to the judiciary's goal of equal justice for all; the Utah Correctional Association award for outstanding citizenship in support of the field of corrections; and the Herbert Harley distinction for the promc,tion of the effective administration of justice. E. J. "Jake" Garn . E. J. "Jake" Garn currently serves as vice chairman of the Huntsman Corporation in Salt Lake City. He is a former three-term United States senator and a former mayor of Salt Lake City. (continued on page 3) . I, |