The Dixie College community wants to give lawmakers a million-dollar incentive to let the community college offer some four-year degrees.
The feasibility subcommittee of the Washington County Economic Development Council at Saturday's Rotary Bowl kicks off a campaign to raise $1 million to cover the proposal's transitional costs.Rep. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, has no doubt the cash will be in hand when the Legislature convenes in mid-January.
"The support that we have from our community is very unusual," Hickman said. "It's the old pioneering spirit that we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and we can do it."
Yet the task is daunting. Consider: the Salvation Army, whose volunteers ring bells outside stores throughout the state, last holiday season raised just $165,000. This year's goal is $190,000.
Dixie College had no comment on the community fund-raiser, which seeks 1,000 people to sign off on the proposal and pledge funds. Feasibility subcommittee chairwoman Maureen Booth says she's more worried about the signatures than the cash.
The $1 million, if raised, is hoped to stave off a budget request on Hickman's legislation to upgrade Dixie into a Utah Valley State College model, offering five bachelor's degrees to be phased in over the next two or three years.
While not yet designated, those degrees are likely to include computer science and health services, Hickman said. He believes legislative approval will be easy because the proposal is "a win-win situation for everyone."
The feasibility subcommittee also is gathering resolutions from local governmental officials to lend ammunition to the proposal.
"We have the buildings, the faculty, the interest, the students, we can prove we can (deliver education) cheaper (than university centers) and don't want to charge the taxpayers," Booth said. "Now, who can argue with that?" Dixie would remain a community college. Additional degrees would be taught by Dixie faculty and would not overlap baccalaureate programs, such as education and business, offered at Dixie's University Center and taught by Southern Utah University faculty, Hickman said.
The instructional agreement between the Cedar City university and Dixie has resulted in bickering in recent months.
At issue is who should manage funds for university centers: hosting colleges or the universities that provide the instruction. Dixie, the only state community college not directly receiving university center funds, wants the money so it can determine which programs will best fit the community's needs.
A state audit showed that SUU apparently had sat on most of the $500,000 annually intended for Dixie university center programs. SUU has said tuition revenues from the center, booming under its oversight, had come in more quickly than expected and that it always had intended the money for more programs at Dixie.
The Utah Board of Regents is considering shifting university center funds to the hosting college rather than the delivering institution, without altering the community college's role or mission. A vote is expected Dec. 11.
"We're in master planning on the whole roles and missions of every institution . . . we intend to stay the course on that and work it out in an orderly, businesslike fashion," said regents chairman Charlie Johnson.
The four-year programs push at Dixie has picked up steam. Preliminary results of a study, conducted by a private firm in Olympia, indicates a financial need for the shift; a survey distributed in local newspapers in Utah's sunbelt also showed folks are "overwhelmingly in favor of it," Hickman said.
Four-year degree programs also could have economic impacts on the rapidly growing Washington County, once developers discover the potential for increased educational levels in prospective workers, Hickman said.
Booth says corporations are more likely to donate to institutions with four-year programs.