Here are some photos of the event. For more photos, visit the HigherEdUtah Facebook Page here.

Students and business leaders gather on the Capitol’s steps.

Regent Nolan Karras represents business leaders who “want to hire these students.”

University of Utah Student Body President Neela Pack talks about the importance of higher education.

Now the questions for the nation’s community colleges are: Which of the practices work and why? And perhaps most important, how do colleges expand them to cover all students?

A new, multiyear project led by the Center for Community College Student Engagement will attempt to get some answers. The research organization plans to analyze data from four different but related surveys and produce reports annually for the next three years. The surveys represent responses from the perspective of entering and experienced students, faculty members, and institutions.

Kay M. McClenney, the center’s director and a senior lecturer in the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin, says the project will allow community colleges to make more-informed decisions about how they spend money and about the type of policies and programs they want to emphasize.

The first of three reports, “A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success” was released last week. It draws attention to 13 strategies for increasing retention and graduation rates, including fast-tracking remedial education, providing students with experiential learning, and requiring students to attend orientation.

The strategies specified in the report are not new. In fact, many of them can be found at two-year colleges right now. But how well those strategies are working to help students stay in college and graduate is another matter. The report found peculiarities among responses on similar topics, suggesting a disconnect between institutions and students, while also raising questions about how committed institutions are to their own policies and programs. More…

First off, breathe. Don’t stress out. Take it one step at a time, it’s just one of those things you’ve got to do if you want to talk anything financial related to college.

Second, the fine folks at Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority have put together a handy-dandy D-I-Y FAFSA Student Kit which you can download by clicking here. This .pdf will guide you through everything you’ll need to complete your FAFSA and leave you with enough sanity to head outside and take a nice, relaxing stroll. No kidding.

For extra-credit, you can also visit one of the many StepUP Spring College Nights coming up throughout the state. Here’s a link to the locations and dates.

The U.’s “Olympic Experience Exhibition” brings together dozens of photographs and numerous artifacts such as Olympic pins, training manuals and coats. They will be on display in the Eccles reading room on the library’s fourth level through Feb. 29.

The U. campus provided a vital stage for the Salt Lake Olympics, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies at Rice-Eccles Stadium and the Olympic Village at Fort Douglas.

Marriott’s special collections department asked members of the university community to provide photographs they took of Olympic festivities and events, according to multimedia archivist Roy Webb. More than 4,000 images were donated.

“We’d love to see more donations from the public,” said Webb, who helped curate the exhibit with Krissy Giacoletto. “It is through individuals that we are able to archive historic collections for future generations.”

The entire photo collection can be accessed online at http://tinyurl.com/Oly-Exp-ML. More…

The meeting will begin at noon in Room 156 of the DSC Russell C. Taylor Health Science Center, located on the Dixie Regional Medical Center’s River Road campus at 1526 Medical Center Drive. It is free and open to the public.

Vaught is a chemist, mathematician and computer expert. He completed his bachelor’s studies in Chemistry at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Utah, including post-doctoral research at Purdue University. He served in the military and worked as a chemist at the Dugway Proving Grounds. Beginning in 1969, he worked as an instructor and director of computer services at the University of Memphis and was a professor of computer science there from 1980 to 1995.

Fleming serves as Conservation Coordinator for the City of St. George. She will both discuss current solar energy projects in St. George and share her personal experiences with living on solar energy at her home in Apple Valley.

The President’s Colleagues of Dixie State College meet together once a month during the academic year to hear presentations from each other and invited guests. The next Colleagues meeting is scheduled for March 5. More…

Patricia Bravo says the program is changing her family’s life. She has four children but never got her college degree. Recently she found that her family needed more income.

“I never thought college was an option for me,” said Bravo. She thought about taking online classes, then she found the Students with Children Program at Utah State University’s Brigham City campus. It offers help, counseling, support with classes, and child care.

“I know that my children are safe and they are only a few doors down from me. I’m in class and they are down the hall,” she said.

Program coordinator Melissa Thomas says the Students with Children Program is for anyone, moms or dads, single, divorced, unemployed or whatever, to help them start school and stay in school.

“This program has had great success in helping those people who don’t know where to turn and don’t know where to go but know they need that education,” said Thomas.

“You will face obstacles while you are going to school and trying to balance a family as well,” she continued.

Thomas said there’s talk of expanding the program past the Brigham City campus.

“It’s very intimidating to think about going to college when you are older and have kids and a job, but it’s worth the sacrifice of being tired and stressed. It is worth it,” said Bravo.

She hopes it shows her children the importance of going to college and finishing college. More…

All of that was just a warm-up for what awaits Pershing as he prepares to move into the presidential suite in March.

His to-do list as U. president-elect is lengthy: Fix the university’s decrepit utilities. Shore up graduation rates. Keep tuition in check. Recruit more top-flight students. Connect the university with the entire state. And, of course, get the Utes to the Rose Bowl. As the long-serving VP for academic affairs, he had already launched some of these initiatives, which got a boost after the U. was invited to join the Pacific Athletic Conference in 2010.

One thing Pershing wants to stop is the flight of high-achievers to schools in other states and to Brigham Young University. But that means making it more difficult to get into the U.

“I want every top student in the state to take a look at the University of Utah. Surely some will go to Harvard and Princeton,” said Pershing, who arrived at Utah in 1977 as an assistant professor of chemical engineering. “Part of the secret is our new Honors College, where we can give students an Ivy League education for a fraction of the cost.”

The state Board of Regents chose Pershing last week from among 80 contenders to succeed Michael Young, now at the University of Washington. Pershing’s wife, Sandi, is assistant vice president for continuing education at the U.

Pershing, who is 63, is the first U. president chosen from the campus community in nearly 30 years. Interim president Lorris Betz, who served as senior VP for health sciences during Pershing’s tenure over academic affairs, said Pershing had a collaborative style of leading the deans and associate vice presidents.

“He’s going to lead the university into fulfilling its flagship status for the state, and that means a university that has relevance to all corners of the state,” Betz said. “He’ll partner with institutions that don’t have the breadth of educational programs those communities need.” More…