Dana Dzwoniarek
Bethany Talbot
History 2700
Professor Earl Mulderink
Service Learning Project: A Comprehensive History of SUU
Project Title and Timetable:
When first encountered with the opportunity to give service to the community through historical research, the first idea that came to mind was that of helping further knowledge about and pride in Southern Utah University. Realizing that many students, prospective students and community members may be unclear or completely unaware of the origins of the school, the rich historical history and the background on many of the buildings that they see everyday, we decided to make our project focus on making this information more available to a wider range of people, hoping to instill a sense of belonging, unity and pride among SUU students and those affected by the establishment. In preliminary discussions a number of solutions presented themselves. Among all the various ideas, we decided to create and produce an informative brochure for distribution. To be effective, the brochure needed to contain information on various buildings, a history of the school and an address from President Bennion. We planned this project with a timetable in mind of about eight weeks. The first five weeks were committed to a thorough research of all the buildings on campus. The following three weeks were devoted to compilation, corrections and publishing of the brochure. It is our hope that this project will be a tool for informing people for years to come and may be a basis for further research of SUU and it’s wonderful legacy
This project of gathering information about SUU’s campus and designing it to be in a brochure form will have a wide and reaching audience. From prospective students to alumni and all people in between, it will be a useful brochure.
The main audience that this Campus Walking Tour brochure will impact will be the SUU School Relations Office and the prospective students they reach every year. The School Relations Office is the office on-campus that is responsible for all recruiting for SUU. Every year they talk to thousands of high school and transfer students about the benefit of receiving an education at Southern Utah University. This brochure may be an aid in that effort. The School Relations Office, in conjunction with the Hosting Center is also responsible for all campus tours. These campus tours are typically given by the Presidential Ambassadors, who give prospective students a ‘student’s view’ of SUU and a background of the university. Scheduled tours are given Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. At times, especially during holidays, extended breaks and summer, the Presidential Ambassadors are not able to give tours to every individual that requests an odd tour time. At that time, the School Relations staff may refer the individuals to the new Campus Walking Tour brochure where they may have a view of the campus and receive some background information. Also included with the Campus Walking Tour brochure will be some other information about SUU’s academic programs, athletics and a wide variety of other campus information.
Alumni may also be affected by this project. Many times alumni come back to the campus to find a new building on campus they have not previously seen or used before. This brochure may be able to answer a few of the questions of the alumni about some of the newer buildings on campus including the new J.L. Sorensen Physical Education Building or the Gerald R. Sherratt Library.
The Campus Walking Tour brochure will also affect many individuals who are visiting SUU’s campus for the first time. These may be individuals who are not prospective students, but who are on the campus for such events as the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Utah Summer Games or various other conferences or events that take place on the campus every year. Brochures will be placed near the Admissions Office in the Sharwan Smith Student Center where many individuals stop to pick up applications that are available outside the main office after-hours, on weekends and holidays. The Admissions Office is allowing this brochure to be placed in one of the slots where individuals can pick up applications. This brochure will also be placed in the Administration Building. On the first floor of the Administration Building, located in the lobby outside of the Human Resources Office, are some slots where university view books and other information is available. The Campus Walking Tour brochure will be placed in one of those slots also. The audience that will be targeted there will be those who are applying or interviewing for jobs on SUU’s campus or individuals who are in the building for meetings with the President of the University or any of his administrative staff.
Many entities on-campus were utilized for this project. The School Relations Office and the Presidential Ambassadors were the main contacts. SUU’s Public Relations Office and the Gerald R. Sherratt Library are also places were further information could be gathered should this information or project be continued on in the future.
As stated before, the School Relations Office is the office that is responsible for the recruitment of future students for the university. It is a hub of information about facts, figures, statistics and history for the university. The main source used for this project was the Presidential Ambassador Handbook. Contained within this handbook are all the rules, regulations and goals for the organization. Also included in the handbook is the information that the Ambassadors use to conduct campus tours. This book has information for nearly all the buildings on the campus. We took excerpts of the handbook to compile the Campus Walking Tour brochure. The information used for the campus tour is included in it’s entirety at the back of this report. The handbook, with permission, was reformatted for this report. [NOTE: Dana was the President of the Ambassadors during the 2000-2001 school year and helped to compile this very handbook and information over the past three years.] Kristian Olsen, the advisor of the Presidential Ambassadors and Ethan Shumway, 2001-2002 President were the main contacts.
For further research or information regarding the newest facts, figures or statistics of the university, SUU’s Public Relations Office would be the best contact. Every year SUU is expanding and growing. New information may be obtained from this office about the future addition of new buildings. The ‘quick facts’ may also be changing over the years and information about those may be obtained from the Public Relations Office.
The Gerald R. Sherratt Library would be the most valuable contact for further research regarding SUU’s rich history. The Special Collections section on the Garden level will have many books and information regarding the construction and stories behind many of the buildings on the campus.
Explanation of workload:
In order to complete the brochure in a timely manner and in an effective format, a lot of research was conducted in a small amount of time. Information was taken from many places- interviews with the SUU state and local representatives, Aaron Jensen and Michelle Wilson; interviews with the Presidential Ambassadors President Ethan Shumway; compilations of histories prepared by Dana Dzwoniarek in the Presidential Ambassador’s handbook; and research in the Special Collections of the Gerald Sherrat Library. From all of these sources and numerous others, we compiled a general summary of all of the buildings on campus. Due to space restrictions, however, there was only room for a few buildings. We chose to include the Braithwaite Liberal Arts Center because it was the second building completed on campus, it functions as SUU’s own Fine Arts Gallery to display student as well as professional art, as well as functioning as the Literature, English, French, Spanish and German departments. Also included in the brochure is Old Main, Suu’s first building- completed in 1898. Old Main is the departmental building for the College of Education, which has the largest enrollment on campus. The Gerald R Sherratt Library was included because it is a grand edition to the campus and the focal point of study and research. The Library is the newest building on campus next to the J.L. Sorenson Physical Education Building. This building is included in the brochure because it contributes a significant service to the students at SUU. This building’s history with SUU is relatively new but worth citing. The last building included in the brochure is the Centurium. This building functions as a memorial for the 100th year of the founding of SUU. In between the pillars of the structure are twelve of the greatest intellectuals of the century. This building embodies the history of learning itself and stands as a legacy to what goals the students at SUU are striving for.
We felt that all these buildings contribute historical significance to our school and should be included in the history of the school. In addition to the buildings, we included a general summary of the history of SUU, from it’s founding to it’s current status as a four year University. Together, the research and compilation process took about five weeks to gather the information and funnel it into a useful and precise format.
After completing the research for the brochure, we used Quark Xpress computer program to put the brochure into an efficient layout. All of the information was typed into the computer and attached to a photo of the building and then arranged aesthetically. Included on the back is an address from President Bennion and a small box of quick interesting facts on SUU that may interest people.
After final revisions and drafts, the final copy of the brochure was printed onto photo paper and folded-ready for distribution. This process took about three weeks to complete and be ready to hand out to students and community members. The workload of this project was about 23 hours total from the beginning of research to the printing of the first copy.
Only a few technology resources were related in the compilation of the Campus Walking Tour brochure. Computer software and the Internet were the main sources.
To put together and layout the brochure, Quark Xpress was used. Quark is a computer software program that is primarily used by those laying out advertisements and newsletters. It is a valuable program when trying to place pictures and text in the same document. Quark Xpress was accessed from the computer lab located in the Centrum.
To gather information for a few aspects of the brochure, the Internet was used. SUU’s home page, www.suu.edu was used to gather the quick facts and a few of the pictures.
Connections to Other Service Learning projects in History:
Many other ideas were presented to help encourage interest in the history of SUU and to actively educate others. Due to time restraints and workload anticipation, we were unable to include these in our project, but a few of the ideas are worthwhile and would be great additions to SUU. First of all, a great way to reach a lot of prospective students would be to include all of the information contained in the brochure on the SUU website. This way, anyone who is looking through the website can look up interesting facts and statistics of SUU. More information could be added- updated histories and biographies of people involved in the founding of SUU, a general history of Cedar City and plans for the future of SUU. These web pages would provide a deeper insight to SUU, as well as provide a way to reach out to a wider audience- perhaps recruiting more students to SUU and Cedar City. Another project linked to the brochure is an actual walking tour of the campus that follows the information in the brochure. Taking an actual tour of the campus and seeing first hand the history of the school would bring the brochure and SUU to life. Community members would have a chance to become familiar with the school that has always been amongst them; prospective students could get a feel for warmth and sense of community at SUU. The history would truly mean more once experienced first hand. Ideally the tour would start at one end of the school and make a loop around and through many of the important buildings and perhaps include seminars with officials representing the school- President Bennion, the SUUSA President, the Dean of Students and others who know specific facts and statistics on SUU.
Another prospective project could be a compilation of important people in the history of SUU and Cedar City for the Special Collections in the Gerald R Sherratt Library. There are many historical figures that have contributed to the quality of the school and the community that have been overlooked or forgotten; former Presidents of the school, founders of the school, early municipal leaders of Cedar and their contribution to the community. It would be worth the time and effort to memorialize these people, whom without, our society would not be what it is today.
All of these projects would enhance the availability of information on SUU and bring the history of SUU into a sharper focus- hopefully generating the pride and sense of unity that we started out to accomplish.