Utah Tech University, formerly Dixie State and more, has a troubling past. Since its founding, UT’s associations with the confederacy and racism have created a longstanding controversy that led to the name change.
To understand how UT blazed these trails, one must go to the very beginning.
1911-1935
In 1911, Utah Tech was founded as the St. George Stake Academy, which housed both high school and college students.
The St. George Stake Academy, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was founded after the community felt that an educational program for ninth-12 grades and beyond was vital.
Trevor Cox, visiting assistant librarian for heritage, culture and regional history, said: “There were a lot of ties with the college and the community. They [St. George Stake Academy] originally started out as a high school that was part of the college, and they worked together for decades, at least until the ’50s or ’60s.”
In 1916, it became Dixie Normal College. Its founder and trustee during this time was Edward Hunter Snow, who was reportedly unlikely to be a Confederate sympathizer and was targeted by the Ku Klux Klan when he served his LDS mission in the south, though information on this is scarce.
Sources vary on the day the university was founded; however, one source said its foundation was Sept. 19, 1911. Ever since, the college’s Foundation Day was known as “D-Day” and then later became “D-Week” to extend the celebration; a tradition celebrated over a century later.
In an article by “The Dixie,” the student news organization at the time, it was reported that students hiked up the hill to whitewash a D on the hill—a tradition still celebrated to this day.
They wrote, “The students of the Dixie Academy have always held up an ideal of leaving something to Dixie to remember them by.”
1950-2000s
In an article written by Makoto Hunter from Brigham Young University, Hunter wrote: “In 1952, Dixie College changed its mascot from ‘the Flyers’ to ‘Rodney the Rebel.’ In 1959, the community embraced the Confederate battle flag as a secondary school symbol. Then, in 1966, the yearbook’s name changed from ‘The Dixie’ to ‘The Confederate.'”
Until the early ’90s, Dixie College adopted the Confederate flag as their logo, waving it at games, setting up Confederate soldier statues around campus, wearing costumes, participating in activities that made light of slavery such as mock lynchings, “Monster Mash” dance where students dressed in blackface, and more that fully embraced the Confederacy.
the Washington County Historical Society.
Caitlinn Grimm, visiting assistant librarian and interim head of Special Collections archivist, said: “The school’s identity was wrapped up in Confederate symbolism as early as the 1950s, and the Confederate battle flag and soldier mascot only stopped being used in the 1990s to early 2000s.”
When the Civil Rights Movement started, this became more than just a symbol; there were also student events called “slave days,” where students wore blackface as late as the 1990s and organized mock slave auctions and fake lynchings.
Nancy Ross, associate professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences and department chair, said: “The community liked to think about itself as like a thing apart, a thing set apart, and like it’s in its own bubble. But really, throughout the 20th century, it [the community] was responding to national trends and pulling against the progressive direction of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Despite this, there was a sense of belonging amongst students. In 1977, the Dixie Indian Club won first place for their float at the homecoming parade.
The Dixie Sun reported: “The club has been a great factor in uniting us together, and we are able to do more than when we were all scattered. I feel that we need to strive to do our best in all that we set out to do. Whether it be in float building or in school or whatever we do because we are the examples of our people.”
Student events included dances, which were incredibly popular at the time, and the Sand Blast, where there were reportedly “smiles and designer jeans, and watermelon, chili burgers, potato chips, ice cream bars, and soda pop — lots of soda pop, and cliff climbing, and nausea.”
These events started long-standing traditions that are still celebrated today, like the Battle of the Ax.
“One of my favorite things about UT’s history is that women were involved from the beginning, fundraising, as staff, and as students, even serving in the school’s student police and court systems,” Grimm said. “Often, schools started during this time period were only for men, and women students were allowed later.”
Despite steps toward a stronger future, in 1996, a racially motivated attack shocked students and stalled progress.
News reporting on this event is difficult to find; however, only one article said the attacker was Robert Allen Little Jr., who was 18 years old, placed a bomb outside the college’s Shiloh Dormitory Oct. 10, 1993, in the room of two Black students, destroying their belongings.
This pipe bomb had the letters KKK written on it, and after the attack, these students were still targeted, forcing them to leave the school for their own safety.
Ross said: “There’s a sense in which an older generation of people sometimes want to undermine what was framed certainly within many circles, many white circles in the United States, which was that racism was not a moral issue. It was a personal choice and that’s now how we understand it now, we understand that’s not what racism is.”
2010-now
In 2013, Dixie State College gained university status, which prompted further change toward a more inclusive and accepting university.
“After many smaller steps and debate, the university updated its name from Dixie State University to Utah Tech University in 2022,” Grimm said. “Faculty and students have been working together to foster belonging since the institution’s founding, including clubs and student organizations, research and presentations confronting tough topics.”
Finally, and despite controversy, in 2022, the university changed its name to Utah Tech, and it continues to grow and change every day.
Ross said: “I understand that this is a very hot button topic and that we have finally changed our name, and that’s good. It is challenging, though, to understand that this, for many folks, is tied up in a past where it’s not just slavery existed, but slavery that was central to an economic system.”
Despite setbacks like HB 261 and 265, administrative lawsuits, the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs like the Center for Inclusion and Belonging, each decade brings new changes and growth.
There are a multiplicity of programs and resources that have helped students feel a sense of belonging, including The Booth Wellness Center, which provides students with free mental health care, and the Disability Resource Center, where students are given the help they need in the classroom.
Utah Tech is also more diverse than ever.
With the name change, the university has since started construction on the new General Education Building, made plans to renovate and update the campus, and created plans to open a south campus.
Ross said: “I don’t think we know how to make peace with ourselves or find better ways to say, ‘Once upon a time we did this, and we’re going to make different choices now.’ And it’s not to say that there aren’t good things, but there aren’t only good things. The history of most places is complex. Like when we’re looking at history, we need to honor that complexity.”
