Decades of research suggests that supportive faculty communication improves student retention and progression; however, most communication interventions occurred at on-site universities and were implemented briefly in one or several courses. In this article, we describe the outcomes of a consistent, personalized student outreach program…

The vision of Utah's secondary Career & Technical (CTE) programs is to prepare students for success by providing them with relevant and rigorous learning experiences that align with the needs of Utah's workforce and connect them to postsecondary opportunities. Utah's secondary CTE programs are designed to support students in exploring their…

Academic Medical Centers (AMC) are unique healthcare resources that offer services to their local communities. As societal priorities shift, AMCs are identifying approaches to practice community engagement. Although many examples of AMCs exist in the literature, few have targeted resources for specific health topics like occupational health. This…

Background: Parent education programs take many forms and attempt to raise parents' awareness of factors that positively affect child development. Program effectiveness varies greatly depending on whether parents feel engaged and interested by program content. Purpose: This article discusses a novel, "arts-informed" approach to parent…

The article discusses a year-long outreach activity, "Sparking interest in German." Five University of Utah German students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers. At the heart of this outreach project were questions such as whether student-run outreach programs could truly…

With the continued growth and evolution of distance education at many colleges and universities, academic librarians must be prepared to respond to the changing needs of distance users. This article discusses the results of a utilization assessment of distance instructors at five midsized American universities. The results inform libraries about…

STEM-related educational outreach offers students enriching opportunities to become more familiar with science, in terms of how it relates to their daily lives and with respect to possible career paths that they might want to follow. At the same time, graduate student trainees providing that outreach act as important resources for elementary and…

Environmental sustainability outreach programs can benefit significantly by connecting to and fostering change within the Spanish speaking community. This article demonstrates a case study in which the authors partnered with a local Latino organization through an undergraduate service learning project. The goals were to incorporate environmentally…

As more students, faculty, and staff from traditionally underrepresented groups enter universities and colleges, academic libraries must find ways to reach out to these groups in order to better meet their unique educational needs. In this article, librarians from two large public universities describe how they used data about their communities to…

This chapter outlines the birth and growth of a veterans' program in Salt Lake City, Utah, and discusses next steps in spurring additional innovations and advancements to improve service for student veterans in community colleges.

This annual report describes Utah System of Higher Education's progress in the 2015-2016 academic year in the following areas: (1) Strategic plan; (2) Enrollment and completion; (3) Paying for college; (4) Funding higher education; (5) College preparation; (6) Concurrent enrollment and math; (7) Outreach and access; and (8) Industry and the…

Underwater robots (or ROVs: Remotely Operated Vehicles as they are typically called in industry) have recently become a very popular instructional STEM activity. Nationally, ROVs have been used in science and technology classrooms for several years in cities such as Seattle, San Diego, Virginia Beach, and other coastal areas. In the past two…

We argue the emergence of a shift in U.S. language education policy discourses from an equity/heritage (EH) framework focused on equity for English learners and non-English heritage languages, toward a global human capital (GHC) framework linked to neoliberal considerations of the language skills of individuals and nations. This discursive shift…

We present a user-friendly, data-driven Web site (http://thermal.gg.utah.edu/facilities/epo/) for a geothermal, climate change observatory that is educational for the general public, students, and researchers alike. The Emigrant Pass Observatory (EPO), located in the Grouse Creek Mountains in northwestern Utah, gathers both meteorological data…

We describe experience with a pilot week-long, No-Child-Left-Inside (NCLI), outdoor program implemented in Cache Valley, Utah, in 2012. Through response analysis of a "pre-then-post" children's survey and a parent-completed demographic survey, we assess program effectiveness in raising children's enthusiasm for nature-related behaviors…