Harris Simmons was an economics major at the University of Utah in the mid-1970s, but some of his most memorable moments at the U had nothing to do with numbers or business.
Simmons, now chairman and CEO of Salt Lake-based Zions Bancorporation, fondly remembers courses in architecture and music, as well as some German. He also recalls attending an event in Kingsbury Hall focused on the work of poet Robert Frost and his connections to New England.
“That was maybe the night I fell in love with Robert Frost’s work,” Simmons said. “It absolutely impacted who I am as a person.”
The impacts of a broad university education are profound to Simmons, and as a debate over the value of general education courses and programs has swept across Utah and the nation, he decided to make his feelings clear. In late January, Simmons sent an email to all Utah legislators emphasizing the importance of the liberal arts in higher education.
The future of the state’s public universities has been a topic for debate during this year’s legislative session, with lawmakers discussing budget cuts and a need to focus more resources on programs and majors that will support Utah’s workforce needs and help students land high-paying jobs.
“Over 3,700 of the nearly 10,000 people Zions Bancorporation (the parent company of Zions Bank) employs live and work in Utah, with a payroll of over $500 million, making us one of the state’s largest private-sector employers,” Simmons wrote. “While many of our employees are well-served by the certificates and technical degrees they’ve received in our state’s community and technical colleges, a great many more of our colleagues hold advanced degrees. …
“It’s critical that they be able to write well and that they understand how to think analytically about the problems they solve every day. They need to understand history. It’s important to me that they have an appreciation for the humanities, for political systems, and all the things that make a society great and prosperous. We should all hope and expect that our elected officials would as well have a reasonably comprehensive understanding of how the world around us works. That requires that we have a great many people in our society with a well-rounded education.”
U Provost Mitzi M. Montoya and Utah State University Provost Laurens H. Smith shared similar themes in an opinion piece published in The Salt Lake Tribune in early January.
“Employers want workers … who can blend technical and subject-area proficiency with a broad understanding of the world,” the provosts wrote. “A recent Utah Workforce Alignment Study commissioned by the Utah System of Higher Education included several comments from business leaders calling for workers who can communicate, adapt to changing circumstances and problem-solve better. By developing critical thinking, creativity, communication skills, cultural awareness, adaptability and ethical reasoning, a broad university education prepares students not only to fulfill their job roles, but also to thrive in them, adapting to the changes and challenges they face.”
Simmons is well-acquainted with the Utah System of Higher Education, having served 10 years on the state’s Board of Regents/Board of Higher Education. That included two years as the last chair of the Board of Regents and two years as the chair when it became the Board of Higher Education.
“I’m a big believer that, number one, we shouldn’t try to channel students,” he said. “We live in a very free society, and we should try to keep it that way. … We need engineers. We need nurses. I totally get that. But there are some kids who don’t want to be nurses or engineers.”
The state’s universities should make it clear how much students will likely earn with different kinds of jobs, so they have the proper framework to make career decisions, Simmons said.
“Beyond that, let them pick their path,” he said. “I think it’s more important for people’s happiness to do something they enjoy doing than to just get the most money they can get.”
In his letter to legislators, Simmons noted that Utah’s successful economy reflects well on the quality of its higher education system.
“While there’s undoubtedly more work that can be done to find efficiencies in shared ‘back office’ services and other areas that can produce savings for taxpayers, students and their families, my hope is that we will long value the importance of a diversity of institutions in our system of higher education, including those that encompass liberal arts in their curriculums, and fund them accordingly,” he wrote.
Simmons said Utah needs citizens who understand how the world works. A broad university education can help students learn how to think about problems and find solutions. It helps them learn to communicate ideas effectively, both verbally and in writing. And it helps them learn how to deal with complexity.
As students sample the “smorgasbord” of liberal arts classes available to them, they learn things that improve their lives in unexpected ways, Simmons said.
“College can be fabulous that way, in that you get a sampling of things,” he said. “Most of (the details) you probably forget, but it all creates in your head the framework for how you think about the world.”
For example, you might discover a love for Robert Frost’s poetry. Simmons said Frost’s poem, “The Death of the Hired Man,” “comes close to being a piece of scripture for me.” Part of the reason Simmons has devoted time to community service focused on helping the homeless over the years is due to the impact of that poem, discovered decades ago at the U.
“My undergraduate education at the University of Utah was great, and it was largely because it wasn’t, ‘I’m just going to learn business,’” Simmons said, adding that focusing on only one thing during college would be like “learning the alphabet without learning how to read. The university taught me figuratively how to read the world around me. …
“These things matter in terms of creating full human beings and making your life worthwhile and useful.”
And for Simmons and others, as Frost might say, “that has made all the difference.”