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Utah's network of technical colleges announced finalists for a new president Tuesday, roughly a week after a legislative report slammed the public entity for inflating its completion rates in recent years.
Rob Brems, current president of the Utah College of Applied Technology (UCAT), announced in August he would retire at the end of the year to serve a mission in Spain for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The four candidates for his replacement are Utah Valley University's Academic Outreach Director Darrel Hammon; State Sen. Aaron Osmond; UCAT's Davis campus President Michael Bouwhuis; and Bouwhuis' deputy, Russell Galt, vice president of the Davis campus.
Osmond, a Republican from South Jordan, also is the vice president for the global business unit of Certiport, which provides career-oriented certification exams to schools, including UCAT branches.
Last week, auditors told a legislative panel that UCAT in 2013 began retroactively inflating its completion counts by including in the data students who passed job trainings and individual courses. The move aimed to bring Utah closer to its goal of having two-thirds of adults earn some kind of post-high school degree by 2020, auditors said.
Brems countered that students are now granted certificates for what the college calls "short-term programs." People want to spend less time in school now that the economy is recovering, he said. The diplomas, he added, also are an attempt by the college to better honor students' work.
UCAT's Board of Trustees is seeking public input on the four candidates via email. Comments can be sent to ucatpresidentsearch@ucat.edu through Thursday at 5 p.m., said spokeswoman Elsa Zweifel.
After that, the trustees' recommendation goes to the governor for approval and then to the Utah Senate. Brems resigned as UCAT president in 2007, in the wake of an audit that found that under his leadership, UCAT's Mountainland campus in Orem built a parade float for the Utah County Republican Party initially using college money. The audit also found that Brems was given a $157,000 transition package after his first promotion to UCAT president and under-reported his income on tax forms.
UCAT trustees reappointed Brems to the position in 2009 but had to revisit his selection just weeks later, after the hiring process was publicly criticized. After interviewing both finalists, the trustees voted for Brems 7-5 over Bouwhuis, now a five-time finalist for UCAT president.
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