Raw Couture is held annually to showcase the skills and talents of the Fashion Institute’s Advance Design Class. From design idea to finished garments, each step of the creative process is completed by the student, starting with inspiration and illustrations to pattern making, cutting and sewing. And I must say, a job well done. Congrats to all the students, it was another fabulous show!

Real style is timeless rather than trendy, and first place winner, Sterling Bitsue’s “Oh, So Chic” collection was inspired by Audrey Hepburn and ‘My Fair Lady.’ Professor Higgins took Hepburn’s character from flower girl to high society whereas Bitsue took Hepburn’s influence and turned it into high fashion. “I could picture her in my clothes,” he said, “wearing those long gloves.” Ruffles reinvented as exaggerated collars, hourglass silhouettes, and the rich shimmer of black and gold silk charmeuse kept his winning collection sophisticated yet fresh and new, and oh, so loverly.

To read the rest of this article from IN Utah This Week, click here.

The Financial Times’ 2010 global rankings rated the David Eccles School of Business Executive MBA program No. 38 in the United States and No. 88 worldwide. It was the sixth-straight year the program has made the list.

The dean of the said the school’s consistently high rankings are a testament to the high quality of both students and faculty.

“The quality of student in this program is outstanding,” Taylor Randall, dean of the Eccles School of Business told the Deseret News. “There are people that are running multimillion dollar companies.”

To read this entire article from The Deseret News, click here.

State-funded optional preschool for at-risk kids.

Statewide optional all-day kindergarten.

Giving the ACT to all students.

And setting goals of 90 percent of sixth-graders and ninth-graders reading and doing math at grade-level.

Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce leaders spent Tuesday discussing the draft proposals — which are part of the chamber’s statewide Prosperity 2020 movement — with the Governor’s Education Excellence Commission. In coming months, the chamber will attempt to work with lawmakers to set some of its ideas into motion, said Richard Kendell, a chamber advisor and former Utah Commissioner of Higher Education.

“It’s very important to business,” said Lane Beattie, chamber president and CEO. “It is our future and if we don’t address it now we will lose that future.”

Read the entire article at sltrib.com.

The food, books and a $1,000 stipend come courtesy of Charles Koch (pronounced coke), one of the nation’s richest businessmen and a contributor to right-wing political causes. USU’s financial relationship with a man who has such an obvious political agenda has raised questions about the growing influence of private and corporate money on campus, thanks in part to declining state support.

“Universities have to look to the private sector for support. One danger is that money comes with certain agendas and strings attached, so it’s a balancing act to preserve the ideals of higher education,” said philosophy professor Charlie Huenemann, an associate dean of the USU college of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Read the entire article at sltrib.com.

The seedcorn for that innovation is higher education.  Initiatives like USTAR and the Engineering Initiative will directly feed this innovation.  This is why we hear university and college presidents as well as education and business leaders warning state lawmakers of the dangerous balance in higher education.  Budgets have been cut more than they ever have where Utah schools are already has the fewest state dollars per college degree.  It is no surprise, then, that business leaders such as Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), Lane Beattie (President and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber), Jeff Edwards (President, Economic Development Corporation of Utah), and Mark Bouchard (Director of CB Richard Ellis) have all actively advocated higher education as a critical factor in strengthening and growing Utah’s economic and societal well-being.