Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY
For more than 125 years, Weber State University has
been helping students achieve their dreams.
In 1889, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
converted an Ogden meetinghouse into an academy open
to male and female students of all nationalities and religious
denominations. For $125 a month, Louis F. Moench was hired
as principal. A German-born educator, he believed education
was important for everyone—young students and adults—
even inviting community members to attend classes for an
hour each day to improve a skill or learn a new subject.
Soon, the meetinghouse could no longer accommodate
the growing number of students, so the academy’s founders
mortgaged their homes to guarantee construction of a new
campus. By 1923, the school was housed in a larger building
in downtown Ogden and had adopted a “college attitude,”
dropping its high school courses.
In 1933, the church transferred the college’s ownership to
the state. That same year, during the midst of the Great
Depression, state salaries were slashed. With 170,000
Utahans out of work, many families could not afford to send
their children to college. In lieu of tuition, Weber accepted
in-kind donations of meat and produce.
To cut the budget in 1953, the state Legislature voted
to stop funding Utah’s junior colleges. A campus and
community “Save Weber” campaign defeated the measure
through a public referendum, forging a lasting bond. One
year later, Weber, with its ever-growing enrollment, moved
to Harrison Boulevard. It became a four-year state college
in the early 1960s, retaining its commitment to its core
principles and personalized teaching.
Today, Weber State University offers its 25,000 students
more than 225 degree programs—the most comprehensive
undergraduate selection in Utah—while eleven master’s
degree programs provide additional training.
Abundant classrooms, laboratories, computing centers,
performing and visual arts facilities, a spacious library, and
a newly renovated health and fitness complex occupy some
of the sixty buildings on Ogden’s 526-acre mountainside
campus. WSU Davis, a modern, growing, high-tech campus
in Layton, serves Hill Air Force Base. Courses at schools,
health facilities, off-campus centers, and work sites
throughout Utah, plus more than 250 courses online, are
all designed to make a college education available and
affordable for any student.
WSU’s large nontraditional student population, multiple
campuses, flexible schedules and extensive list of online
courses exemplify the ideals of open access, continuing
education, lifelong learning and engaging the greater
community. It is large and complex enough to offer
stimulating educational challenges but small enough to
care about individuals. Principal Moench’s vision has guided
it for 125 years and helped hundreds of thousands of
students achieve their dreams.
S A L T L A K E C I T Y — L i v a b i l i t y i n t h e 2 1 s t C e n t u r y
188