Month: November 2014

Businesses aren’t scrambling to hire inexperienced graduates into their workforces.

Some majors at Dixie State University are combating this by requiring students to take on a comprehensive real-world project during the course of their degree. These projects can vary greatly from program to program, but many fall under into the category of capstone courses.

As the name suggests, a capstone is the finishing piece of a bachelor’s degree. 

“[Students] will have to show that they can recall and apply what they have learned in all of their other courses,” said Shandon Gubler, associate professor of management and finance.

The capstone is not simply another class, English associate professor Ali Comeford said.

“[It’s] more of a peer-to-peer scholarship experience as opposed to a student experience,” Comeford said. “We see them as now participating in the professional activity that someone who has a degree … would be participating in once they leave school.”

Comeford said graduates with skills and knowledge in their chosen fields of study may find they still lack real-world material for their portfolios.

“[The capstone] gives them a professional piece to take out with them,” Comeford said. “It’s a great option to have for interviews and to put on resumes as well.”

While capstone courses are mandatory in order to graduate in many majors, professors said that they shouldn’t be seen as a chore or just another thing to check off an academic shortlist.

“I hope that students see it as something that has value for them individually and not just another set of credits for them to get through,” Comeford said.

Currently, Dixie has capstone classes and projects in the Udvar-Hazy School of Business, the communications department, the English department, among many others.

Business majors are expected to put themselves in the place of a CEO and board of executives and troubleshoot problems identified during 12 weeks of study and then present their plan to their peers, Gubler said.

English majors prepare an extensive annotated bibliography which they use to write their senior thesis — a 23-25 page research paper that they will be expected to present to their classmates during a 30-minute oral presentation.

Many other departments require practical projects from their senior students which, while not called capstone projects, are built for the same purpose: gaining real-world experience, applying what has been learned throughout the course of their study, and preparing them for the next step — be that a job, further education or any one of the vast array of options that lies before a freshly graduated student.

Whatever is required for a degree, students are asked by their capstone professors to remember to prepare from the beginning of their university career. 

“Our students need to know that they are going to need to be able to recall the information that they are learning,” Gubler said. “Hopefully that will help guide how they study.”

By Breanna Opdahl

From southern Utah landscapes to portraits of average Joe’s, Dixie State University’s Dolores Dore’ Eccles Fine Arts Center will exhibit “Beauty By Grace: Pastels” in the Sears Art Gallery.

The artist reception and opening for “Beauty By Grace: Pastels” will be Dec. 5 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., featuring a performance by the St. George Dance Company. The exhibit will be on display until Jan. 21. It will be open free to the public Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed during holidays.

The gallery will exhibit the work of nine artists, from pastel watercolor paintings to sculptures. “Beauty By Grace: Pastels” is an educational exhibit that will introduce portrait and landscape pastels to a wide audience.

“We have a list of artists that are internationally and certainly nationally known,” art curator Kathy Cieselewicz said.

According to a press release, the featured artists have claimed many awards for their work and are included in corporate, library and numerous private and public collections.

Carol Harding, an artist from Pleasant Grove, will present a landscape pastel titled “Deep Purple,” which offers a sight familiar to St. George locals: red rock mountains at twilight.

“I am grateful to be included in this art show that has a title that describes the medium of pastels in such a unique way,” Harding said. “Deep Purple is one of those mysterious places. Located south-east of the late Maynard Dixon’s old art studio, I found a scene that seemed to tell a story of an artist that must have frequented that path into the unknown.”

The sculptures featured in the exhibit are intricately carved and painted gourds by local artist Kolene Granger.

“Her gourds are beautiful, and she has done all kinds of styles and content,” Cieselewicz said.

Granger holds gourd-carving sessions in her home studio, which is open for neighbors and friends to experience gourd crafting. Gourds carved by Granger’s friends and neighbors are available for viewing in the Grand Foyer of the Sears Art Gallery.

St. George local Lisa Huber will also present her watercolor series, “Trees of Life” in the Grand Foyer. Huber said her work in “Beauty By Grace: Pastels” reflects the exhibit’s theme through paintings about life experiences of trees.

“Trees can tell us a lot about ourselves — what we feel and how we affect others around us,” Huber said. “My pieces in this show are unique for two reasons: They use a process I’ve enhanced that combines oil and watercolor paints together on watercolor paper, creating a soft, textured effect, and my interpretation of trees evokes human situations and characteristics in the viewer.”

Pastel artist Amy Davis said she expresses the exhibit’s theme by depicting the everyday person.

“I’m not interested in making the popular any more popular,” Davis said. “The people in my paintings are family and friends. Even if they aren’t, they are everyday people who [are] putting the work in that most people can relate to. When you do that, it celebrates them as well.”

Arlene Braithwaite, a well-known landscape pastel painter from Cedar City, stated on her website, arlenebraithwaite.fineartstudioonline.com: “My work is inspired by the land around me, a subject I find continually changing, challenging and rich with catalysts for composition. Pastel is attractive to me because of its immediacy.”

BYU instructor and artist Robert Barrett, who is also featuring pastels in the art gallery, said artists tend to do things that reflect their personalities.

From hand crafted gourds to the everyday worker, “Beauty By Grace: Pastels” depicts a little bit of every kind of beauty.

Students across America, including Dixie State University students, are currently taking out student loans in order to pay for the time they spend enrolled in college. 

Students must learn how to manage their debt, financial aid adviser Roberta Cole said. They have to decide early to only borrow to pay for school expenses rather than to maintain their desired lifestyle. 

The national maximum amount of money that can be borrowed in undergraduate student loans is $57,500, Cole said.

Steps can be taken to ensure that students have the least amount of debt possible once graduation is upon them.

Cole said staying entirely debt free may not be possible for all students, but keeping educational debt manageable is. 

Plan ahead 

Cole said when considering what area of study you are going to major in, look into the job market and make sure that you will be able to find a job upon graduating. Just because a major is offered, does not mean there is a job market for that field of study. 

Find out what the beginning salary is of the job you are working toward, Cole said. Will your beginning salary be able to pay for the debt you’ve acquired while in school? If the beginning salary of your desired career is $30,000 and your debt is $57,500, there could be problems in paying it off. 

Work

“Borrowing loans so that a student doesn’t have to work is the first thing I caution against,” Cole said.

She said not only have studies proven that students who have a part-time job, working 15-20 hours weekly,perform better academically, but it also means they have to borrow less.

Working while in school also makes students more appealing to employers after graduating.

“In the world today, you have to have real work experience so when you are done with school, you are marketable,” said J.D. Robertson, executive director of financial aid.

Cole said when students work while in school, it shows they have a strong work ethic, which employers like.

“Being aware and not afraid of hard work has helped to keep my student debt manageable,” said Breanna Orullian, a senior communication major from Murray. “I don’t think a job has had a positive or negative effect on my grades, I just know that I need the money. Having a job is just a necessary activity.”

Scholarships

One way of staying debt free, or closer to it, is applying for scholarships.

Cole said if students don’t have the grades coming out of high school to apply for scholarships, Dixie State University does offer continuing student scholarships. The scholarships require that you have obtained 30 credits from DSU.

Currently, students are required to have a 3.3 GPA to apply for the continuing student scholarship, Robertson said. The amounts of the scholarships offered change yearly, but students can find those amounts on the DSU website under the financial aid and scholarship tab. 

Students interested in applying need to apply by spring in order to receive a scholarship the next fall semester, Cole said. Applications must be submitted by April 30, 2015.

Financial aid advisers 

Students can also go to the financial aid department location on the first floor of the Holland Centennial Commons building to receive guidance in their financial decision. 

“I had one of the counselors in the financial aid department help me apply for my pell grant,” said Nordell Erickson, a senior communication major from St. George. “He is really helpful. In fact, he helps me each year when I reapply.”

The financial aid department could advertise like the career center, Orullian said. The career center is constantly going around and informing students that they can help create resumes and portfolios. The financial aid department should be more open in sharing exactly what they can help students with. 

“I knew there were financial aid advisers on campus, but I didn’t know they actually helped students apply for loans and things like that,” Orullian said.  

Be a full-time student

Tuition costs at DSU plateau at 12-20 credits, which means that tuition costs the same in that interval of credits, Robertson said.

He said each semester that students who are Utah residents are in school at DSU costs about $6,000. That total includes housing, food, transportation, personal items, tuition and fees and books. 

Current tuition for a full-time DSU student from Utah is $1,897.00. Fees for students with those demographics total to $331.00. The combined total of residential tuition and student fees is $2,228.00.

Cole said in order to decreases costs and acquiring debt, students should be taking at least 15 credits each semester instead of taking 6-8 credits while borrowing the yearly maximum in loans. 

“Our goal is to make sure that students are actually earning those four-year degrees in four years,” Robertson said.

He said there has to be a balance of work, school, studying and social life. Students need to take the time to find that balance and establish how much time they will need to devote to studying in order to get good grades.

The Dixie State University Parkour and Freerun Club flip, roll and vault into an expression of freedom and movement.

The club, which sometimes includes participants of all ages, touts safety and practice, along with the idea of freedom and movement, said St. George resident and past club president Kelson Erwin. 

Club president Robert Peterson, a sophomore general education major from Sacramento, California, said he became interested in parkour when he was 16 years old from watching YouTube videos. 

“When I saw [Erwin] training at … Club Rush … it just drew me in, and I had to go and talk to him [to] find out how I could learn,” Peterson said. “From then on, it just started escalating until I started doing more and more intricate movements.”

Peterson, who was asked by Erwin last spring to become the president of the club, said it is an honor to hold the title. He said he had only been training about eight months at the time. Peterson said that he was chosen for the position because he attended the meetings the most and Erwin thought he was responsible.  

“[Erwin] told me that I had what it took not only to train parkour with him, but lead … and he trusted me with it,” Peterson said.

Peterson said about 50 people have signed up on campus as members of the club. Club meets are held at the designated area on campus, which is the fire pit next to the fountain, he said.

“The people who actually commit to parkour are those who seek us out personally,” Peterson said.

Members are often approached by non-student St. George residents, and everyone meets up at places like Barefoot Gymnasium, Peterson said.

The club is able to practice at the fire-pit area on campus, Peterson said. He said one of his goals is to expand the designated practice area on campus, and he would like to hold more club meetings on campus in the future.

Influence for club members has come from several avenues, including Las Vegas street performers and YouTube, St. George resident and club participant Skylar Hill said. 

“I saw one guy that was performing on Fremont Street in Vegas,” Hill said. “He flipped over a guy, and I [thought], ‘That’s cool, I want to learn that.’”

Peterson said that the club went to a fundraising event in July called Tranquil Initiation Tradition in Colorado. At the end of the event, there was an obstacle course where one person was timed and another person was ranked on style, he said.

“There are very few competitions in parkour, (which is) the reason why is it is more like an art than a sport, so it is extremely difficult to judge,” Erwin said.

Erwin said there have been zero injuries since the club started. One of the issues that came up when the club was being formed was the potential for injury, he said. Training starts off very basic, and new members are discouraged from working outside on the concrete until they are secure in the basics and are able to perform in a gymnastics setting, he said.

“We always have safety measures for every movement we do,” Erwin said. “That way, very few people get injured. It’s like building blocks: Before you see the guys do crazy things, they have done it a million time inside the padded environments.”

Parkour movements are practiced on a small scale until mastered, Erwin said. Then each movement is built upon.

“Basically, you have to start small,” Erwin said.

The club, Erwin said, had a rough start due to conflicts arising about the safety of the club members and concerns about damaging property.

Erwin, who was club president at the time, said the club adviser, Kathryn Ott, went to a meeting in defense of the club May 22. The result of the meeting was that the club could practice in a designated area on campus.

“She was the only faculty (member) … at the meeting [who] was on our side,” Erwin said. “The club president was not invited to the meeting on whether or not the club should be shut down.” 

Erwin said parkour is gaining popularity.

“It is one of those things you can do without a ball (or) without a bat — anybody can do it … All you need is your body,” Erwin said.

For more information, contact Peterson at [email protected].

A pair of identical twins attending Dixie State University have kick started a business out of their garage manufacturing innovative skimboards.

 

St. George locals Duran Bickmore, a junior CIT major, and Harbor Bickmore, a junior art major, founded Bick Skimboards in 2013 when they began selling skimboarding merchandise, from T-shirts to action videos. 

 

The two, with a passion for filmmaking and, of course, skimming shorelines, have been applying entrepreneurial skills they’re learning at DSU — like web design, graphic design and accounting — to bring their business to life. Harbor Bickmore said he’s applied Bick Skimboards to numerous class projects, from the creation of advertisements to magazine spreads. 

 

“I incorporate all of my homework assignments into the business,” Harbor Bickmore said. “I just center my classes around the business so it makes it fun for me, and it doesn’t feel like homework; it’s something I would have to do anyway … We call that double-dipping.” 

 

The skim-addict twins have profited almost $200 from selling their videos and clothing so far — but they’re just getting started. The brothers began selling their first custom skimboard this month: The Cult, which is crafted out of Baltic birch and bamboo with an innovative shape designed specifically for tricks. It also features a top pad made out of cork, which is more lightweight than foam, the typical material of choice for most skimboard manufacturers today, Harbor Bickmore said.  

 

The Bickmore brothers said they discovered the formula for The Cult sooner than expected, but not without plenty of trial and error and months of research for the best design and materials.

 

“It seemed like there wasn’t any other way to [make a skimboard], so when we finally did get something that actually worked, it was so exciting,” Harbor Bickmore said. “I came home and was bragging to my parents, and it was even unexpected. It kind of renewed my love for the sport and the business and just motivated me because [we] actually did something really really good.” 

 

The twins’ desire to offer more options to the St. George skimboarding community was a catalyst to the creation of Bick Skimboards.

 

“There’s pretty much one company that dominates the skimboarding world right now, and with that there’s not much variety,” Harbor Bickmore said. “… So, basically, we just want to give people something new — some variety to choose from. Our boards are definitely different from any other board I’ve ever ridden, and it’s a good thing; I’m really excited about it.” 

 

The brothers said so far their experience as business partners has gone smoothly.  

 

“We’re super similar, so we have similar ideas about visually what we want [the company] to look like — the image we want it to present — and I never have to worry about a punk business partner who doesn’t work or wants to pull one on me, so it’s nice,” Harbor Bickmore said.

 

Any student with the right blend of motivation and passion can apply him or herself to start a business, especially with the variety of class assignments required in order to obtain a degree, Duran Bickmore said. 

 

“You have to have a really strong desire because it’s not easy a lot of the time,” Duran Bickmore said. “And you just have to know how to figure stuff out … (But) you’ll find out what you need to do to start your business if the passion is there.” 

 

While the Bickmore twins’ company is still a work in progress, so far they’re excited to have set it in motion. Duran Bickmore said they plan to continue producing more skimboarding merchandise, and they hope The Cult stirs buyer interest by next summer.

 

To keep up with the Bickmore twins’ progress or to find out more about their products, follow Bick Skimboards on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and visit www.bickskimboards.com. 

Dixie State University’s presence off campus fueled the board of trustees’ latest meeting.

The board of trustees hosted its second meeting of the academic year Friday. Discussion highlighted DSU hosting Tanzanian nurses for a six-week course; experiential learning opportunities for DSU students; and proposals for future academic programs.

Carole Grady, school of nursing and health sciences dean, said Tanzanian nurses will embark to DSU next summer. The east African country faces extreme hardships in regards to health care, so the program should help alleviate those long-term issues, she said.

Grady said the program begins next summer, and out of 70 applicants for the opportunity, 10 were chosen.

Eric Pederson, science and technology dean, presented information about experiential learning for DSU students at Zion National Park. Pederson said students can sign up for the field courses 60 days prior to their starting dates, with the first one running from May 15, 2015 to May 24.

The field courses, he said, provide students with the quickest and most effective way to earn credit.

“There are 170,000 students in Utah higher education, and any one of them could get their [science credit] while in the park,” Pederson said.

The board also approved numerous academic programs anticipated to go into effect next August: a bachelors of both science and art in dance; new bachelors of science in biology emphases such as biological sciences, biomedical sciences and natural sciences; and four minor degrees in CIT.

Discussion about new programs centered around the proposed bachelor of individualized studies degree. The degree “will be a rigorous and versatile degree that produces adaptive, autonomous, and autodidactic graduates” who “will design their plans through a reflective process of self-driven but faculty-guided curriculum building,” the executive summary stated.

“A lot of the programs we’re implementing … a lot of students have expressed interest in,” said Student Body President Gregory J. Layton, a senior English major form Cottonwood Heights and board of trustees member.

The board meets again Jan. 30.