President’s Letter
Dear Weber State Family:
Earlier this year, I was at a gathering of university presidents in Seattle. One of my counterparts told the group that her institution faced a $4 million cut. In the same sentence, she said she was excited for the future.
I can totally relate.
Closer to home, our state lawmakers enacted legislation requiring Utah’s degree-granting institutions to develop reallocation funding plans. For Weber State University, that meant cutting $6.7 million from our budget, ideally by identifying underperforming programs with low enrollments, few graduates, and little if any market demand, and eliminating them.
If the legislature accepts the proposed cuts, Weber State has the opportunity to reclaim the funding and invest it in high-performing degree programs or areas that meet future students’ and employers’ needs.
While this was an agonizing process, I, too, am excited about the future and confident that Weber State is well-positioned to continue to educate our students and prepare them for careers that will power Utah’s economy.
That spirit of forward thinking is evident in our newly remodeled McKay Education Building, with innovative labs and spaces to train the next generation of Utah teachers and child care professionals.
We continue to invest in high-yield programs that meet industry needs, including on-site courses at Hill Air Force Base and the launch of our new Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program. This past academic year also saw the first Master of Physician Assistant Studies graduates.
True to our core theme of making education accessible to all, we launched our direct admissions initiative for high school seniors in Davis, Morgan, Ogden, and Weber school districts. We also reduced educational costs for current students by replacing physical textbooks with open educational resources.
These are just a handful of the innovations you’ll read about in this year’s report, and why I am confident that the difficult decisions made this spring will help ensure a brilliant future for Weber State and our students.
