Sunday, 20 July 2008
UVU drops some trade classes Print E-mail
Brittani Lusk - Daily Herald

Officials at Utah Valley University say they aren't leaving their roots behind in their new university mission, but finding places to study trades is getting harder as UVU cuts classes.
UVU has dropped trade programs such as welding and heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and applied technology colleges are only picking up some of the slack, leaving students and employers out in the cold.

Dean Gunther, who runs Gunther's Comfort Air in American Fork, said he can't find technicians with training now that UVU has dropped its program in air conditioning and refrigeration.

Gunther said he has to train new employees on the job while waiting for them to complete an apprenticeship program. He said that method isn't creating a workforce as well-prepared as before.

"They don't get the quality of training that we got out of UVSC," Gunther said.

Educators say a lack of interest and lack of resources makes certain trade programs hard to come by.

"We haven't started a cohort in electronics and computer technology for three years and it has been two years since our last cohort in welding or heating, ventilation and air conditioning. All three of these programs are not offered anymore because student enrollment dropped to a level where the programs could not be sustained," said Ernest Carey, dean of the College of Technology and Computing at UVU, in an e-mail.

Barry Hallsted, chairman of the construction technologies department at UVU, said UVSC's HVAC program was once booming with 240 students and 11 faculty.

"It was a fabulous program," Hallsted said.

The problem came when students weren't sticking around to finish their degrees. Six months of training can be sufficient to get a job, so students were leaving.

"The program was so good that it kind of cannibalized itself," Hallsted said.

Now, UVU offers a 40-credit, four-year apprenticeship program in conjunction with Mountainland Applied Technology College. Students work full time and take classes at night.

But UVU apprenticeship coordinator Dale Olson said the program is shifting away from UVU toward MATC. Recently, school officials announced that UVU would no longer be accepting credit for first-year apprenticeship courses. Students at UVU and MATC take the same classes, but students who paid UVU tuition would get credit at UVU.

Now, anyone who wants to sign up must do it through the applied technology school. Olson said the trend could continue into the second year, but nothing has been announced. UVU does, however, accept up to 16 credits of experiential course work. That way the courses will transfer from MATC to UVU.

Classes in welding, another program cut by the school, are offered at MATC, but not to the extent they used to be at UVSC. Salt Lake Community College also offers courses in both welding and HVAC.

MATC marketing director Mark Middlebrook said the school can only offer so many courses because resources only go so far.

"We're limited ... because of our facilities and funding," Middlebrook said.

He said MATC is hoping for state funding that will allow the school, which just lost some of its office space to UVU, to keep growing.

With all the programs that have been cut or moved into the applied technology school realm, some are worried that UVU has abandoned the trades all together. Hallsted said things are changing, but that doesn't constitute abandonment.

"We're absolutely not abandoning the trades, what we're doing, we're elevating the trades," he said.

By elevating, Hallsted said he means UVU is giving students the skills they need to be more than machine operators -- managers and business owners.

"We still embrace the trades, we're just training at a different level. It's actually wonderful," Hallsted said.

• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I've said it before and I'll say it again...it's time for our country to add to it's educational process.

Instead of concentrating on a strictly academic education...we should be considering vocational education as well.

I would like to see a return of apprenticeship programs in our schools.

Not every student is going to be able to afford a college education. Not every student has an aptitude for college.

But I can guarantee that our children are going to need to be prepared to enter the work force...and they are just not receiving the preparation that they need to succeed.

If a student has an aptitude or interest in mechanics, how about providing classes geared toward that end.

If a student has an aptitude or interest in carpentry, or electronics, etc. how about providing math classes geared toward those ends.

By the time the student becomes a Jr. in High School, they would have covered the basics toward an apprenticeship, and can do their apprenticeship after school.

By the time they graduate, they are provided with the experience and skills to enter into the work force and provide for themselves.

And those students with an aptitude or interest in medicine, or legal careers, etc. can opt for the academic education and advance to institutions of higher education.

I have to agree with all you said Jaye. Just this week I had to call the Bismarck State College to find I&C Techs. We do not seem to have many schools in the west that teach these skills anymore.

Our arrogant society has determined that jobs that require a little dirt under the fingernails are to be looked down at. Even to the extent that we believe that there are jobs that are beneath anyone in our society to do and we must import labor from third world countries to get it done.

This is distressing to me. The wealth of the United States was created on the backs of blue collar workers, but now that we "seem" to be wealthy, we toss them away, robbing their pension funds, robbing their social security funds, and leaving them to fend for themselves in their old age.

We have essentially neutered our unions who protected the blue collar worker. Yet every politician who passes by panders to them as if they were the only group of people that politician is interested in.

Lastly, we shipped real jobs that made real goods that sold for real money, overseas. Then we wonder why we are struggling financially as a country.

Somehow we need to get the message to our kids that they can make a heck of a lot more money as a boilermaker, or pipefitter than they can repairing someone's computer. Most of the fitters I have had work for me make close to if not over six-figures.

We need to boot out the arrogant leadership in our colleges and provide real training for our kids that will provide real careers for them.

At UVU many of "Trades" classes have been replaced by "Studies" classes in the Humanities. "Trades" classes a far more to finance than the "studies" classes. "Studies" classes can be taught by anyone. "Trades" must be taught by someone with deep academic and business experience.

"Studies" classes are built on liberal political concept that "all ideas are equal." "Trades" are build on absolutes.

Right now students at UVU are asking for non-rigorous "Studies" classes, not "Trades." To survive UVU must give students what they want.

There has been a lot of subterfuge regarding the direction that UVSC has been headed for the past few years. While words have repeatedly assured us that the trades would continue to be taught, classes have been cut each year since the current president (soon to be replaced) took office.
The first to go was the machinist program, followed by the electronics, followed by welding, heating and air conditioning and a few I probably can not recall.
Each time these classes were cut, some very good people lost their jobs along with their benefits which many had worked toward for over 20 years.
One man in particular comes to mind, who lost his full time job of over 20 years, and was promptly hired to teach, on a part time basis with no benefits, due to his vast knowledge.

The Gunther Trades building and its programs will continue to shrink in size, I am sure as the University continues to expect every one to waste 2 more years of their lives and money so they can hang a piece of paper on their wall.

I notice that mention is made that the reason the courses have been dropped, is that students were able to get jobs with only 6 months of class time.
Anyone should be able see that this is not a reason to eliminate the programs, but perhaps they need to be curtailed in length of course work to allow more to complete the course rather than force everyone to take 4 years of study which is certainly not the norm for technical skills.

During the past 5 years, UVSC has taken a path that fuels the departure of corporations to other nations as they no longer can find the trained tradesmen to staff their operations in this nation.

While we see a move toward on line classwork (A bit behind the times) in the other divisions of UVU, it appears that the Gunther Trades and the Electronics programs have not been adjusted to fit their proper role. So much could have been done with those trades programs since those trade skills are all required to operate the many UVU buildings on the campuses in Utah County and Wasatch county. Unlimited on the job training could be obtained for the students if the college had forward looking management, rather than the sort we now have who came to Utah with the idea of converting the hick college to a proper University where millions are spent on assorted courses of dubious worth to society.

It is too bad that those men who helped build UVSC with their time and money were not able to have their money put to better use.

mariner wrote:
I have to agree with all you said Jaye. Just this week I had to call the Bismarck State College to find I&C Techs. We do not seem to have many schools in the west that teach these skills anymore.

Our arrogant society has determined that jobs that require a little dirt under the fingernails are to be looked down at. Even to the extent that we believe that there are jobs that are beneath anyone in our society to do and we must import labor from third world countries to get it done.

This is distressing to me. The wealth of the United States was created on the backs of blue collar workers, but now that we "seem" to be wealthy, we toss them away, robbing their pension funds, robbing their social security funds, and leaving them to fend for themselves in their old age.

We have essentially neutered our unions who protected the blue collar worker. Yet every politician who passes by panders to them as if they were the only group of people that politician is interested in.

Lastly, we shipped real jobs that made real goods that sold for real money, overseas. Then we wonder why we are struggling financially as a country.

Somehow we need to get the message to our kids that they can make a heck of a lot more money as a boilermaker, or pipefitter than they can repairing someone's computer. Most of the fitters I have had work for me make close to if not over six-figures.

We need to boot out the arrogant leadership in our colleges and provide real training for our kids that will provide real careers for them.

I'm not sure what I&C Techs are but Pima Community College in Arizona offers many different trade school options.
http://www.pima.edu/program/services-trades/