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"Bright students with resources and less prepared students with resources will still have access," says Hall. "It's the prepared students with no resources we need to worry about most. That's why need-based scholarships are such a high priority for us in fundraising." As state financing of higher education recedes before a tidal wave of unfunded federal mandates and tax cuts, the language of private enterprise has crept into public discourse. When legislators talk about accountability measurements, performance standards and cost-cutting, they're saying they want more for the money they do invest on behalf of taxpayers. Albrecht and Hall say that Utah State has risen to the challenge. Admission standards were raised so no state dollars would be wasted on ill-prepared students who drop out their first year. As a result, the freshman class has surpassed previous averages in ACT scores and high school GPAs for two consecutive years. The university also has undergone the most thorough self-examination in its 116-year history. All seven colleges have restructured and streamlined programs in order to become more efficient, effective and relevant. Dollars saved have been dedicated to lowering the student-faculty ratio and other priorities that are critical to the university's academic mission. The colleges want to integrate classroom assignments with economic trends and immerse students in the interdisciplinary teamwork that will be a minimum survival skill in a complex, multicultural, constantly changing global economy. In a business incubator launched by the colleges of Business and Engineering, engineering and computer science students design and test new products and technologies, while business students create business plans based on their market analyses. A reorganized College of Natural Resources not only hopes to save money but prepare students equally well in people and technical skills. The fractious public land disputes of the interior West require calm heads at public hearings and a knack for mediating differences. The School of the Arts promoted by the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences is uniting programs that used to be scattered among departments in a cross-fertilization of the musical, theatrical, studio and landscape arts. These endeavors are creative, even ambitious for a university that lost 37 professors and top administrators last year, largely to better-paying opportunities elsewhere. Departing faculty cite salary freezes and pay scales that lag 16 percent behind their peers at comparable universities as a key factor in their decision to leave. We've invested our time and energy in re-envisioning ourselves, says Hall, because Utah State is determined to continue its tradition of preparing students for the marketplace and public service. The roster of Utah State alumni includes CEOs and senior managers of Fortune 500 companies like Nike and Hewlett-Packard; entrepreneurs in the biomedical and computer industries; astronauts and earthquake geologists; the chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission; a governor and a Senate minority leader from Nevada; the first woman to head the Bureau of Land Management; a nationally recognized fiction writer. more
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