Dear University of Utah community,
Happy New Year! As we begin 2024, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our committed students, faculty, staff, researchers, health care providers, donors, alumni and friends for your efforts and contributions during the past year. Thanks to you, the U continues to rise toward excellence, with an even stronger reputation as one of the nation’s leading research universities and a new Wall Street Journal ranking of #1 public university in the West. I want to take a moment to recognize some significant accomplishments we made in 2023, which you’ll find below organized by month.
Charting a course for 2024, we’re guided by our vision to inspire, innovate, serve and have an impact on the lives of all Utahns. This year we will develop a new five-year strategic plan, giving us a unique opportunity to align our efforts across both main and health campuses. This alignment will positively influence our faculty, staff and students as we work to achieve our goals of innovative discovery, statewide service, and providing our students with a quality education that prepares them for successful careers.
As part of these efforts, we will be launching new degrees, certificates and online programs to boost the next frontier in higher education that meet students where they are and improves access to programing across the board. We will also be working to streamline undergraduate general education. Our new career services expansion is now fully embedded in colleges and departments across campus, and we look forward to seeing the impact these efforts have on career placement and success. Additionally, we eagerly anticipate welcoming new leadership to our Colleges of Business and Engineering, as we seek to fill dean positions.
In the coming year, we’ll also be planning for the physical future of our campus, with work already underway to complete a comprehensive 10-year master plan that includes both main and health campus as well as Research Park. We will open this fall the newest living learning facility—the Epicenter, as well as expanding STEM education with the new Applied Sciences building. In addition, we look forward to breaking ground on more housing for our growing student body and begin construction on the John and Marcia Price Engineering building, the Center for Medical Innovation, and the first phase of University of Utah Health’s medical campus in West Valley.
In the area of research, we will continue to make progress toward our goal of $1 billion in external funding and expect to expand our economic impact and development across the state. The Office of the Vice President of Research also anticipates unveiling an exciting new commercialization strategy in collaboration with the Utah System of Higher Education.
This fall will mark our first season in the Big 12 athletic conference, where we look forward to competing on the national stage with rivals new and old. In October, we will have the privilege of serving as the literal national stage when we host of one of three U.S. Presidential Debates. This historic opportunity will showcase our state and university to the world while giving our students and campus the chance to actively engage in the civic process.
I want to again express my appreciation for the dedication and hard work of all members of the U community. Our greatest resource is our people, and I am grateful for your collective efforts in positioning the University of Utah as one of the nation’s top public universities. Thank you for your continued commitment to the U. I look forward to all we will achieve in the new year.
President Taylor Randall
University of Utah
A snapshot of the U's 2023 accomplishments
- On January 2, 2023, Utah football made its second consecutive appearance in the Rose Bowl. The Utes played against Pennsylvania State University in a game watched by over 10 million people, with over 30,000 Utah tickets sold for the second year in a row.
- We announced a historic $50 million gift from the John and Marcia Price Family Foundation to the College of Engineering to benefit students, educational programs, research centers and entrepreneurism, as well as the construction of a new computing and engineering building.
- We launched the Stena Center for Financial Technology in partnership with the Stena Foundation and $65 million in funding to lead out at the crossroads of fintech education with a new entrepreneurial laboratory. The center will include industry-sponsored labs, a start-up incubator, venture funds and fintech-focused degrees and certificates.
- We held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Applied Sciences Project, a $93.5 million endeavor that includes renovation of the historic William Stewart Building and a new 100,000-square-foot building with modern teaching labs and state-of-the-art research facilities. The completed spaces will house world-class scientists addressing the country’s most urgent issues, including energy, air quality, climate change and water management, and will provide additional classrooms and experiential learning opportunities for crucial undergraduate STEM courses.
- We held the first annual campus safety conference. The U’s Department of Public Safety hosted the first Campus Safety Conference and featured Jill McCluskey and Chin Rodger, two grieving mothers determined to alter the trajectory of campus and interpersonal violence. Our goal is to set a national standard for safety practices at a public university.
- We celebrated the completion of a nine-year, $3B capital campaign. The original goal to raise $2B was shattered due to the generosity of the U’s donors. A record 147,700 individual donors from around the world participated in the campaign. Donations will pay for student housing and scholarships; cancer research and care; mental health innovations and interventions; and new classroom, computing and lab spaces. Nearly one-third of donors gave to scholarships and fellowships.
- We celebrated the largest graduating class in the U’s history. The University of Utah graduated 8,723 members of the Class of 2023 on May 4, 2023, at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. Chair of the Special Olympics International and Dignity Index co-creator and University of Utah Impact Scholar Tim Shriver gave the keynote speech for commencement. The U conferred 5,848 bachelor’s degrees; 2,537 master’s degrees; 670 doctoral degrees; 87 juris doctors; 128 doctors of medicine; 83 doctors of nursing practice; 56 doctors of pharmacy; and 46 doctors of dentistry.
- We launched the U Career Success Center. The center formerly known as Career Services was renamed, moved to a location to serve all university students, and put under new leadership. The goal of the center is to lead out on Utah System of Higher Education’s college completion goals, namely career success and metrics beyond college graduation, like job placement and starting salaries.
- We announced plans for a new Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) comprehensive cancer center in Utah County. This second headquarters will be in Vineyard, a growing city embedded in Utah’s tech hub. The plan opens new possibilities for cancer research, prevention and treatments as well as educational opportunities for collaboration with BYU and UVU. The U and HCI in conjunction announced a major matching gift of $75 million from the Huntsman Foundation to move this project forward as quickly as possible. This is the largest single gift by the Jon M. and Karen Huntsman family to Huntsman Cancer Institute since its founding.
- We announced the U’s participation in Micron Technology’s Northwest University Semiconductor Network to reinforce a nationwide commitment to building the semiconductor workforce of the future. The network will drive foundational and emerging research to increase students’ opportunities for experiential learning across the semiconductor ecosystem, with equitable access for underrepresented students, including those in rural and tribal communities.
- Twelve years after officially joining the Pac-12, we reported on an incredibly successful year in athletics. The ’22-23 season was Utah Athletics' most successful to date, with seven conference championships in football, gymnastics, women’s basketball, skiing, softball, men’s tennis and lacrosse. The Utes won six combined individual and team national championships and six national top-16 finishes.
- We opened the Herriman Campus Juniper Building, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the U and SLCC. This visionary project offers students a seamless journey toward achieving higher education. At the Herriman campus, students seeking an associate degree through SLCC can effortlessly transfer to the U for a bachelor’s degree. Students can now pursue two degrees in one location. SLCC and the U anticipate that within the first year, the new campus will serve over 2,000 students and grow to serve some 7,000 students by 2025.
- We announced our athletics move to the Big 12 conference beginning in the 2024-25 athletics season.
- As part of our commitment to include people from all faith traditions into our expansive U community, we named Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America, a leading national interfaith organization, a University of Utah Impact Scholar.
- We opened the Katharine B. Garff Honors Tower at Kahlert Village—the U’s largest living-learning community. The 4th tower expands the facility by 400 beds, bringing the total number of beds up to 1,422. The Garff Honors Tower joins three previously completed Kahlert Village wings—the Heather Kahlert Technology Tower, the Gail Miller Community Engagement Tower and the Patricia Child Health and Wellness Tower. Each tower features themed living-learning communities designed to help students find their purpose, their passion and their people—a vision that started with Kahlert’s desire to help more students engage with technology.
- We announced the inaugural $1.5 million Wilkes Climate Science and Policy Center Prize. The Seattle-based biotech company Lumen Bioscience beat 77 international teams with their proposal to drastically reduce methane emissions from dairy and beef cattle using a patented mixture of enzyme proteins. The U hopes this successful debut of the Wilkes Center Climate Prize will demonstrate how the competition can spur further innovation and climate change solutions in coming years.
- We announced that for the tenth year in a row, the U broke its own record in external research funding, reaching $768 million in FY23.
- For the fourth year in a row, the U welcomed a record number of 5,560 incoming students to its campus. The Class of 2027 is also the school’s most academically prepared class, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.68.
- We broke ground on the Huntsman Mental Health Institute’s Utah Mental Health Translational Research Building. The building will be dedicated to innovating mental health research and clinical care. It will create a working lab for researchers and educators to collaborate with experts in science, translational science, artificial intelligence, public policy, business and law in holistic ways to address mental health challenges, including suicide, child and young adult mental health, and mental health for rural and underserved populations. The 185,000-square-foot, multi-floor building will house the world’s only 7 Tesla MRI dedicated to brain research. The building is scheduled to open in 2026 and has received the generous support of the Utah State Legislature and philanthropic donors.
- We launched a new campuswide research initiative focused on artificial intelligence (AI) that aims to responsibly use advanced AI technology to tackle societal issues. The $100 million investment will advance AI and its applications in ways that achieve societal good while also protecting privacy, civil rights and liberties, and promoting principles of accountability, transparency and equity. The initiative will be led by the U’s Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute as part of a concerted effort to conduct research at the U that improves the lives of Utah’s 3.4 million residents.
- We celebrated the opening of the first building of Ivory University House—LeGrand Richards Hall, named after a church apostle and grandfather to university benefactor Roger Boyer. Ivory University House is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between the Ivory Foundation, the Church of Latter-day Saints and the U—housing built specifically for university students that is not run by the U’s Housing and Residential Education. The Ivory Foundation is committed to constructing four buildings with 621 studio apartments on land owned by the church, with a 99-year lease to benefit the U and its students.
- Capitalizing on a boom in the nation’s semiconductor industry following the passage of the 2022 CHIPS Act, the University of Utah launched the Utah Network for Integrated Computing and Semiconductor Research and Education (UNICOS). Consisting of statewide partnerships between institutions of higher education, governmental bodies and members of private industry, the organization will help develop Utah’s semiconductor workforce and increase its access to key technological infrastructure.
- We opened the new Population Health Center in Rose Park. The center will deliver patient-centered care and services that are vital and affordable to populations of patients who need care the most. The center is a partnership with the state of Utah that is critical to innovating health care delivery and lowering the overall cost. The center team will assume the care of nearly 2,000 existing patients and use the space for a primary and behavioral health clinic and a Newcomer Health Clinic that will provide 75% of the state’s refugee screenings. Patients at the center will also benefit from integrated oral health and mental health services.
- On November 20, 2023, we announced with Governor Spencer Cox the Utah Life Science Workforce Initiative. The initiative is a new partnership between the state of Utah, higher education, and life sciences industry leaders to keep Utah competitive globally by training and supporting students entering the workforce with highly technical skills. The University of Utah and Utah State University will be leading the effort to close that gap. As part of this initiative, Cox will be making a $7 million ask to the Utah legislature to support creating and expanding programs that connect students to real-life experience in Utah’s workforce.
- We announced that the University of Utah was selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates as a presidential debate host site for the 2024 election cycle. On Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, qualifying candidates for president of the United States will take center stage at Kingsbury Hall for a moderated debate to be broadcast on all major television networks to millions around the world.
- We opened the University of Utah Orrin G. Hatch Center in Washington, D.C. After more than 50 years of sending interns to Washington, the U officially opened a permanent physical home in the nation’s capital. Made possible thanks to the support of the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and the Kem and Carolyn Gardner family, the center will house up to 50 interns per semester and provide exceptional space for university events and educational programs.