Welcome back to another semester! I hope you enjoyed a wonderful holiday with friends and family. Our Snow College family has experienced a heavy start to the semester. As we heard the devasting news of Paige’s death, I felt such sadness for her family, her team, her classmates, her peers, her teachers, and all of you who know her. Anyone who knew Paige — from faculty to teammates to coaches to classmates — can’t say enough about her light, her kindness, and her capability. Faculty have commented on her noticeable absence in class, even after having been together for only a week. A tragedy like this impacts all of us because we are a family, and there is no better work family in the world. Like any supportive family, we are here for one another in good times and hard times.
Jane Howard, an English novelist, said, “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." We do need one another, and I want to thank you for what you do. Over the past few days, the individual and personalized Snow College care we often talk about has been evident. Employees stopping to help at the accident scene without knowing who was involved, staff working on a holiday and subsequent evenings to support students, leaders opening their homes and feeding the team, grieving softball players delivering flowers to their coaches, and faculty discussing the fragility of life with students are just a few of the acts I know about personally. I offer my sincere appreciation to all of you.
We recognize there are several who are hurting and reflecting this week. We love you, and we support you. Our Wellness Center is ready to help anyone who would like to talk. As you read about all of these exciting happenings in the newsletter (which was compiled before Monday’s accident), we hope you are proud to be part of the Badger Family. There is a lot of good happening here; thanks for being an important member of the family.
Stacee
It’s always nice to have the students returning to campus. During the break, many offices have been updating things to ensure that processes and systems are improved. IT has improved some of the backend servers that will result in more stability and hopefully faster speeds. The finance team continues to improve the new chart of accounts. The teams in the Finance and Administrative Services area want to help all departments across campus be successful. If there are issues with a service (IT, human resources, finance, risk management, Title IX, safety, purchasing, facilities, institutional effectiveness), please reach out. We don’t want people to feel like they have to suffer in silence. I also want to give a big shout-out to our facilities team. During the break, this team worked hard on evenings and weekends to make sure that campus was cleared and safe. Snow College’s success is a team effort, so take time to recognize those that often work behind the scenes. The same advice that Chief Walk would give, goes for all services: if you see (or don’t see and yet need) something, say something.
We want to highlight industry partnerships that Snow’s Tech Ed programs have in our service area. Industry partnerships connect our students to work experience, and employment opportunities, provide current employees with upskilling for increased employment opportunities, advise program and shop/lab equipment for relevancy, equipment and supply donations, and are solid partners for successful grant work.
When we introduced Foundations into our GE curriculum, we knew the course was innovative and something few institutions could attempt. We did not anticipate some of the responses: faculty claim it is one of their favorite courses to teach and that it has changed the way they look at their own discipline; colleagues at other institutions are envious and want to know the details of “how.”
The “how” is tricky, and we are continually trying to improve the course. This interdisciplinary, multi-teacher approach is new for us too, and we have recently updated outcomes and created guidelines to ensure more consistency. Most exciting, though, is the addition of the Foundations Fair, and the inclusion of micro-credentials. Of the course, students regularly claim that it helps them understand the value of GE, make connections between disciplines, and establish a foundation for being a lifelong learner.
Snow’s Foundation program will be featured prominently at the National FYE Conference in February. Four sessions focus specifically on our Foundations courses. Two teams have previously presented at national conferences and both received overwhelmingly positive responses.
Because Foundations is illustrative of the innovative and personalized work we do as an institution every single day, it is easy for us to miss the impact. We often minimize the groundbreaking and important work we are doing as a small institution in Central Utah, but the response at these national conferences reminds us that the work we do is extraordinary.
The Office of Admissions has been working diligently to implement our Student Search and Engagement contract to help us effectively reach more students and parents. With this contract, we have access to several best-of-breed solutions, such as ZeeMee and Campus ESP. These two services allow us to reach out to students and parents in various ways and use automation to make it happen! While it is a lot of work at the beginning, we will reap the benefits of better and more frequent communication with the students AND parents in our funnel!
During fall semester Student Life conducted a series of activities and programs to help students become acclimated and active on campus. Also, Student Body Officers and Advisors organized and executed recreational and academic activities in a safe environment. This semester, Student Life was able to fulfill the goal of providing the student body with 2 activities per week. Not only this, but data shows that students participated more in activities than the previous year. As a result, we are proud to mention that Student Life has successfully maintained and increased student engagement.
This semester Student Life has the goal of not only maintaining student engagement but encouraging them to become the leaders of tomorrow and bring positive change to our campus. We plan to accomplish this by providing students with the necessary tools to represent their voices. Student Life wants each student to know they belong and there is no better path to success than being a Badger.
We welcome the following individuals to the Snow College Team:
| Sidney Timothy | Library Assistant (Richfield Campus) |
| Niki Covington | Adjunct Instructor (Arts) |
| Susanna Smart | Admissions Counselor |
| Jannette Wagner | SBDC Administrative Assistant |
| Maria Serrano | Food Service Lead |
| Jane Bailey | Records Assistant |
The Sevier Valley Center on the campus of Snow College Richfield has welcomed thousands of patrons and hundreds of participants to events and activities throughout the holiday season this year.
The season kicked off in November with a heartfelt Veteran's Day fundraiser and concert
featuring Nathan Osmond, and transitioned into hosting weeks of high school preview
basketball tournaments, pageants, and state competitions.
Snow College Cosmetology Department then wowed their audience with the annual scholarship
program where this year's students showed off their best hair, makeup, and nail skills.
The following week, the SVC welcomed the community for the annual Christmas Tree Lane.
There were nearly 50 beautifully decorated trees in this year's festival that included
five nights of local entertainment. The largest performing group was a dance company
with over 200 young dancers.
Additional performances included various professional artists to local presentations
of the Christmas favorite the Nutcracker and Messiah, an event they have presented
free of charge to the community for many years
It has been an amazing holiday season at the Sevier Valley Center with almost 12 thousand
visitors. Thank you to all of the employees, patrons, participants, and event organizers
for their support and hard work.
Faculty at Snow College worked hard to wrap up a successful Fall semester and are looking forward to a bright Spring. A few notable events that occurred last month include students in the Honors Thesis class completing their projects and defending their theses before faculty, staff, and peers. The Foundations Fair took place on December 12 which allowed five teams from various foundations classes to present, perform, and display their works.
This new semester we are anticipating faculty-sponsored events such as the weekly science seminars, as well as Science Night which invites the community, especially school-age children, to learn about and participate in scientific demonstrations. This will take place on January 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the GRSC.
Faculty at Snow College are committed to excellence and understand learning as an exercise with both practical and intrinsic significance.
Our winter sports teams are as busy as ever. The men’s basketball team sports an overall record of 14-5 and is third within the Scenic West Athletic Conference standings with a 5-2 record.
The women’s basketball team is 7-9 overall and 4-3 within the conference, putting them in fourth place in the standings.
Eight members of the football team were selected as All-Americans. Isaiah Jatta and Cole Bowers were named to the All-America First Team while Dallin Bentley, Hunter Beddoes, David Latu, and Autjoe Soe were named to the Second Team. Jackson Rees and Duece Roberson were named as honorable mentions.
All sports throughout the entire year have a combined record of 70-29-1 for a winning percentage of 71 percent.
Housing welcomed 135 new students into the residence halls last weekend, our best spring-only move-in day to date! After accounting for fall-only contract students' departures, plus some cancellations, this puts occupancy at 87% for the spring semester (compared to last year, spring 2022 occupancy was at 84%).
In the middle of fall-only checkouts, winter cleaning, and spring move-in preparations, the Housing office has also moved! We are now upstairs in the GSC, office suite 260 (the Welcome Center and the Housing Office switched places). We plan to hold an open house for anyone to visit our new office, ask questions about housing, and enjoy some refreshments, so stay tuned!
P.S. Nate & Ian also have cool fish tanks if you're into that! So come and say hi!
