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A new appointee to the Utah Board of Regents has a little less experience than the rest of the group.
Even so, board newcomer Bailey Bowthorpe has big plans. She hopes to help more of her fellow Utah students graduate more quickly.
Gov. Gary Herbert this week appointed the Southern Utah University graduate student as the board's student liaison. She will be the voice of Utah's 106,000 full-time students.
At SUU, President Scott Wyatt, himself a former Utah student regent, is confident Bowthorpe will be a "thoughtful and articulate" addition to the panel, he said in a prepared statement. Bowthorpe, he added, will be a "powerful voice" on the governing board for Utah's eight public higher education institutions.
Bowthorpe, for her part, pledged to do her homework by meeting with each school's student body president.
"My desire is for more students to realize the dream of a college education," Bowthorpe said. She believes that she can work with the board so that "more students will not only enroll, but successfully graduate from Utah colleges and universities."
It's a tall order in Utah, which trails the nation for graduation rates in a six-year window. Still, Utah higher education officials note, some studies have shown the state has the most students still enrolled at the eight-year mark. They contend many students in Utah work full-time as they plug away at a degree. Others pause their studies to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Herbert and state education leaders have set a goal for two-thirds of Utahns to have some kind of post-high school degree by 2020. It's a difficult statistic to track, comprising everything from certificates for brief technical programs, such as welding, to advanced degrees, such as medicine.
Bowthorpe got her bachelor's degree in strategic communication from SUU in 2014. The former intern for U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson is now in the school's public administration graduate program.
Her new post is not simply honorary. Bowthorpe has voting power on the board, which selects school presidents, sets policy and submits an annual budget proposal to legislators.
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