1370. My feelings about Dixie State University, and the name change to Utah Tech University!
Perhaps only people who live in Utah, or attended "Dixie State University", or "Dixie College" as it was when I attended, will have much of an opinion of this situation.
I was born in St. George, Utah, on October 6, 1934, and grew up there, graduated from Dixie High School, and then Dixie Junior College, with an Associate's Degree. You can read many pioneer stories in this blog, and stories of my younger days, which all were lived in the very special town of St. George, Utah. Sadly, it now is growing so much, it doesn't even resemble the town I grew up in. I guess that is fairly common these days, probably over the whole world. Is it progress? It doesn't seem like it. I have memories of a very peaceful childhood, and I don't think many children growing up now will be able to say that!
But within the last year or so there has been a controversy regarding renaming that university, and it has now been renamed "Utah Tech University"! There were many comments on a Facebook page, community events, etc. that the community held trying to stop the Utah Legislature and Governor to not change the name. They held that "Dixie" had a racial tone, and the "woke" opinion was that the name had to be changed for the "good of the students" etc.
I totally disagreed with that whole situation, as I had 2 great-grandparents who were original pioneers in St. George, and it was known as "Utah's Dixie" because they grew cotton here to help provide for the saints when it was hard to get during the Civil War. There was nothing racial in the name! Here are some comments that have been on Facebook in the recent past, after the name has been officially changed.
Defending Southwestern Utah Heritage Coalition (DSUHC)
SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT DOUG ALDER
I am Douglas D. Alder, a Guest Spokesperson for DSUHC. I served as President of Dixie College from 1986 to 1993 and am very much in favor of preserving the name.
THE WORD “DIXIE”
When I became president of Dixie College in 1986 we were known as the “Rebels.”
Over the years the names have changed. In 1911 it was called St. George Stake Academy. In 1916 two years of teacher preparation made it a two-year college and gave it the name of Dixie Junior College. In the October 1999 Board of Regents meeting they voted to change the mission of Dixie College to that of a four-year state college during President Robert Huddleston’s administration. In July 2000 a four-year CIT degree was offered. The “Rebels” mascot changed to “Red Storm” and now the Dixie State University students are called “Trailblazers.” At the present time Master’s degrees are now offered in three departments, with several others in preparation.
The early settlers of this area adopted the name “Dixie” because they came from the north (northern Utah) to the south (southern Utah) to grow a crop that is also grown in the southern states of the United States –cotton. With the “Dixie” name, and over time, came other additions from the south, such as the name “Rebels” and use of the Confederate flag. While the flag, year book name, statue of a Rebel soldier lifting an injured Union soldier, and other references are gone from campus, questions have remained about whether leaders in higher education should eliminate the name “Dixie” to once and for all end the discussion of the university’s linkage with the south.
When Dr. Stephen Nadauld became president of the college, he immediately faced a major political issue. Prior to his arrival, the University of Utah had offered to adopt Dixie into the University of Utah. Many Dixie faculty members were supportive. It would mean more resources, stature and success. Utah State University was in the process of incorporating the College of Eastern Utah (Price) into its system which already included USU operations in Brigham City, Vernal, Roosevelt, Tooele, Moab, Blanding and other locations. Dixie faculty members could see the opportunity to offer U. of U. courses without waiting years for Dixie to be recognized nationally as ready to teach such courses.
On one of his first days in office, President Nadauld held a meeting for all faculty and staff. Someone asked: “Are we about to become part of the University of Utah?” The issue was delicate because the University of Utah had made a statement that it would accept Dixie if it would drop the “Dixie” name and change its identity to the “University of Utah, St. George.” President Nadauld pondered the question briefly and then responded with precision: “We shall become a university.”
He then went to work by hiring a survey company that had interviewers question hundreds of students, faculty and administrators as well as numerous residents in the community and business and political leaders. At the conclusion of their surveys and interviews they reported that 73 percent of those surveyed favored keeping “Dixie” in the name of the university. Thus, today we have Dixie State University as the name of the school.
Why such loyalty to a name? Many of those surveyed and interviewed were among those who had helped build the institution over many decades. Others were descendants of early pioneers who had labored and toiled to make this region successful. Dixie College, and DSC and DSU thereafter, was a central focus for the community’s efforts, their hopes and dreams. Without these volunteers and dedicated patrons, and those before them, DSU would not be what it is today.
These people are those who could tell you the story of southern Utah’s hard-working culture, despite the odds against them. They could tell about the early generations who “came to Dixie” at great sacrifice, to a place that was hot and sweltering, where cotton was raised, milled, made into cloth and then sold in the north. They could tell you how community members founded and kept Dixie College alive when other funding ceased, and that the school would survive in one building, with few faculty, and only promises of future payment because funding sources had dried up in the Great Depression.
They could tell you also about how the school caught breaks, rode enrollment waves, and expanded, eventually carrying growth to a substantial new campus environment, and then how it developed year by year, from a small, two-year community college to a four-year college, and now a state university with graduate offerings. They could tell of funds sought and raised by local residents to make such growth possible. In all of these conversations, people would exhibit pride and accomplishment. They were part of something greater than themselves.
They have been the teachers, the recruits, the students, the staff, and leaders who participated in the growth and development of the institution. They have cheered for the Dixie’s teams, year after year. They would describe what the name Dixie means to them. It means much more than an historical reference to another southern region where cotton grows. Dixie has come to mean something of its own to residents of southwestern Utah. The name Utah’s “Dixie” is legacy now, essentially unique from any other U.S. story that might be told or associated by it.
If you were to ask a person on the street if Dixie State University has anything to do with the Civil War or slavery in the South, you might get a blank stare from that person. When that war began, Brigham Young sent a message to Abraham Lincoln stating: “We are with you. We are on the side of the North.”
--- Douglas D. Alder
President Emeritus
Dixie College, 1986-1993
History of Dixie State College by Douglas D. Alder, 2010.
And the following, written by M Rick Erickson, published on December 14, 2021.
M Rick Erickson (on Facebook on the DHUSC SITE)
What we have lost.
Growing up in St. George in the 70’s and 80’s was idyllic. Not perfect of course, but one would have to look pretty hard to find a better place to spend one’s childhood. It was big enough that we had a McDonald’s and a Safeway, but small enough that a boy could ride his bike in a straight shot from the Boulevard on 500 east all the way down to 700 south without stopping. It was a place where all the neighbors were usually “Aunt and Uncle” regardless of relation, and the St. George City Cemetery had yet to begin burials across the street on 700 east.
The places where many of us once roamed or hunted for arrowheads in our youth are now covered with concrete or golf courses, and the downtown area that once had so much charm and history with its old homes and well-manicured yards, has become an eyesore in many places with junked cars and cluttered with trash. The Washington fields were still lush and green with alfalfa in the summer and Stucki farms was a place a family could go to pick their own grapes by the bushel, where now only homes and businesses fight to occupy any spot of ground.
Buildings that once had so much meaning have either been destroyed to make way for new development, or have been demolished due to disrepair, and a school that was built by the community and named in honor the people who came before and a place, Dixie College, has now been consigned to the dust bin of history in the name of political correctness.
Many may interpret my post as being nothing more than nostalgic longing for what was, and to an extent that’s a fair interpretation. Pick any community in Washington County from Enterprise, Pine Valley and New Harmony in the north, Gunlock and Veyo in the west to Hurricane, Toquerville, Springdale, Rockville and Hilldale in the east, hose who grew up in those communities will usually look back on their youth in those places with fondness.
But there is more to my post than simple nostalgia. With the fight over the Dixie name and assault on the character of our pioneer forebears, I’ve come to realize just what we as a community have lost or are in the process of losing. Not in terms of innocence or small town charm, though one could argue that we have indeed lost or are losing much of those as well.
What I am speaking of is a loss of a shared sense of community. A distinct feeling of identity and of belonging to a place and its people regardless of race, religion or any number of factors or hyphenated-definitions that we as a nation and sadly as a community have allowed to describe us. A pride in what it meant to call this place home and not a tangential or superficial reference to being from “Dixie.”
For the longest time, we here in Southern Utah were in a sense living in an insular space free for the most part from the divisions that have plagued so much of the country. There were a few cultural hurdles that we had to learn to overcome in our own little melting pot, but for the most part we had found if not harmony, then at least a feeling of comfort and familiarity with one another.
Perhaps that’s what the University administration failed and still fails to grasp. In their mad rush toward progress as they define it, they managed to introduce into this place the bitterness, anger, contempt for history and the racial and ideological poisons that have afflicted many communities in our nation for decades. They drew sharp lines in the sand and made an “us” and “them” where before there was simply a “we.”
I’m certainly not going to dwell on the negative with this post. There is after all much to look forward to in our future. But as we move forward in the wake of the debate over Dixie, we move forward keenly aware of the legacy that the administration, board of trustees and several state and local politicians have left us.
When it's all said and done, that will be the real legacy of this administration that will be remembered by the community, alumni and casual observers. It won’t be the new buildings. It won’t be the growth and expansion of programs. It won’t be the numbers of students on campus or the status of sports teams.
The contribution they will most be remembered for whenever their names or legacy are spoken of will be one simple word. A word that is the antithesis of what Dixie, community, friends, neighbors or family means. Division.
In end, it falls to us to do what people have always done after the dividers have completed their work: Rebuild. We can reach out to our neighbors this holiday season. We can mend fences. We can build bridges. We can be the kind of people we know in our hearts we are and should always be. That's the true spirit of Dixie. That will be our gift to those who will one day call this place home.
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