Dixie State University’s continuous growth and academic success were highlighted at the board of trustees first meeting of the school year on Friday.
Topics discussed included academic program research, the new speech policy and the president’s strategic plan for DSU.
Matthew Devore, a junior integrated studies major from Mesquite, Nevada, was also sworn in as a new member of the board for his term as student body president of DSU.
David Wade, academic program and curriculum director, presented the 10-month study for academic research with findings on how DSU can grow its university status.
Wade said the research suggests master’s degree programs will be most successful at DSU due to research collected from surrounding universities and interests of students. The plan is to have 42 bachelor’s degrees and three master’s degrees by 2020, Wade said.
This plan is to increase the number of degrees is part of President Biff Williams’ plan to go from “status to stature”, which means DSU will be a full-grown university with master’s programs.
“The goal of the strategic plan was to create our vision,” Williams said.
The strategic plan not only outlines DSU’s goals, but who is going to put these into action, Williams said.
The board approved the new speech policy for DSU. Greg Soderberg, Assistant Utah Attorney General, presented the new speech policy to the board.
“It was obvious to [the Utah Attorney General’s office] that the policy needed to be updated,” Soderberg said.
Soderberg said he looked at other universities’ speech policies in Utah to try to make DSU’s policy as better than before. Soderberg came down to DSU to provide training on public speech and due process.
“The policy is really intended to cover all aspects of speech on campus, student speech, commercial speech, university employee speech and speech in its different forms on campus.” Soderberg said.
The board members and committees also reported on all the upgrades and projects that are in the works, such as the new buildings and academic programs. All of these improvements are all a part of the president’s strategic plan to be completed in 2020.
