Growth

St. George Stake Academy Graduating Class, 1913. Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives.

Evening Graduation Commencement for Bachelor's and Master's degrees at Utah Tech University, May 3rd, 2024. From Utah Tech University Photography.

Despite the various changes in funding, focus, and identity, what is today called Utah Tech University has experienced significant long-term growth. This includes both student enrollment and campus construction.

• The first yearbook, The Dixie (1913), listed fifteen graduates.[1]
• By the end of the decade, the class of 1920 had forty-two students.[2]
• The school year 2011-2012, one hundred years after the school’s founding, Dixie State College of Utah had 2,051 graduates (including certificates).[3]
• In 2024, during the 113th commencement ceremonies, Utah Tech University celebrated 2,967 graduates.[4] Total student headcount for end of term Fall 2023 was 12,561.[5]

As enrollment increased, the college regularly had to expand campus buildings and amenities. The original campus was built on Main Street in downtown St. George, next to the St. George Tabernacle. Though construction began earlier, in 1963 the college officially moved to a new location in what was then east of the main city.[6]

As the University expanded its campus and offerings through the decades, alumni expressed a desire for the institution to retain a cultural connection with its past. During the construction of the Dixie Center (the former Cox Auditorium and present Burn’s Arena), Mary Phoenix wrote: 

Construction of the Dixie Center at Dixie College. The Dixie Center included the Cox Auditorium, Burns Arena, and a "natatorium." Taken December 1985. From 1986 Confederate, p. 53.

We all hoped that the modern students with their buildings, equipment, and large teaching staff would have as satisfactory an experience at Dixie as we did...We hope that they will develop the same healthy respect for learning, for the cultural arts and for true friends that Dixie gave us. I think that and that alone would make the sacrifices of our pioneer forefathers worthwhile and their dreams a reality.[7]

Campus additions continued into the twenty-first century with large modern buildings, such as the Holland Centennial Commons; the Human Performance Center; the Science, Engineering, and Technology building; renovations/expansions of existing buildings; and more construction planned for the future.[8] A General Classroom Building is expected to be completed in 2025.[9] Utah Tech also has plans for a new and separate campus south of town called the Innovation District.

Most students at Utah Tech University today graduate with associate and bachelor's degrees,[10] but the University recently expanded to offer ten master's programs[11] and a doctorate program in Occupational Therapy.[12]