USU UWLP releases research on Utah college students’ views on teaching as a career
| Cache Valley Daily | September 18, 2025 | Emmalee Chastain and Julene Reese |
“The Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) at Utah State University recently published a research report,“What Utah College Students Think about Teaching as a Career: An Analysis by Gender.” Using data collected by Envision Utah, a nonprofit that engages Utahns in collaborative, bottom-up decision making, the report explores the perceptions of Utah college students as they consider and prepare for careers. The findings offer important insights about the pipeline of teachers and provide recommendations for attracting and retaining the best educators for Utah’s classrooms.
Challenges Teachers Face in Utah: Utah teachers earn an average of $69,161 (18th nationally), yet the state has the highest teacher/student ratio in the U.S. – 1:22.2 compared to 1:15.4 – and ranks 49th in per-student spending. Data indicate that 84% of new Utah teachers return for a second year, but only 61% make it to five years…”
Envision Utah announces new CEO
| Utah Policy | August 27, 2025
“Envision Utah’s Board of Directors has appointed Jason Brown as the organization’s new chief executive officer. Brown has been serving as interim CEO since May and officially steps into the role following a robust search process.
“Jason has demonstrated great leadership during his time as interim CEO,” said Ty McCutcheon, chair of Envision Utah’s Board of Directors. “Just as importantly, he has a tremendous vision of what Envision Utah can be. The board is confident that our organization will thrive under Jason’s leadership.”
Brown brings a wealth of experience at Envision Utah to his new role. He began his decade-long tenure at the organization by leading the record-breaking public engagement strategy for the Your Utah, Your Future statewide visioning effort. Since then, he has launched and led Envision Utah’s education program, developed the early learning project, played a key role in fundraising, and supported every major planning initiative. In addition, Brown has overseen the organization’s research, outreach, and communications work…”
USU UWLP Releases Research on Voting and Civic Engagement Among Utah Women
| Utah State TODAY | June 18, 2025 | Julene Reese |
“Three recent surveys studied Utahn’s priorities and found multiple differences by gender…
3. A UWLP analysis of Envision Utah’s 2021 data on priorities found widespread agreement by gender, with a few notable exceptions: women place higher importance on health care, disaster preparation, inclusion, climate change, and arts and culture — issues more closely linked with overall quality of life. In reviewing perceptions of Utah’s performance in 17 priorities, women rated Utah’s performance lower than men on 14 of the 17 issues, with the greatest gaps in inclusion, housing and cost of living. These differences emphasize the need to improve quality of life for women. ”
Researchers may be underestimating the intensity of Utah’s future big earthquakes, study finds
| Standard Examiner | June 10, 2025 | Alixel Cabrera |
“As Utah prepares for an overdue, big earthquake, University of Utah seismologists found that current seismic hazard models may be underestimating the intensity of shaking the Salt Lake Valley could experience in future earthquakes…
The state is still rebuilding infrastructure shaken up by the 5.7 magnitude Magna earthquake that happened in 2020. However, often referred to as “the big one,” a future earthquake of 6.75 or greater magnitude is highly probable at the Wasatch Front in the next 50 years, according to Envision Utah.
With about 80% of the state’s population living in the area, experts estimate that could be an exceptionally devastating event.”
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