UNP NAMED AS 2008 EQUITY AND DIVERSITY RECIPIENT

University Neighborhood Partners (UNP) has been named a recipient of the 2008 Annual Equity and Diversity Awards by the University of Utah's Office of Diversity. UNP Director Dr. Rosemarie Hunter will accept the award at a luncheon on Wednesday, April 16 at noon at the Tanner Dining Room of the University's Alumni House.
Hunter said she is honored to receive this award on behalf of University Neighborhood Partners staff, advisory board members and our many campus and community partners. “Receiving this award represents the deep commitment of President Young, faculty, students, community organizations and families who come together in shared power and with a shared belief that learning in diverse communities is essential to developing equitable systems and processes that foster greater access and participation,” Hunter added.
The Equity and Diversity awards are presented to programs or persons at the University of Utah that demonstrate excellence in fostering leadership and demonstrate a commitment to enhance diversity and expand opportunities for University students, staff, and faculty. Established in 1996, these awards are intended to honor important and sustained contributions to equity and diversity, especially regarding the inclusion of women and minorities and related issues in the life of the University.
“UNP has demonstrated over the last five years a commitment to ethnically diverse communities in Salt Lake in an effort to create pathways to higher education,” Said Feleti F. Matagi, chair of the Equity and Diversity Committee. Matagi added that UNP has recognized the many barriers communities of color encounter and has been instrumental in addressing those barriers.
UNP partner and community studies assistant professor Caitlin Cahill said she thought UNP was a deserving recipient and that UNP provides an exemplary model “the whole university should aspire to follow.”
Selection of recipients for the Equity and Diversity awards is based on nominations selected at large. The Diversity Awards Committee entertains nominations for both academic and non-academic units within the University community.
University Neighborhood Partners (UNP) bridges Utah's flagship university with seven ethnically and culturally rich Salt Lake City neighborhoods west of State Street in ways that benefit the west side and the University of Utah (U of U) communities. These neighborhoods include Rose Park, Glendale (West Salt Lake), Westpointe, Jordan Meadows, Poplar Grove, State Fairpark, and People's Freeway. Increasing access to and awareness of higher education for residents of west Salt Lake grounds all of UNP's efforts, making it the organization's key focus. Since its inception five years ago, UNP has:
o Connected with 11,732 residents through UNP partnerships.;
o reached 1,191 youth through UNP Partnerships;
o consulted over 100 individuals have received Academic consulting services;
o distributed 1,455 educational materials;
o trained 60 residents as Community Advocates; 92 Westside Leadership Institute graduates; and
o involved an average of about 200 University of Utah students, faculty, and staff in UNP's 13 existing partnerships. Over 150 students and about three dozen faculty help to build these reciprocal relationships between the University and west Salt Lake neighborhoods, creating pathways to higher education for west Salt Lake families. Almost every department (academic and non) on campus is involved in UNP partnership work.

UNP CELEBRATEs FIVE YEARS OF PARTNERSHIPS

WITH ANNIVERSARY DINNER

     University Neighborhood Partners (UNP) celebrated its fifth anniversary on Thursday, November 1, 2007 with a dinner for founding donors and current partners at Red Butte Garden. Vice President for University Relations and UNP Board of Advisors co-chair Fred Esplin welcomed the 150 guests as Masters of Ceremonies for the evening. UNP founding director Irene Fisher announced the creation of the UNP Pathfinder Scholarship Fund, which is slated to provide tuition and fee assistance to west Salt Lake youth and adults pursuing pre-college exposure to higher education through classes, field trips, institutes and other educational programs beginning in 2008.

     UNP is “community building at its finest,” Esplin said. He noted UNP’s unique ability to match “the University's research, teaching, and public services missions with the self-identified needs of Salt Lake's west side communities.” Private support is essential to this process, he added. UNP Development Officer Gina Alvarez said she envisions the night as an opportunity to thank the sponsors and donors who have helped UNP initiate and sustain partnerships that achieve UNP’s mission of developing reciprocal relationships while creating pathways to higher education.

     The program included a welcoming social hour, with entertainment provided by Mariachi America. The dinner portion of the evening included a brief overview of the past five years by Dr. Rosemarie Hunter, UNP director, who highlighted the role of campus and community partnerships in developing several now nationally-known partnerships programs. UNP Board of Advisors co-chair Joyce Valdez introduced the premiere of the first UNP video documenting UNP’s partnership work. Fisher introduced the Pathfinder Scholarship initiative. Senior Vice President for Health Sciences A. Lorris Betz provided closing remarks.

     “This is an important moment to recognize how the whole Salt Lake community—University, residents, community organizations, donors, government, and other—are coming together to find ways to strengthen relationship among themselves and to increase everyone’s opportunity to go on to higher education, if they choose to,” said Sara Munro, UNP associate director.

Because one of UNP’s major goals is to support youth from west Salt Lake neighborhoods to view higher education as an option for their own lives, the Pathfinder Scholarship has been created to enable pre-college youth—sometimes as young as kindergarteners—to engage in on-campus activities, explained Fisher.

     Pathfinder Scholarships will support youth who live in west Salt Lake neighborhoods to attend youth classes and programs on the University of Utah campus and at other institutions of

education, and enabling youth to find educational paths that will support their future and develop  

a college-going culture.  

     UNP bridges Utah’s flagship university, with seven ethnically and culturally rich neighborhoods west of State Street in mutually-beneficial ways for both west side residents and the University of Utah community.

     In 2001, former President of the University of Utah, J. Bernard Machen, determined that the University of Utah could play a critical and successful role in helping to support youth growing up in west Salt Lake City.  Using the resources of the University, Machen envisioned a program that would not only help the youth in these communities to reach their potential and achieve a college education, but University services could support the community, its families and build a bridge that would begin to show the University as a partner and friend in community building.

     Fisher was appointed as a Special Assistant to the President for Campus-Community Partnerships and was asked to help define and implement a program that would include community representatives in all phase of the planning and final program implementation. Following a year of meeting with community leaders and families within the west side community, the University Neighborhood Partners program was launched.  The program places the highest priority on needs-assessment by west side community members, allowing those self-identified issues to shape each collaboration.  The program continues to change and evolve as new opportunities and needs are identified.

     Under current U of U President Michael K. Young, UNP remains one of the University’s top priority programs.  Hunter entered the position of Director of UNP on July 1, 2006.