A Semester of Investigation: The Signpost 04-19-22

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4 | MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022

$0.05160 $0.04462 Rather than having a one-to-one agreement, solar incentives dropped to a fixed rate of 9.2 cents. In 2021, rates dropped again to 5.2 cents per kilowatt hour in the summer and 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour in the winter.

By SIMON MORTENSEN Asst. Section Editor

Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres has said the world needs to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and it’s sources like rooftop solar that will play a part in reaching that goal, while a 2020 report by the International Energy Association said solar is now the cheapest for of energy for consumers.

Unlike Germany and Australia, the United States hasn’t made solar as accessible.

“Rooftop solar in the United States costs three times more than it does in Germany and Australia, not because of the cost of the technology, but soft costs from permitting,” Benjamin Abbott, Brigham Young University’s assistant professor of environmental science and sustainability, said at the 2022 Intermountain Sustainability Summit. “This is a hesitancy by power providers to give up any of their monopoly on production.”

This continues to stem from companies like Rocky Mountain Power that have made significant cuts to solar incentives, leaving many homeowners buying systems that are less profitable, jeopardizing their return on investment and detracting from the value of their home.

Solar then vs. solar now In the past, solar customers have been able to lock onto one-to-one net metering rates. When tracking the power produced by the panels versus the consumption of the home, the previous metering could turn a $150 monthly power bill into an $8 one.

“I put solar on my home back in 2012,” Jennifer Bodine, Weber State University’s sustainability manager, said. “My return on investment was seven years.”

One-to-one net metering ran during Rocky Mountain Power’s rate schedule 135 in 2017, an agreement made between the power company and solar owners. Homeowners who purchased their panels during this agreement are paid the same amount for a kilowatt hour they produce as they do for a kilowatt hour they consume. Their solar systems can offset the amount of power their home consumes, leaving just a few small Rocky Mountain Power fees on the homeowner’s monthly bill.

In addition, customers who signed on during this time were able to get 30% of their system cost covered by tax credits from the federal government. Things changed in 2018, however, during Rocky Mountain Power’s schedule 136.

“That was my driving factor on my timing,” Justin Owen, Weber State’s energy manager, said about his home’s solar sys-

tem. “I saw the new proposal going to the Public Service Commission. I was like, ‘Well, if I’m going to do this, I’d better do it now.’”

Schedule 136 was considered a transition program by Rocky Mountain Power. Rather than having a one-to-one agreement, residents with solar would receive 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour their system produced.

Customers were locked into this 9.2 cent rate, meaning that even if kilowatt usage hour costs rose to 20 cents, the customer would still only be paid 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour their panels produced.

Lower than one-to-one, this net billing system was fairly comparable. Kilowatt usage hours still cost roughly that price, and during that agreement, the government covered 30% of a system’s cost. However, more rate-reductions in 2021 weakened the return on investment of panel-only systems.

Schedule 137 has been in effect since the beginning of 2021. The agreement dropped net billing rates from 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour and locked new customers into rates of 5.16 cents per kilowatt hour in the summer and 4.462 cents per kilowatt hour from October to May. Tax incentives also dropped from covering 30% of a system’s cost to 26%.

Rocky Mountain Power’s changes were brought on by many factors, but one was to roll out their Wattsmart Battery Program, a series of residential solar systems support-

ed by backup batteries. These systems act as power plants, partially removing some of the workload that is currently on Rocky Mountain Power’s grid.

“One of the things we need is called grid neutrality,” Abbott said. “It’s beyond net metering and it actually says anyone can be a power producer on the grid if you meet certain criteria.”

Customers who enter the program are given a battery rebate from Rocky Mountain Power. Because these systems generate and hold power, solar owners can still have power during an outage. The power not going to the battery feeds the grid and Rocky Mountain Power and can draw 50% from customers’ batteries to maintain grid stability.

“Most batteries will have a programming built in to maximize self-consumption,” Owen said. “As soon as the sun goes down, they discharge into your home and you consume a bunch of solar power that you built up earlier in the day.”

The Wattsmart Battery Program may be the future of Rocky Mountain Power, but the future comes at a cost.

According to Rocky Mountain Power’s website, only Sonnen batteries qualify for the program, specifically the Core, the Eco and the EcoLinx.

While an LG Chem can cost $5,000-6,000 and a SolarEdge Energy Bank battery around

MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022 | 5

$7,000, Sonnen batteries start around $10,000 and could be as much as $36,000, according to solarreviews.com. This doesn’t include system installation costs.

“Batteries do help because you can store that energy,” Bodine said. “But then the cost of batteries is still in the process of coming down.”

with a panel-only system under the current net-metering rates, but it may detract from a homeowner’s return on investment.

Kilgore said 1Solar tries to maximize roof space when designing their systems, adding to the size and price of the system.

Owen said that a home consuming 15,000 kilowatt hours a year (roughly 5,000 over the Utah average) would need a 10 kilowatt system to offset the energy, but a 15-18 kilowatt system to offset the cost.

Also, that 15-18 kilowatt system may not offset the cost when rates rise.

“If I were in the industry right now, I would be all about maximizing return on investment for the customer,” Owen said. “I’d be getting them out of that tier two power, more expensive power as opposed to getting that bill down to the $8.50 minimum.”

Solar and real estate Where Bodine only took seven years for her panels to start making her money, she said today’s typical homeowners are looking “past 10 years, maybe 15-20 years” to make a return on investment. According to Realtor Laurann Turner, this time frame is too long for the modern homeowner.

The average homeowner spends nine years in their home, according to Turner, who also said panels don’t add value to a home and may even detract from it.

“The only thing it does is lower your electric bill,” Turner said.

Turner has even had a buyer who demanded a home’s panels be taken off, costing the sellers around $5,000 in removal costs. She said this is a common scenario for homeowners who take a lease for their panels because buyers are wary of taking over that cost.

“The salespeople for solar are incredible,” Turner said. “The math doesn’t add up to me.”

It’s possible that the Wattsmart Battery program will make solar more practical for average homeowners one day, but for now, many people are only being educated about and purchasing outdated systems.

According to Owen, homeowners thinking about solar should look to multiple companies for bids.

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Panel-only systems in 2022 The cost of batteries, coupled with the rigorous criteria that solar companies need to meet to roll out the Wattsmart Battery program, leaves many still installing panel-only systems, including 1Solar.

Jake Kilgore, 1Solar’s chief executive officer, believes that the high price of batteries makes them impractical. However, the company will install a battery if asked, but none are in compliance with the Wattsmart Battery program.

Many of 1Solar’s installs are still panel-only systems. Despite the rapid decrease in net billing rates, Kilgore claims they can typically offset the cost of most systems.

“You go from $100 or $150 a month down to $8 or $10 a month is the expectation,” Kilgore said. “We can achieve that

goal with our homes.”

With net metering decreasing, this is a difficult task in 2022.

“In order to get your bill all the way down like that, you’d actually have to produce more energy than you use,” Owen said. “[If] I’m exporting at 5.5 cents, I have to export a lot more than I consume to make up for that cost.”

According to a 2020 report from the Energy Information Administration, the average household in Utah consumes 769 kilowatt hours per month.

On Rocky Mountain Power’s current rate schedule, tier-one power (the first 400 kilowatt hours) costs a little over 9 cents in the summer, while tier-two power (power after that first 400 kilowatt hours) costs nearly 12 cents.

If a solar customer on schedule 137’s net billing rate used 769 kilowatt hours of power in the summer, their power bill would be roughly $83.52. Even if the panels produced 769 kilowatt hours of power, consumers would see only $38.45 taken off their bill.

With this math, Kilgore’s claims may seem far-fetched. An $8 power bill is still possible

Tax incentives dropped from covering 30% of a system’s cost to 26%. No plans have been made to renew the incentive in 2024.

6 | MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022

By ALEC CIPOLLINI Reporter

The drought in Utah didn’t give any favors in 2022, and it will continue to worsen if nothing is done to stop global warming and the handling of how water is distributed in the state, advocates and experts say.

In the Southwest region of the United States, a growing issue is the water levels around major bodies of water, particularly the Colorado River, which supports Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

The Colorado River’s Upper Basin Water Supply has decreased from 4.5 million acrefeet per year to below 2 million, and the deficit is 35% from where it was when the 20th century began, according to the Utah Rivers Council.

Utah Rivers Council member Lindsey Hutchinson said 95% of new water added to rivers around the state comes from the snowpack accumulated each year, and with rising temperatures, the weather patterns that lead to snow don’t look as powerful or frequent as they have in the past.

“We have been in a mega-drought for over 20 years, and the longer a drought occurs, the worse they get,” Hutchinson said.

“Our rivers depend on the snowpack each year, and if there isn’t a lot, then our rivers will suffer.”

In December last year and the first week of March, snow totals recorded around the state indicated that they were close to or over normal rates, but as for the beginning of this year in January and February, there was barely a trace of snow while what was remaining on the grass and mountains slowly disappeared.

The Utah Division of Water Resources has published a graph that shows the black line

indicating snowfall in the state this year and how it has compared to the past.

The snow totals for 2022 peaked at about 12 inches in March, while the highest year recorded in the past 20 years was in 2011, where there was more than 25 inches.

Utah Division of Water Resources Director Candice Hasenyager said that since the precipitation levels haven’t reached normal rates, there have been negative effects on how much water Utah is losing out on.

“There are many sources of water that have been impacted by the drought here like reservoirs, dams, rivers, groundwater and spring water,” Hasenyager said. “About half of our largest reservoirs are below 40% capacity, and we really took a hit last year with rising temperatures, less snow totals and early snowmelt peaking 10 days earlier than normal.”

Snow melt occurs as temperatures increase and the snow starts to turn into water. The mountains around Utah could have snow until about May or June, depending on how hot or cold the weather is.

As a result of a very weak winter season this past year, the amount of water necessary for sustaining water levels was not attainable and increased the effects of the state’s drought situation.

Weber State University water resources professor Marek Matyjasik said Utah has been in a drought for centuries and it looks like there are no signs of it stopping anytime soon.

“Droughts are not something new to Utah,” Matyjasik said. “In the 19th century, there were pretty severe drought conditions that Native Americans dealt with and impacted their economic well being. Drought conditions existed back then and will continue to exist into the future.”

When looking at rivers such as the Colorado River, water used to be at a higher level

in the past. The watermarks left behind on land masses and mountains is where there is a tan area towards the bottom as the Colorado River, at full capacity, is 27.6 million acre-feet per year.

Rising temperatures have caused less precipitation because of climate change, but the dependency on water by the general public and the amount that has evaporated due to the heat both play into the depleting water levels in Utah.

“On average, our studies showed that for every three or four people, a family uses about 400 gallons of water a day,” Matyjasik said. “For evaporation, at least 30% of our water in our water sources evaporates before the summer, and closer to 80% in the summer months.”

Another issue Utah faces is a water-wasting crisis. Broken pipes, sprinklers or other utilities as well as the illegal use of water are some reasons why Utah is losing more water than it should.

A collaborator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, or DWR, is the Utah Division of Water Rights, which regulates the distribution and appropriation of water usage.

Utah Department of Water Resources and Irrigation Deputy State Engineer Blake Bingham said the government agency handles dam safety, well drilling and other aspects of how people get their water.

“Water in Utah is distributed based on a system of prior appropriation or First in Time, First in Right,” Bingham said. “Essentially, to divert water from a stream, well, springs or other natural sources, it requires a water right, which people file Applications to Appropriate Water in order to have rights to water.”

Even if the rest of Utah uses water efficiently, the drought will continue, as the weather has a mind of its own.

Global warming has been an issue since the 1800s, but it has accelerated from activities like the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal that create greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that go into the atmosphere, trap the sun’s heat around the earth and warm the planet.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has stated that Utah has warmed up by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century and the chances of precipitation have diminished due to climate change.

Because of the unknown future of global warming and the drought, there are many effects that can change the way life goes in not just Utah, but the Southwest portion of the United States and possibly the rest of the planet.

ReDirect Guide Founder Mike Johnson discussed how the alarm bells should be ringing because, since 2015, the temperature has reached record highs as each year has gone by.

“As each year passes, the records are set even hotter,” Johnson said. “In July of 2021, it was the hottest month the whole world has ever seen globally for land and sea. The worst of the droughts we have ever experienced were because of the hottest month on record.”

With temperatures becoming hotter now than in the past, there are potential consequences that would happen in the future if the trend continues.

During the Intermountain Sustainability Summit at Weber State University on March 17, Our Children’s Trust Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Welle said Utah is heating up more than any other state in the U.S., and chances of adding water to the state are diminishing.

“The snowpack has decreased by nearly 80% from 1995 to 2020,” Welle said. “Utah is warming up about 70% faster than the global average. If fossil fuel development

MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022 | 7

same thought process: Since temperatures will not cool down any time soon, storing and saving water is a priority.

In 2019, Utah and the DWR along with seven other states worked together to develop a Drought Contingency Plan, which would make a state monitor certain bodies of water and prepare for potential water shortages due to the drought.

Because of this, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada and California pursued the creation of the Drought Response Operations Agreement to bring water from upper reservoirs to push into Lake Powell if the water levels shrink to 3,525 feet since experts predict it will hit that point in the future.

It is crucial to stay above that threshold because Lake Powell helps the Glen Canyon Dam create hydropower for millions of residents in those seven states.

House Bill 242 is a secondary water metering measure that was passed with over $50 million pledged to it.

This would require the water providers to install meters on all secondary water on their systems by 2030. The money will go towards the cost of installation.

With the bill passing, the state and its water companies can keep track of how much water is being used in different areas of Utah, especially rural counties.

These meters have shown a 33.7% reduction of people overusing water in Utah, according to a State of Utah report in 2018.

The Utah Division of Water Rights makes sure that all water used around Utah is allowed using a valid water right. If a person were to have used an unauthorized amount of water, there could be action taken against the person or entity that uses more water than they are allowed.

Matyjasik suggests that storing water in an aquifer, a layer of sand or rock that is capable of storing and distributing groundwater and making gradual cuts to water usage instead of substantial cuts at once, would be more beneficial in the water conservation approach.

“If we gradually manage the water we are conserving, then it would be smarter and more effective in our society,” Matyjasik said. “If we conserve in a more gradual fashion and store water in reservoirs while injecting water into aquifers, the water is protected from evaporation.”

Some critics have argued that the Utah government hasn’t done enough to combat the crisis as some bills are passed with less restrictions and others rejected.

“There is a higher chance of drier river beds, animals that rely on water will be impacted and certain species of fish could die out as droughts get worse and not enough

action is put forth by the government,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said the state needs to take this seriously and there are other states that Utah’s government should take note of.

“House Bill 115 was a proposed bill that was sponsored by Rep. Melissa Garff Ballard, R-North Salt Lake. The bill would have forced the DWR to provide up-to-date summaries on water loss data and the standards of water loss benchmarks,” Hutchinson said.

The bill failed as it lost a 34 to 41 vote as the opposing majority thought that the state shouldn’t interfere with city or county water issues.

However, according to Hasenyager, the DWR is always trying to come up with new solutions to help with combating the drought as more conservation efforts are in the works around Utah.

“The drought is out of our control, and we can do a lot of things to help our water supply,” Hasenyager said. “Changing the way we use water will be the most effective in the long run.”

Declining Upper Basin Water Supply Vs. Current Water Use 20

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continues under business as usual, the Southwest will experience the highest increase in annual premature deaths due to heat and our water resources will continue to decrease to very dangerous levels.”

Water could drop even further, as future projections showed at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit. If Utah continues to produce greenhouse gases and burn fossil fuels, there could be a chance that the state can heat up by 3.5 to 3.9 degrees Celsius or 38.3 to 39.02 degrees Fahrenheit on average by 2100.

If the heat does live up to those projections, there is a possibility that many rivers and lakes could disappear and just be open land where water used to exist.

Even though Utahns don’t use water from the Great Salt Lake, the iconic landmark has continued to shrink and it could be vacant land in the near future.

“We have hit record-low levels this past year,” Hasenyager said. “It depends on the run-off, and we could see another record-low this year in the Great Salt Lake. The declining levels of water are very concerning as we should be all worried about the state of it right now. That’s why there is a lot of emphasis to help it.”

Multiple groups of conservationists, scientists and other experts who study the drought and global warming have the

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Colorado River Water Supply

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The Colorado River’s Upper Basin Water Supply has decreased from 4.5 million acre-feet per year to below 2 million, and the deficit is 35% from where it was when the 20th century began, according to the Utah Rivers Council.

8 | MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022

By CATIE WEIMER Reporter

Gage Brinkerhoff isn’t at Weber State getting ready for final exams at the end of the semester. Instead, he’s working 40 hours a week to afford his monthly rent.

“If I had gone through this semester, I would have already had no money to my name at all by this point,” Brinkerhoff said. “I wouldn’t be able to eat or anything like that.”

Brinkerhoff, 22, falls into a group many traditional students encounter. His parents cannot claim him as a dependent on their taxes, but he is seen as a dependent when filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Although they make enough to disqualify him from any FAFSA money, Brinkerhoff’s parents do not contribute to his education.

He also does not meet any of the criteria of a nontraditional student, so Brinkerhoff must pay for his schooling and housing himself.

Federal Student Aid says an independent or nontraditional student is someone who meets at least one of the following qualifications: The person must be at least 24 years old, a graduate or professional student, married, someone with a legal dependent, a member of the armed forces or a veteran.

During the fall 2021 semester, Brinkerhoff lived off-campus with a roommate and worked while attending classes virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was living in Taylorsville, and as the lease was close to ending, they started looking for somewhere new.

At the last minute, the roommate changed plans, moved somewhere else and Brinkerhoff needed to find a new place to live.

Because of the last-minute change, Brinkerhoff had little time to find a place before the end of the month. His only apartment requirements were that it was somewhat affordable, in the Ogden area to be closer to WSU and available soon.

“I needed somewhere close to school, which was open for moving in soon,” Brinkerhoff said. “This place was literally the only thing I could find.” Brinkerhoff now lives in an apartment in downtown Ogden.

According to institutional research by WSU’s financial services, almost 8,950, or 30%, of WSU students reside in Weber County.

Dorm Decisions When Brinkerhoff was preparing to attend his first semester at WSU, he considered living in the dorms. Eventually, he decided to live off-campus, since it was cheaper than living on-campus during that period.

“At the time, I thought it would make more sense to not live on campus,” Brinkerhoff said.

Statista, a German market data company, surveyed students at 68 U.S. universities in 2018 and found that 23% of students live in modern student housing, which is housing that is purpose-built and within walking distance of campus.

Twenty-two percent of students live in on-campus dorms, and most of those buildings are over 50 years old. Fifty-five percent of students live in other rental housing, such as single-family rentals.

Financial services found that the average cost of on-campus room & board for 20212022 was just over $9,000. The average rent price off-campus during the same academic year was nearly $7,400.

The two dorm facilities on campus are University Village, which has 476 beds, and Wildcat Village, with 525 beds. It costs more to live at Wildcat Village than at University Village, due to Wildcat Village’s meal plan requirement.

For the 2022-23 academic year, the least a student living at University Village will pay is $652 per month if they live in the dorms for the entire academic year, receiving a discount for agreeing upfront to live there for the full academic year.

A student has various cost options if choosing to live at Wildcat Village. The least expensive option is a double in Residence Hall 3 for $439 per month. The most costly is a super single in Residence Hall 1 or Stewart Wasatch, costing $731 per month.

Students that live in the dorms have specific dates they may move in or out. However, students who want to leave the dorms early may lose out on a deposit, face termination fees and can only receive partial rent refunds for the first 10 weeks of the semester.

RentCafe, an apartment rental finding site that also looks at rental market trends, says the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ogden as of Feb. 2022 is $1,148.

Another site, Zumper, which helps search-

ers find housing and offers market summaries, lists Ogden’s monthly rent average as $1,169 for a one-bedroom as of April 9, 2022. It is a 25% increase from one year ago.

Affordability Issues Brinkerhoff then moved into his current apartment. He had found more affordable places, but none of the landlords would rent to him.

“There were a bunch of places that were, like, a third of my current rent, and I would get all excited and go see them,” Brinkerhoff said. “Then they’d say, ‘Oh, are you going to school? We can’t, sorry, you’re going to have to find another place; we can’t take students.’”

Under the Utah Fair Housing Act, landlords cannot refuse to rent to a person “because of a person’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, source of income, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

But Brinkerhoff wasn’t refused an apartment because of any of these issues. Instead, it’s because he was a higher education student.

“College students are not a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and to the extent that age is protected, it’s really only families with children under the age of 18 that are protected,” Jenny Gnagey, an adjunct professor of economics at WSU and researcher for OgdenCAN, said.

After only a month in his new place, Brinkerhoff’s situation became clear. “I was going broke very fast; my rent was too much and tuition was too much,” Brinkerhoff said.

“I was going into the negative every month by a lot; my savings were just draining.”

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s “Out of Reach 2021” report, a one-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent averages $869 per month in the state of Utah. For the Ogden-Clearfield metro area, the average is $812.

Fair Market Rent is how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development determines how much to pay for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8 Housing. It is the federal government’s housing assistance program for severely low-income families.

Anyone attending a higher ed institution cannot get Section 8 housing assistance.

This may explain why Brinkerhoff couldn’t rent certain places as a student.

“The only places I could find available were the low-income housing that was specifically not for students,” Brinkerhoff said.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition found a person needs an annual income of nearly $32,500 to afford a one-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent in the Ogden area. CensusReporter, which uses U.S. Census Bureau data, shows that the household income in Ogden is $26,858, and 44% of households in Ogden make under $50,000.

Affordable rent for someone making minimum wage, or $7.25 per hour, would be $377 a month, the National Low Income Housing Coalition found. A person would have to work 86 hours per week at minimum wage to be able to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the Ogden-Clearfield metro area.

Breaking point Brinkerhoff dropped his courses during the middle of the fall 2021 semester when school was no longer affordable.

“My rent more than doubled, and that took all of that thousand dollars that would have gone to the payment plan for school out of my life,” Brinkerhoff said. “I had to just drop mid-semester, which was super frustrating.”

This story isn’t unusual, as Brinkerhoff has a few friends that have experienced the exact situation in the last few years.

In 2021, WSU’s Center for Community Engaged Learning released a literature review on “The Impacts of Affordable Housing.” The report said that housing falls into the affordable category if the household members pay 30% or less of their income.

CCEL’s review found that “renters are also more likely to be cost-burdened than homeowners,” and “around 43% of renters in Weber County are cost-burdened.”

Finding affordable housing isn’t just an issue exclusive to college students in Ogden.

Earlier this year, Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Brad Wilson had Dan Jones and Associates survey 814 Utahns on potential legislation for the 2022 legislative session.

Dan Jones found that 73% of those polled agreed with the statement, “Local housing and zoning policies should do more to support the increased availability of housing in order to reduce housing prices.”

MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022 | 9

Accessory dwelling units One option to help with the issue of affordable housing is zoning ordinances allowing accessory dwelling units. ADUs are smaller units on the same property as a single-family home, such as an in-law apartment or a guest house with a kitchen and a bathroom.

The Ogden city code permits ADUs in Ogden, with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions is in the Mount Ogden planning community, roughly between 26th to 36th streets and between Harrison Boulevard and the eastern city limits.

“There is a small exception zone between the university and 35th, but then the biggest area of the city where ADUs are still illegal is basically 10 blocks area north of the university, above Harrison,” Gnagey said. “When I look at that, I say, ‘That looks like some explicit discrimination against college students, and the primarily single-family homeowners in that neighborhood don’t want ADUs because it will be a lot of students.’”

The area south of the university may soon be without ADUs as well. Currently, ADUs are still legal in the Southeast Ogden area, which is roughly between 36th Street and the southern city limits and between Gramercy Ave and the eastern city limits.

The Ogden City Council has been working on a new community plan for this area since 2019, as it was last updated in 1987. The new Southeast Ogden plan included a goal to “protect and preserve existing single-family housing.”

The preservation strategies include: Limiting ADUs in this area, allowing for more easily enforced regulations regarding illegal ADUs, encouraging student housing and multifamily homes along Harrison Boulevard and discouraging the development of tiny houses in the community.

“I think NIMBY-ism is a very big problem in single-family areas,” Gnagey said. “There’s a tendency for people to oppose housing development in their areas, in general and particularly affordable housing.”

The Ogden City Council has not amended the ADU ordinance to include the Southeast Ogden Community Plan restrictions approved in July 2020. Still, they can do so.

According to a report from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on housing affordability best practices, single-family homes are no longer the pre-

ferred type of housing. Instead, multifamily housing like townhomes, apartments and condos are preferred, but many zoning ordinances do not reflect these preferences.

“From 2000 to 2009, multifamily units accounted for only 27% of all new residential units in Utah,” the report found. “From 2010 to 2019, the share of multifamily units increased to 44%, and in the last three years, it climbed to nearly 50%.”

The Gardner Institute lists ADUs as a best practice as they provide an option for affordable housing and the ability to quickly deliver units to the market. In addition, ADUs appeal to all ages, generate wealth, fit into existing neighborhoods and communities and are environmentally sustainable.

The state of Utah has looked at ADUs for affordable housing as well.

During the Utah Legislature’s 2021 general legislative session, HB 22 passed. It included a provision that “prohibits municipalities and counties from establishing restrictions or requirements for certain accessory dwelling units with limited exceptions.”

One of the exceptions states that a municipality may ban ADUs in 25% or less of an area zoned primarily for residential use.

However, suppose that municipality is the location of the main campus for a private or state university with at least 10,000 students. In that case, HB 22 states that zoning ordinances can ban ADUs in up to 67% of the total area.

Financial services say that Weber State’s total number of students enrolled during the third week of the fall 2021 semester was 29,774.

“That is the most explicit discrimination against college students I have ever seen in a piece of legislation,” Gnagey said.

The future of campus housing In 2016, the university released a Master Plan that sets the framework for WSU’s next 20 years at three primary campuses. It includes provisions for consolidating student housing.

“Augment Wildcat Village to concentrate and rationalize all on-campus residential life in a defined residential village,” the plan states. “Relocation of the existing University Village housing to Wildcat Village within a 20-year time frame is deemed to be achievable and desirable.”

Brinkerhoff has another suggestion for WSU: affordable, on-campus housing that functions as an apartment with a landlord instead of a dorm with an RA. “Either you’re an 18-year-old who’s fresh out of high school and doesn’t have a thing to your name, so you go to the dorms, or you are a relatively successful older person who can afford to live off-campus,” Brinkerhoff said. “Well, there’s a lot of people who don’t fit in those two categories.”

For Brinkerhoff, it would be important that he be able to choose who he lives with and would be allowed to bring his two cats. Additionally, he wouldn’t need to get a storage space to store his belongings and furniture.

Currently, WSU offers the Harrison Heights Student Apartments. Roommates are placed together through software called Compatibility, which pairs roommates with an algorithm based on their answers to about 100 questions renters answer before signing a lease.

Harrison Heights has four residents per fully furnished apartment, and renters can sign leases for four, eight or 12 months. Depending on the length of the lease, monthly rent can be $415 to $485 each month for a shared room or $615 to $660 per month for a private room.

Residents of Harrison Heights also pay anywhere from $15–30 per month for parking and $80 each month for utilities.

Affordable housing meeting net zero goals As for Gnagey, she has a solution for the university to help with affordable housing and help WSU meet its net-zero goal.

“The biggest barrier to Weber State becoming net zero is the fact that students commute,” Gnagey said. “They commute by car, and they pollute.”

Gnagey suggests that WSU officials work with the city to let them know students are interested in living closer to campus. Students living near campus help cut down on commuting, which helps the university reach its net-zero goal.

Additionally, it makes more affordable housing options available for students and other renters in the Ogden area.

“They could make a genuine effort and use their political strength to try to encourage opportunities for students to live close

to campus where they wouldn’t have to drive, or they have to drive a smaller distance,” Gnagey said, “and work with the city and let them know, ‘A lot of our students would be interested in living in basement apartments in that area north of campus, but we can’t do that because ADUs are currently illegal there.’”

Further funding Another option would be to increase the financial aid given to students.

The Utah Foundation released a report in February 2021 on the postsecondary success of lower-income, nontraditional and first-generation students. One of the report’s key findings addressed Utah’s changing population.

“If the state’s postsecondary educational institutions do not respond to those changes, tens of thousands of Utahns may miss out on educational advancement in the coming decades,” the Utah Foundation found.

One of the ways the Utah Foundation report outlined to help students be successful in their educational pursuits was through assistance and support. “Wraparound services ranging from child care programs to mental health services can be costly, but can often make the difference for continuing and completing education,” the report stated.

For BIPOC students like Brinkerhoff, this support may be critical for finishing a postsecondary degree.

“There are significant gaps in postsecondary enrollment and completion among Utah’s racial and ethnic groups,” the Utah Foundation report said. “As a result, thousands of students are forgoing their education each year, and this is expected to increase in number and in the proportion of Utah’s students as the population continues to transform.”

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SUMMER MUSTER | The Signpost

By REBECCA GONZALES Copy Editor

Around 200 Utah high schools offer Advanced Placement classes, and over 20,000 Utah students take these classes every year, according to the Utah State Board of Education. In these classes, a single end-of-year exam can earn students college credits.

Over the past five years, about 10% of Weber State freshmen have started their college careers with AP credits.

AP classes are a big part of many high school students’ education, especially those who plan on going to college, but are they worth it?

WSU’s academic departments decide the credits earned for each exam, and in 202122, Weber offered credit for 36 different AP exams.

Generally, AP students have “some sort of college ambition,” according to WSU freshman Karina Barboza, who graduated from Weber High School in 2021. She said most of her AP classmates were “high-achieving” and had GPAs above 3.0.

WSU junior Casey Wheeler, who graduated from Weber High in 2018, said there was more variety in the types of students who took AP classes her sophomore year, but by the time she was a senior, “there were a lot more determined and driven students.”

Holly Leake, AP and CE English teacher in the Weber School District, said her AP students are generally more interested in the subject and are willing to dive deeper.

“There’s something about it that has piqued their interest,” Leake said.

The Cost of AP While schools offer AP classes as part of students’ regular schedule, the tests to get college credit are not free, and that can be a problem for some students. The College Board, which provides the tests, charges $96

per exam, according to their website.

In addition to the exam fee, WSU charges an additional one-time $10 recording fee to add those results to a student’s transcript, according to Andy Young, director of WSU admissions operations.

“When you sign up for the exam, you can list several schools that you want the score sent automatically to,” Young explained.

“When the scores arrive at Weber State, we add them to a student’s records in the student information system.”

WSU dual enrollment adviser Richard Leary said this high cost can be prohibitive to underserved populations like first-generation students and those who have a low socio-economic status.

“Maybe $96 is a couple of weeks of groceries for their family,” Leary said. “But for some families, that’s nothing, you know?”

The cost of the exams wasn’t an issue for WSU senior Alyssa Foxley, who graduated from Ogden High School in 2018. She took six AP exams in high school, and her parents were in a financial position to be able to pay for the tests for her.

“I was lucky enough I didn’t have to worry about coming up with that money on my own,” she said.

However, Foxley said because of her parents’ generosity, she took the tests for granted.

“I still studied,” Foxley said, “but because it wasn’t coming out of my own wallet, it kind of took a little bit of pressure off.”

The $96 exam fee, while expensive for some, is still less than WSU tuition. For one three-credit hour class, WSU charges $916.68 to in-state students, which is almost 10 times the cost of the AP exam.

AP vs. Concurrent Enrollment However, there is an alternative to AP: concurrent enrollment. High school students can take CE classes, which give both high school and college credit, through

WSU for only $5 per credit hour.

Although it may seem like CE classes cost less money, some students don’t consider that many classes require students to purchase textbooks, which could bring the cost of the class up.

“Honestly, your textbook could cost you that much easily in any class. So, cost-wise, it’s not necessarily a trade-off,” Leake said.

Despite this, Leary said the dual enrollment advisers try to bridge the equity gap between high school students from different backgrounds by encouraging CE classes over AP to students who are concerned about the cost of college or the AP exam.

Unlike AP classes, where everything hinges on the exam score, with CE classes, “The grade you get is the grade you get,” Leary said. He encourages students to take one or two, and finds that students realize, “Oh, I can do college, and it’s cheap when I do it in high school.”

In fact, 58% of freshmen over the past five years have come to WSU with concurrent enrollment credit — almost six times the number of students with AP credit.

Leake has seen a recent uptick in students choosing CE over AP, with more CE class options being added and fewer sections of AP offered.

“People are lazy and they’re scared of taking any chances on anything, so it’s not shocking to me at all,” Leake said. “I think that we are discouraging anything that’s strengthening kids anymore. We’re just teaching them how to find the easy paths and how to not take a chance.”

In Leake’s experience, CE students are often less interested in the subject and are focused on getting the college credit.

“The kids in concurrent enrollment are trying to get that English credit out of the way before they get to college,” Leake said.

“They’re just trying to check a box.”

Despite the prevalence of CE courses,

many high school students still choose to take AP classes, even though the class structure and dependence on the end-of-year exam may be detrimental to students’ learning experience.

Wheeler said AP courses’ reliance on preparing for the end-of-year exam was overwhelming.

“You would learn a lot, but it was never really focused learning,” Wheeler said. “It was just kind of like, ‘Well, we’re just going to study everything that happened in U.S. history and hope it’s on the test.’”

WSU junior Clara Holt, who graduated from Syracuse High School in 2018, struggled with the testing aspect of her combined AP English Literature and AP English Language class.

“If you’re not a good test taker, since the entire class relies on a test, it can be a lot harder,” Holt said. “You have to put in a lot more work.”

Leake said AP tests are actually good for students because it gives them a chance to demonstrate their competence.

“I think that it’s a challenge that you that you put yourself through,” Leake said. “Even if you’re not wholly successful, is still makes you stronger because you did it.”

Even though AP tests may teach valuable skills, many students still don’t want to risk not passing.

Wheeler also took CE classes in high school and said the CE grading scale is a major benefit. “You can get, like, a C in the class and still get college credit,” she said.

However, high scores on AP exams often give credit for more than one college class, while CE classes only give credit for one, Foxley pointed out.

Extra Work The consensus seems to be that in order to pass the test, students have to make a significant effort.

“Most of my homework came from my AP

classes,” Wheeler said. “It depends on the class, but the ones that I passed, I had to put in a lot of work to do it.”

Barboza took AP math and physics classes, but did not pass the end-of-year exams.

While retaking these courses in college, she had a much better experience than she did in high school.

“I was able to pass the class just fine,” she said. “It was pretty easy, actually, compared to AP.” According to Barboza, the amount of work she needed to put in to pass her AP classes was far greater than for her college classes.

“I did not nearly have as much of the workload that I had in AP, and the college classes that I have right now weren’t nearly as stressful,” she said. “Yeah, it was challenging with the content, but it was not as stressful in terms of turning in homework on time or testing and that sort of thing.”

While Barboza admits the workload often depends on the class, a lot of her frustration with AP classes came from the homework.

For her AP U.S. History class, she described reading “very long” textbook chapters and being required to turn in detailed notes taken in a very specific way.

Learning Outcomes While these accelerated courses are more work and students may be frustrated by the end-of-year exams, they may also lead to greater learning, students and teachers say.

Wheeler described being able to help her friends in regular high school classes with their homework because she “was learning a lot more.”

Holt said she usually didn’t have to try very hard to get good grades in high school, and AP classes were an adjustment. She said this transition to more intensive coursework helped prepare her for the workload in her college classes.

“That taught me how to put forth the work and actually learn from my reading,” she said.

Foxley said AP classes taught her a lot about herself. “I learned that I could do hard things and that tests weren’t the end of the world, you know?” she said.

AP classes also helped Foxley overcome her tendency to procrastinate and taught her how to take good notes in class.

“I took really good notes so that I could go back and review and make sure I had everything I needed to know for the end-of-theyear test,” she said.

What about the students who fail the AP exam? Are they just out of luck? Even if students earn a 1 or 2 on an AP exam, which are not considered passing scores, the College Board says they still experience benefits.

These students “have better college out-

comes than academically similar college students who did not take an AP course and exam” and are more likely to enroll in college, a June 2021 report from the College Board found.

More specifically, these students are “well-prepared to succeed in introductory college coursework” and many of them will “take further AP courses and score higher,” the report says.

College Readiness Although AP classes teach skills that may come in handy in college, Wheeler said they may go too far.

“A lot of times you can kind of, like, for lack of a better term, B.S. your way through a lot of [college] classes,” Wheeler said. “You can’t really do that in AP classes. I feel like AP classes aren’t an accurate representation of what college is actually like.”

While Wheeler’s AP teachers often had a “no excuses” policy, she has found that her college professors have been more lenient because they know students have busy lives.

Even if WSU students earn credit for their AP English exams, they still have to take English 2010 or 2015. Despite learning some valuable skills in her AP class, Holt found she wasn’t prepared for English 2010 and had to take it twice.

“I had to put a lot more work into that class than I did in the English classes in high school or my AP class,” she said.

A major component of her AP class was learning how to write timed essays to prepare for the exam, which Holt says hindered her in college.

“A downside of having taken the AP classes is I learned that I could write a relatively good essay in an hour,” she said, which caused her to procrastinate her college assignments.

Because of the focus on speed, Holt said her AP class didn’t teach her how to edit her essays.

“On the test, you have one try; you don’t get to go back and edit your paper,” she explained.

Holt learned more in her college English classes “because there wasn’t a huge focus on the test,” she said. “I’m actually learning and getting information and practicing different writing styles.”

This isn’t the case in Leake’s experience.

She said taking AP English classes gives students a full year to learn and explore, while CE classes, which are only one semester, are more rushed. AP leads students to be stronger and more ready for their subsequent college courses, Leake said.

Advice For high school students with college ambitions, especially those planning on going to WSU, Barboza recommends taking CE

classes over AP. She said the reason she’s able to graduate within two years is because of all the CE credits she earned in high school.

“My sister is currently taking AP right now, but by the time she turns 16, I’m telling her to do concurrent enrollment, because it’s going to be a lot easier on her and a lot less stressful compared to AP, where your focus is mainly on turning in all of your homework on time,” Barboza said.

For those who decide to take AP classes, Barboza advises them to take classes about topics they know they’ll be interested in, since that makes the experience more enjoyable.

Whether students take AP or CE, Wheeler said it can help them explore their interests.

“It helped focus me more on what path I wanted to take,” she said. “I took a variety of AP and concurrent enrollment classes, and that kind of helped me explore, get college credit and to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my adult life.”

Foxley said her teachers made a big difference in how much she enjoyed her AP classes. “Those are some of the classes that I enjoyed the most,” she said. “I felt like the teachers knew their stuff and they were very approachable.”

However, every school and teacher are different, so Foxley recommends researching the teachers beforehand by talking to friends who have taken classes from them before.

Worth it?

All things considered — the cost, workload and comparison to CE — are AP classes worth it?

“I think it’s worth it if you feel confident you’re going to pass the test,” Wheeler said.

“I didn’t pass three of the ones I didn’t put in all the work for.”

Foxley said students should know what they’re getting into beforehand.

“They have to be willing to put in the work prior to the test, too, so that the test doesn’t amount to nothing,” she said.

Another factor to consider is whether or not a student will actually need those credits for their degree.

While Leary and the dual enrollment advisers try not to discourage those high school students who really want to take AP classes from doing so, he said he makes sure students know the information on what’s going to work best with their intended major.

“We have a lot of students who sometimes take AP calculus, but they plan to be a history major,” he said. “That’s way too much, you know, unless they want to. Of course, we never dissuade it.”

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By MARISA NELSON Managing Editor

College presents a plethora of challenges that aren’t always obvious at first glance: the testing centers, a hill on the way to class or a cramped bathroom. But for students on Weber State campus with disabilities, they can be detrimental.

Of the 29,744 students enrolled in fall 2021, 858, about 2.9%, of them are registered as having a disability, the Weber State Disability Services Office says.

While many disabilities are physical, this total does reflect those with learning or mental disabilities but may not be a comprehensive number of all students on campus who struggle with a disability if they are not registered with the office.

The American with Disabilities Act defines a person with a disability as someone who has a physical or mental disability that significantly limits their day to day activities.

Cailin Hughes, who has dyslexia, said that working with the Disability Office and her professors has been a positive experience.

While her professors have been accommodating, college is still challenging.

“A lot of my classes are online, and a lot of the assignments are like having to read from the textbook to get information,” Hughes said. “And that’s hard for me. I can read the chapter five times and still not pick up the information that I need to.”

Hughes said that having someone from the Disability Office read her tests to her helps with comprehension and is a good accommodation for timed tests.

“I just have to work that little bit extra to get to where everyone else is,” Ryan Char-

ters, a WSU student who is color blind and dyslexic, said.

Charters, who is only in his second semester as a college student, says that he has not registered with the disability center.

Being color blind and dyslexic, Charters has had some struggles in his general education classes, but his professors have been helpful in making accommodations without a written letter from the Disability Center.

“In math, I will often get commas and periods mixed up,” Charters said. “I remember I had to retake one of my math tests completely because I got just under 70% because of one answer.”

Charters said that reading building names on campus was hard when he first came to WSU. Disability accommodations from high school to college can range drastically. The transition often poses a drastic change for students, especially those with physical disabilities.

Recent WSU graduate Kierstynn King said she was not given the same amount of help once entering college.

“The first time I went to the Disability Center I was with my mom, and they kind of made it sound like they would be able to help me with everything that I struggle with,” King said.

King, who has cerebral palsy that affects her ability to get around, specifically mentioned getting to class in the snow and doing math at a slower pace due to her disability.

Angela McLean, disability services director, said that higher education campuses are not under the same obligation as high schools to provide means such as transportation to classes, nursing staff and personal evaluations because college students are considered adults and are responsible for

those personal needs.

“Adult education is different, and ADA is then enforced there,” McLean said. “So the personal support services and the responsibility of the institution changes.”

McLean explained that this transition can be shocking for most students and hard to handle. K-12 schools are under IDEA 504, compared to higher institutions that are under ADA. The Disability Office works to provide peer mentors to help students through this process, provide transition counseling and help students make connections with the adult disability community in Ogden, to help with some of those issues that the university cannot provide.

But beyond that, King said that she often felt looked down on before the global pandemic and was not given access to the resources she needed.

“I don’t want to say they thought I was dumb, but they were just over-simplifying things when they didn’t need to do that,” King said.

King said she had asked for recordings of classes to review when her cerebral palsy made it difficult to get to campus. She was told that recordings or virtual class were not options by her professor.

Shortly after King asked for this accommodation, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and classes went virtual.

“I felt that there were accommodations that could be made. People just weren’t going to do it,” King said.

Accommodations McLean said that most of the funding for accommodations goes to services that benefit most students in academic situations such as advising, note taking, proctoring and mentoring.

“I usually don’t have too much difficulty meeting their need because most of the accommodations that are requested are accommodations that I am familiar with,” Natalie Williams, professor in special education at WSU, said.

Williams said that students who are not registered with the Disability Center can still receive accommodations from her, but she waits for the student to make the effort to come to her and doesn’t offer an accommodation, such as extra time on tests, to everyone.

Williams said that she has made accommodations for students in K-12 and college throughout her career and works to help them find the best accommodation that will help them succeed without compromising the field or program.

Students with physical disabilities may need more than just peer help and may have more specific needs.

Annabelle Durham, whose disability is physical and mental, says that it’s the small things that can often set disabled students back.

Durham on most days seems able-bodied.

She has bilateral club feet, or crooked feet, and is neurodivergent.

As a theater major, Durham signed up during the fall semester to be on the electric crew. The sign-up sheet did not specify that climbing or lifting would be involved.

“I am not necessarily scared of ladders, and I’m not necessarily scared of heights,” Durham said. “I’m scared of my own feet.”

Durham also mentioned that past roommates often saw her on her “better disability” days during Zoom school when she wasn’t walking around as much.

When she did mention her disability, they would roll their eyes at her and bully her

Charlotte Elizabeth Poe and Annabelle Durham pose for a photo outside of the Shepherd Union Building.

would roll their eyes at her and bully her about actually having a disability.

“It’s very common for disabled people to be pushed aside and ignored unless they are visibly disabled, and even then,” Durham said.

Durham reached out to the College of Health Professions, where the roommates were enrolled as nursing students at the time. Durham never got a satisfactory response or heard if her roommates were spoken to about this discrimination.

While the number of students registered with the disability center may seem small, Durham says there are a lot more disabled students than most people realize.

There may be more students like Charters who are not registered with the Disability Center.

Ryan Dunn, assistant professor in the Child and Family Studies department, said that some things that may not be first recognized or seen as disabilities could be English as a Second Language and the challenges of returning students.

“If you had done pencil and paper school and then came back to a computer-based school, that could be a learning disability,” Dunn said. “You would not be able to show me you were good at math because the computer would get in the way.”

Some students such as Charlotte Poe, who has fibromyalgia, which causes widespread pain and fatigue, may just need to finish their degree at a slower pace.

Poe can walk, but she often uses a wheelchair because her energy is low and getting around campus can be a bit of a to-do.

“It wears me out really, really quickly — pain is really exhausting — so I use a wheelchair to help me just stay awake for more

than half the day,” Poe said.

Scheduling her classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday helps Poe give her body the time it needs to rest.

Poe also has gastroparesis, which affects her stomach movement and her weight.

“When you’re really tired and when you’re in pain all over, all the time, that affects everything,” Poe said.

As a part-time student, Poe has plenty of work, but she thinks that students should really take more time to slow down.

“I personally think that everybody should take things slower if they need to,” Poe said.

“There is this whole culture of doing it now, now, now, and shoving in every class that you need to, and it seems to just cause misery.”

Poe and Durham both expressed an appreciation for first access to classes during registration that is provided to them from the Disability Center.

McLean said that many accommodations can be made for different students and disabilities are complex.

“Disability and access and equity is everyone’s job on campus,” McLean said.

Access to advising and test accommodations may be enough for students with learning or mental disabilities, but snow removal, handicap parking spaces, elevator access and easily accessible classrooms and bathrooms are more important for students with physical disabilities.

The university’s Master Plan surveyed compliance with ADA requirements in all buildings on campus in 2016 and found many of the buildings were built before ADA was put in place in 1990.

According to the appendix of the Master Plan, the university had over 740 Priority 1 restrictions. Over half of these VCBO archi-

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A reserved parking sign with the disabilities parking logo located at the A1 parking lot.

tecture felt that university maintenance staff could fix on their own.

Priority 1 restrictions included accessible restrooms and routes, force required to open doors, mirrors being too high, accessible elevators, wheelchair stalls in bathrooms, rooms without ramps, wireless door actuators, range of reach, chairs or obstacles blocking doors and clearance, etc.

The assessment suggested that WSU consider “systematically addressing the Priority 1 restrictions in each building in a timely manner.”

Recognizing and Respecting Treating students on campus with respect without pitying them or coddling is what Durham, Poe and others said they want.

“It’s not like we need coddling or special treatment,” Poe said. “It’s more that we have different capacities that need to be respected and supported.”

Poe said that students who want to help should ask before acting and check in with their disabled peers every so often.

“Never assume you know what is best,” Poe said.

She added that some people will just grab or lead blind people to where they think they need to go or grab her wheelchair and not ask if she needs assistance first.

Dunn says that a desire to understand others can help to better serve them.

“That’s the thing I wish people would do, connect,” Dunn said. “I would love for there to be kind of that wonderment and curiosity and interest in one another.”

As a professor and a father to a child with a disability, Dunn says that something we all can work on is helping students feel more welcome rather than just this open-door policy.

“There is a difference between being invited and being welcome,” Dunn said.

The university does not have required training to prepare or educate professors on students with disabilities, according to Dunn, but when he has expressed the desire to attend workshops to further his knowledge, the university gives full support.

Even if students don’t have a diagnosed disability, Dunn says he encourages students to ask if something isn’t meeting their needs.

Williams said that educators should realize the students they work with are students first and should identify their strengths to help them succeed.

Rather than telling those who are disabled that they are unable to bring anything to the table, Dunn hopes that everyone can recognize that their presence is important.

Williams said that students with disabilities can often underestimate what they have to offer. These students already have the skills to complete the course or whatever it might be.

“I don’t find it difficult to meet a student where they are, I have never encountered a student in my class who has a disability who I couldn’t meet that need,” Williams said.

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By ALEXANDREA BONILLA Asst. Section Editor

Gun violence numbers continue to rise every year, as does the money that goes toward preventing it.

In an attempt to combat these rising numbers, federal and local governments have implemented anti-violence programs, ranging from federally funded grants to nonprofit organizations run by volunteers.

In 2015, according to the Federal Office of Justice Programs, over $7 billion was awarded to state and local anti-violence programs.

This multiplied more than 100 times in just five years, with over $1 trillion awarded in 2020.

Money is granted by the Office for Victims of Crime, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking.

Rising numbers In 2021, the United States had 44,974 deaths caused by or resulting from gun violence, an increase of a little over 1000 from the 2020 deaths and over 5000 from the 2019 deaths.

This data is collected daily on The Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit corporation, collecting data from over 7,500 sources to provide and collect accurate and up-to-date information on gun violence throughout the country. FBI data, which is included in the archive calculations, lags by a year and fails to specify the type of gun violence that occurred. FBI data may additionally identify a crime under a different category even when gun violence is involved.

However last year, the FBI switched from the Uniform Crime Reporting System to the National Incident Based Reporting System.

This system was created to improve the data collection by allowing specificity and context.

Utah has followed this pattern, with a continued increase of deaths relating to firearms within the last few years, as reported by The Utah Department of Health.

According to the Utah Department of Health Violence and Injury Prevention Program, Utah’s firearm-related death rate, the number of deaths per 1,000 people, was

consistently higher than the national rate over the last decade.

The data also shows that within the last decade 62.4% of firearm deaths were caused by firearms that owners stored loaded. Fifty seven percent of these firearms were not locked up.

The Utah legislature also does not prohibit the possession of specific type of firearms.

Only minors and people with a criminal history are prohibited from owning a firearm.

With combined numbers rising, analyzing gun violence on a smaller scale shows the differences that anti-violence programs make.

Threat assessment and management “Guns are the what, they’re not the why,” Rachael Frost, Chief Executive Officer of Frost Investigation, Consultation, Education and Development, said. “Without us addressing the why in our society, were failing to really address violence.”

Frost, a violence recognition and response specialist, believes in threat assessment and management as a method of gun safety.

“Demonizing is not what threat assessment and management is about. It’s about supportive factors,” Frost said. “It’s about supporting that person. That person that is on that pathway to violence. The assessment is that we have a behavior of concern, where are we on this pathway. If you’re doing it right, you’re working with everybody. You’re making sure that there’s a plan in place for this individual.”

Frost believes one way we can caution individuals from a violent path is by preventing adverse childhood experiences by building strong communities and support systems.

Frost compares adverse childhood experiences to the three little pigs. Brick houses are made out of strong foundations: love, care and concern. A traumatic event can hit the brick house, but it is stronger and with help, can be built right back up. A twig house has a weaker foundation: non-affectionate or non-loving parents, lower class neighborhoods or mild abuse. A straw house is weak: built up from abuse, lack of good parents and essential needs.

“We expect people who are building straw houses, who grew up in a straw house, to build a brick house,” Frost said. “We want ev-

eryone to build a brick house, but they don’t know how.”

Frost explained how supportive communities include mental health professionals and leadership coalitions. She believes that if the leaders in a community come together and set a plan in motion on how to solve problems, they can help individuals within the community who only know one way of life, discover a new one.

Project safe neighborhoods In 2001 the U.S. Department of Justice launched a program called Project Safe Neighborhoods to reduce violent crime and gun violence nationwide.

Project Safe Neighborhoods focuses on four elements to reduce violence and crime: community engagement, prevention and intervention and focused and strategic enforcement and accountability, according to the United States Department of Justice website.

Ogden has been a recipient of Project Safe Neighborhoods formula grants for the last four years with a running total of $724,556.

“It gave us a significant amount of resources and an ability to use federal resources and partners to prosecute people where they actually would be better held accountable for what they’re doing,” Ogden City Police Chief Eric Young said. “But on the other side of that, the program is not intended for first time offenders or low-level offenders.”

Project Safe Neighborhoods allows Ogden City Police to prosecute individuals at the national level, where the offender is sentenced to serve at a federal prison out of state. Young says that this takes the offender away from the community and away from their support system where they could be interacting with their associates within prison walls.

The federal government does limit the number of projects granted from one agency; Ogden City receives grant money for other projects, meaning that they cannot receive additional grant money for Project Safe Neighborhood.

Because of this limit, Ogden City partners with The United Way of Northern Utah. The United Way of Northern Utah is the fiscal agent for Project Safe Neighborhoods. Ogden City Police write the grant and send it to United Way, who then submits it to the Department of Justice granting agency. The

money for the program is then spent by the Ogden City Police, reimbursed to them from United Way, and then the funding agency reimburses United Way. “Part of that funding goes back to the United Way to try and foster programs to fill in the gaps,” Young said. “We know the reality is that a lot of times these people we are taking out of the community are leaving families, spouses, significant others and children in a community that don’t have a support structure now.”

While United Way does not have a specific program to enhance the work of Project Safe Neighborhoods, they use the money they get back to foster their already in place programs that fall within the Project Safe Neighbor geographic footprint.

The Project Safe Neighborhoods geographic footprint goes from 20th to 30th streets and Washington to Monroe Boulevards.

“We’re making sure that those programs are available to families of potential that might be affected by Project Safe Neighborhoods,” Gina DeSantis, the Grant Budget Administrator of United Way of Northern Utah, said. “Is there a support system in place for who gets left behind?”

United Way offers several programs to families such as Welcome Baby and Playgroup.

Welcome Baby supports first time parents by teaching them about age-specific developmental information, parental engagement activities and positive parenting skills. After the child has aged out of Welcome Baby, they can participate in Playgroup. It allows for parents to be actively involved with their child’s learning and playtimes.

“Our focus is to help the other community nonprofits come together as an essential resource,” DeSantis said. “United Way prides itself in being able to fill in those gaps that have been identified.”

Supporting data Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice has a team dedicated to studying and researching PSN’s impact.

Heather Perez, Edmund McGarrell, Natalie Hipple, Nicholas Corsaro, Timothy Bynum, Carol Zimmermann and Melissa Garmo submitted a study to the National Institute of Justice that gathered and analyzed data regarding the impact of PSN.

Their research found that Project Safe Neighborhood targeted areas experienced reduced violence compared to non-targeted areas. For U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000, a high rate of Project Safe Neighborhood prosecutions was associated with a 13.1% decrease in violence. Cities with a low rate of Project Safe Neighborhoods experienced a 7.8% increase in violence.

They found that from 2001 to 2006, cities given PSN intervention experienced a 4.1% reduction in violent crime.

“Nationally there is no single source of data on gun homicides, which was the outcome variable of most interest, but there are supplementary homicide reports,” Edmund McGarrell, researcher and professor at Michigan State University, said. “When we only looked at the gun homicides that’s where we saw a 20% reduction. Somewhere between that 4 and 20 percent reduction, we felt pretty confident.”

The data from PSN allows the agencies to be targeted and focused, focusing on what is causing violence and how to target it. A combination of enforcement, intervention and prevention is more likely to make an impact, according to McGarrell.

McGarrell gave the example of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where the results found that most gun violence was associated with domestic violence. From there they were able to focus on domestic violence intervention and prevention.

This, of course, does not come without its challenges. Gathering data across 94 Attorney General offices is a challenge on its own but it became more challenging when not every office had the same definition of violence.

“In most communities there’s’ somewhere between 3-5 times as many non-fatal shootings,” McGarrell said. “It’s not been part of the FBI’s uniform crime reporting because there is no category for it, instead it’s categorized as an aggravated assault.”

McGarrell and his associates are advocates for the switch to the NIBRS system for this reason. NIBRS provides more information about the incident such as the victim, the weapon, the suspect and more. The system of organization allows for researchers to go into cases of domestic violence and be able to see how many involved a firearm and how

many of those involved an injury.

“Right now, the NIBRS system only covers about half the population, they’re increasingly working with states and law agencies to move into NIBRS,” McGarrell said. “That will be an improvement that will certainly make research better.”

Heather Perez, Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for MSU, complimented Ogden for their real time crime center data analytics.

Agencies with a research partner were able to make improvements in their selection of strategies to reduce violence, according to the data found by MSU. “We found that in cities who had a research partner who was actively involved and able to look at the data analysis and be an independent set of eyes on things make some pretty significant improvements,” Perez said. “Kind of moving towards that I think we’ll see some improvements having a better understanding and a better focus on being able to address crime and repeat offenders.”

The Research Triangle Institute is currently studying the effects of Project Safe Neighborhoods across the country; collecting and analyzing data set to be published next year.

Community Oriented Policing Services Ogden additionally received a grant from The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. COPS is under the U.S. Department of Justice and work to promote community policing by building relationships between police and the communities.

COPS granted Ogden City School District $393,332 in 2020 through their School Violence Prevention Program to install access controls, doorbell cameras, camera upgrades and intercom system upgrades in schools.

Ogden was the first agency in Utah to get a COPS grant for community policing. This gave Ogden schools the opportunity to go from two officers to a team of ten. School resource officers in every one of the middle schools, high schools, the alternative school and two dedicated to elementary schools.

“We are trying to break that cycle of intergenerational poverty and the schools to prison pipeline by trying to implement programs to not just solve it now but hopefully down the road,” Young said.

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The Ogden City Police Department also has a Crime Reduction Unit working seven days a week. The officers who are assigned to this unit dedicate their time to proactive enforcement, patrolling neighborhoods in Downtown Ogden where crime heat maps show the most activity.

“It’s something we also use as a tool because we only put the officers there for a short period of time, two years at the most,” Young said. “They learn how to do proactive work and how to go out and interact in the community and they come back to the other groups that can help share that knowledge.”

Young claims that they have seen a 30% reduction in severe crimes in Ogden in accordance with Project Safe Neighborhoods.

These severe crimes include aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, robbery, arson, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehi- A graffitied stop sign sits at an intersection in a downtown Ogden cle theft. neighborhood.

A solution The Utah Department of Safety Bureau of Criminal Identification reports show a decreasing crime index since 2018. The Ogden Police Department indexed a total of 3,507 crimes in 2018, giving a crime rate of 40.03 crimes per 1,000 people.

The rate has continuously declined with a rate of 40 per 1,000 people in 2019 and 37.74 in 2020.

The decreased crime rate in Ogden could directly correlate with the implementation HELP PREVENT VIOLENCE IN OUR of Project Safe Neighborhoods, COPS and WEBER COMMUNITY! community programs. The implementation of anti-violence programs in communities of high crime rates provides a solution to an Take the Safe@Weber training now. increasing national issue.

“The problem is gun safety is just one 1 2 component of a complete problem. It’s cerSearch Go to your tainly an important issue that needs to be Safe@Weber eWeber portal addressed, however, when it comes to anti-violence the weapon is just the what, and 3 it is not the why,” Frost said. “It is the why Click on the Safe@Weber that is the most important component that icon and choose student our society is catching up to exploring on a or employee training. national stage.”

Questions? Email safeatweber@weber.edu

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Distracted driving and speeding are the top two causes of vehicle accidents.

By RAYSHAUN BAKER-LYNCH Reporter

In 2021, speeding resulted in 7,951 crashes in Utah, adding to the already increasing rate of car crashes. Distracted driving and speeding are the top two causes of vehicle accidents.

Utah Highway Patrol officer Sgt. Michael Irvine has been with the highway patrol for years and has seen a lot in his time when it comes to car crashes.

“The number one cause of crashes is speed, followed by following too close secondary,” Irvine said. “The increase of crashes

can have a lot of factors. The four common ones are speed, distracted driving, impaired driving and aggressive driving.”

A car crash happens every eight minutes in Utah, while someone is injured from a wreck every 20 minutes. A person dies from a car crash in Utah every 33 hours.

Teen drivers cause accidents because of their inexperience. In the past year, 22% of car crashes in Utah were teen related. Out of all the crashes, there were 13,501 teens involved in accidents, resulting in 6,162 injuries and 46 teen deaths.

Car crashes are among the top leading causes of death for teenagers. Transportation safety reported that teens are more likely to

be in an accident due to their inexperience and not being able to recognize serious situations. They are more likely to speed by doing so, leaving shorter headways for other drivers.

“Inexperience is probably one of the biggest issues other than distracted driving,” Rodriguez said. “I find that a lot of people that don’t know what they’re doing can get into minor crashes but not severe ones.”

On top of inexperience, teens can be distracted and make poor decisions, like receiving a text, changing the song on the radio or being distracted by friends in the car, even if they are trying to be careful.

Incidents of reckless driving Jonathon Rodriguez, a local Ogden teen, was recently in a car accident. Rodriguez mentioned that he had the right of way and a car ran into him while making an illegal turn. The man driving the vehicle ran into the side of Rodriguez’s car. The man then sped off, hitting two different vehicles. Later Rodriguez found out that the guy was running away from the cops.

“No one was injured in our crash, but it was a surreal experience,” Rodriguez said.

“You don’t wake up in the morning thinking that something like this is going to happen, but when you look at it, anything can happen at any time. I guess I got to see a real-life

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car chase, but it sucks that I got hit in the process.”

Teens can receive their license as early as age 16. Drivers take a test to obtain a permit, which is about learning the driving rules.

Then six months later, drivers are eligible to get a license. Young drivers get a six-month window of practice with an adult before they are set free to drive on their own.

In recent years, Sarah Frei, a teen, was injured in a crash caused by a drunk driver.

Frei had to get both legs amputated. The man who hit her, Dustin Wesley Anderson, was sentenced to serve at least two and up to 12 years in Utah State Prison. Anderson was charged with four counts of driving under the influence and three third-degree felonies.

As a result of this crash, the Utah legislature passed a bill called Sarah’s Law. The bill mandates that anyone charged with a DUI who caused a death or serious injuries must stay in jail before their trial. The bill was unanimous within the senate, and it protects citizens from individuals who are dangerous to the public.

Vern Jensen, another local teen, recently got his license and was in a car accident. He was distracted by fiddling with his radio and hit a car in the process.

“My insurance is high now, but I’m still learning,” Jensen said. “My accident wasn’t too bad, but I see people follow someone close and they end up getting into an accident. I feel like I have to learn and get better.

In my accident, I scratched the other person’s car, so they didn’t react badly about it.”

Impaired driving, aggressive driving and distracted driving are all based on the decision-making of the driver.

Fatima Trigueros is a teen in Ogden. She hit a car while she was backing up in a parking lot. After she hit the car, she looked at the driver, exchanging glances. Then Trigueros just drove off.

“The accident was my fault. I have to be more careful when I drive,” Trigueros said.

“The lady looked mad, but the accident wasn’t a big thing, so I just drove off and went on with my day.”

Trigueros drives with her sister, another teen and her younger brother. Trigueros gave an example of some of the incidents in which she got distracted: Her music, her siblings and a game called bingo that they play.

“I can’t drive if my music isn’t playing. It’s bad, but I just need it to play while I drive,” Trigueros said.

Safety

Driving is about decision-making on the spot. The human brain is not fully developed until around age 25. The prefrontal cortex in the brain is where decision-making and judgment come into place.

On average, Utah Highway Patrol makes about 10 traffic stops a day, depending on the day. These calls can lead to them pulling over a young teen just starting out driving.

Crashes involving teens and young children are hard for officers. They are usually the first responders to most car crashes.

“Any time you’re dealing with children who have died in a crash, that’s always significant,” Irvine said. “Those are the crashes you will always remember. Those are the ones that are hardest to deal with.”

Irvine suggests that Utah drivers can reduce car crashes by avoiding being on their phones, being impaired, staying within the speed limit and trying not to be aggressive drivers. Utah Highway patrol focuses on individuals who have these distractions while driving.

A survey taken in 2019, and again in 2021, showed the use of seat belts by the citizens of Utah. In 2019, 90.2% of people used seat belts, and in 2021 it dropped down to 88.2%.

The study showed that female participants

buckled up more than male participants. The female participants wore a seatbelt 90.9% of the time, whereas male participants were down to 86%.

In 2019, of teen drivers and passengers who didn’t wear a seat belt and were involved in a crash, 48% died. In May 2015 Utah’s seatbelt law became a primary enforcement law.

Teen drivers are inexperienced and have to learn more about driving to become dependable.

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Daryn Hickok goes head-to-head with two EWU players trying to stop her progress towards the basket.

By BRAYDEN EVENSEN Correspondent

Title IX, a landmark federal law dealing with equality for women in higher education, was created to provide a level playing field for female athletes. But 50 years after its passage, women’s sports at Weber State University get just over half of what men’s sports receive in resources.

In 2018-19, Weber State University’s total expenses for football was $3,986,758, $1,930,140 for men’s basketball and $1,107,780 for women’s basketball. The rest of Weber State’s NCAA teams spent $4,542,555 combined.

On average, Weber State University gives out $10,336 annually to male student athletes for financial aid compared to $9,511 for female student athletes.

The average salary of a men’s head coach at Weber State University is $165,25, com-

pared to $64,460 for a female head coach, meaning the average salary is nearly doubled for men’s head coaches.

“If you take the budget numbers between the men’s and women’s teams and see that there is a gap, that isn’t necessarily enough to prove that it is a violation of any Title IX requirement,” Laura Thompson, executive director of affirmative action and equal opportunity, said.

Some of the budget differences can be accounted for in the amount of players on each team. There are 106 players on Weber State University’s football team, compared to 16 players on the men’s basketball team and 14 players on the women’s basketball team.

The total number of athletes on the men’s golf team is even less, with 11 total players compared to 12 athletes on the women’s golf team.

Title IX focuses on three prongs to ensure equitable opportunities for male and female athletes.

The first is creating equitable participation opportunities, but this does not mean there needs to be a men’s and women’s team for every sports. This is calculated by looking at the proportionality of sports opportunities to the percentage of each gender on campus.

Second is taking a deeper look at if women are not being equally represented in sports.

If the institution is taking steps to remedy it, the school remains in accordance with Title IX. The third prong is addressing the interest of the students. Universities don’t have to create sports teams if the student interest of participation is being met with the current sports that are offered.

Will Pridemore is the associate athletics director for student-athlete support services at Weber State University and makes sure student athletes are supported.

“For Weber State, the question would be, is this being met specifically for females? Since Weber State is in the Big Sky Conference, do

they offer any sports that Weber State doesn’t currently offer?” Pridemore said. “As of today, that is not the case.”

According to the Weber State athletic budgets from 2017-21, however, there is a discrepancy in the total dollar amounts that each men’s sports receives and what each women’s sports receives. The men’s athletic teams received 66.17% of the total athletic budget in 2019-20 and 63.89% in 2020-21.

Each year, Weber State University spends $14,901,150 on all 16 NCAA teams, and 27% of that money goes to the football team.

With the football team’s athletic budget being the highest at Weber State University, the total athletic budget trumped every other men’s and women’s sport with an actual amount of $2,937,713.

“It is not always going to be about the money, because the cost of equipment for the football team is going to be more expensive than the equipment for the women’s soccer team. As far as equality goes, is Weber

State has noticed the stark difference of fans in attendance.

“I think there are different fan bases for both the men’s and women’s teams, as well as a fanbase for sports in general,” Harris said.

Harris went on to mention how she thinks the overall success of each team is related to attendance numbers.

“The men’s team has been consistently successful for a number of years now, and the women’s team had a coach for 20 years that had her fanbase, and so when she left, the team had to start over,” Harris said.

The athletic department handles the majority of equity issues and the NCAA requirements.

“Title IX involves looking at things like, are we providing a stadium for the football team, but not the women’s softball team? Equality is more than the dollar amount,” O’Brien said.

“Another example of equality is if the football team went to a fancy restaurant and the women’s tennis team went to McDonald’s instead.”

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State giving the same amount of quality concerning equipment for every athletic team?”

Veronica O’Brien, senior academic coordinator for basketball, soccer and tennis at Weber State, said.

The Javits Amendment defines the potential and legitimate discrepancies in sports, including equipment, as O’Brien mentioned.

But the budget for the men’s and women’s basketball teams still differ, despite the relatively equal equipment needs. In 202021 alone, the men’s basketball team’s actual budget was $1,465,190 compared to an actual budget of $850,513 for the women’s basketball team.

Velaida Harris, the head women’s basketball coach at Weber State University, has a unique perspective on Title IX because before she was the head coach at Weber State, she was a coach at the University of Oregon and the University of Utah, both of which are in the Pac-12 conference.

“Because of Title IX being passed, it has given equal opportunities for men’s and women’s athletics, and a lot of women’s athletic teams have taken advantage of that,” Harris said. “It doesn’t matter where athletes end up. The most important thing to me is making sure that all of my current and incoming athletes have an equal playing field.”

Part of Title IX has to do with attendance numbers, and anybody who has gone to a men’s or women’s basketball game at Weber

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Jamison Overton aligns his hands to get a perfect free throw after Eastern Washington got a foul on him.

Despite the focuses of Title IX to ensure equitable opportunities for men’s and women’s sports, WSU athletic budgets show discrepancies in the total dollar amounts that men and women receive.

20 | MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022

By HUNTER LINDSEY Reporter

tional audience, some schools have to win their conference’s championship to compete in the tournament.

“Because of that equal conference distribution, every conference that has an automatic bid gets one share,” Thunell said. “If we then have a team win in round one and advance to round two, which has happened a few times in Big Sky Conference history, then you get another share because you’re playing a second game.”

Automatic bids help mid-major programs like Weber State receive funding for athletic events, scholarships, facilities and equipment.

“Like most other mid-major schools, we don’t get the majority of our funding from that because we don’t have teams that advance into the tournament,” Thunell said.

“But, it is money that makes a big difference.”

Thunell says that the pandemic made 2020 a rough year for funding, as no March WSU Athletics

The NCAA and its athletic events generate nearly one billion dollars annually. To put that into perspective, prominent clothing company Vans generated just over $475 million in revenue last year, according to their 2021 annual fiscal report.

“It’s somewhere around $800 million that the NCAA gains in revenue,” associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator at Weber State University Meagan Thunell said. “They turn around and distribute over $600 million of that to the participating institutions.”

More than half of the revenue generated by the tournaments and championships is kicked back to Division I programs, leaving a much smaller sum for Division II and Division III programs.

According to official financial reports, $100 million is used to organize the March

Madness tournament, college football playoffs and other NCAA athletic events.

This method of funding is why the NCAA is a hotspot for dynasties. Schools like Duke University, University of North Carolina and University of California, Los Angeles have won multiple NCAA basketball championships while schools like the University of Alabama, Louisiana State University and the University of Southern California have dominated college football in the fall.

“The rich stay rich,” Thunell said. “The programs that advance in the tournament, they get more of the distribution.”

While the rich are paid to stay powerful, smaller schools are left scrambling for funding to keep themselves as competitive as possible.

During the NCAA’s March Madness tournaments, each Division I conference receives an automatic bid. A way to make sure that smaller programs receive NCAA funding and have a chance to compete in front of a na-

Stewart stadium packed full of excited audience members.

Madness tournament was held for the first time since 1938.

“During COVID, instead of distributing $600 million, they distributed less than $300 million,” Thunell said. “That was a huge impact on schools.”

A large portion of the wealth generated by the NCAA is distributed to major institutions and student athletes through scholarships.

Thunell said the structure might change, however, with talks of expanding the college football playoffs along with rumors that schools in the power-five conferences are going to break away from the rest of the Division I schools to form a super league.

The power-five conferences consist of the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Atlantic Coast, the Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference. If these conferences break away, it’s speculated their schools will receive even more NCAA funding. Although it’s possible that funds will trickle down to players, the impact the move could have on student athletes, staff, fans and communities isn’t known yet.

Until recently, student athletes were not allowed to make money from their name, image or likeness, also known as NIL, without punitive action from the NCAA. On July 1, 2021, the NCAA changed its policy to allow student athletes these privileges.

“The NCAA landscape is certainly changing right now with the name, image and likeness opportunities and the fact that there’s not any national law on that,” Thunell said.

Athletes at title-winning schools like Alabama have benefitted the most from these opportunities. During a press conference at a Texas high school coaches association event, Alabama’s head coach Nick Saban discussed the earning potential of certain Crimson Tide players, specifically star quarterback Bryce Young.

“Our quarterback already has approached ungodly numbers,” Saban said. “It’s almost seven figures. And it’s like, the guy hasn’t even played [professionally] yet.”

In an effort to help student athletes find and make NIL deals, Big Sky conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill announced a

WSU Athletics

MyWeberMedia.com | April 19, 2022 | 21

Weber State University, like other mid-major programs, utilizes automatic bids to help fund their programs.

partnership with INFLCR in July of 2021. INFLCRis an Alabama-based software company that helps student athletes develop their personal brand and connect with sponsors without violating NCAA guidelines.

“The Big Sky Conference is thrilled to partner with the industry leader in this dynamic and evolving space,” Wistrcill said at a press conference after the announcement.

During that press conference, INFLCR founder and CEO Jim Cavale said that the software would help generate revenue for student athletes in the Big Sky. “The Big Sky is innovative and strategic in its approach to this new NIL era by supplying the INFLCR verified product solution to each of its 11-member institutions department-wide,” Cavale said.

While Weber State athletes may not garner the same national attention and financial support as athletes from schools in the power-five conferences, they can still make local NIL deals to develop their brand.

“The opportunity for them to be able to have an endorsement, however minor, with a local establishment, whether it’s a restaurant or whatever else. Those are exciting opportunities for student athletes,” Thunell said. “People have said over the years that many of the high-level athletes have been exploited for their talent. It’s hard not to look at the facts and tend to agree with that.”

Although not every athlete will sign an NIL deal, the NCAA has organized student athlete advisory committees at every level to influence the decision-making process.

“It’s comprised of student athletes that are basically in a leadership position to help make decisions and to help guide their own athletics departments,” Thunell said.

Thunell also said that the NCAA is “asking for the votes on legislation and really wanting to give more voice to the student athlete.”

To further support student athletes, the NCAA donates over $69 million to the Student Athlete Opportunity Fund annually, helping athletes who are struggling financially. A student athlete’s medical expenses are often paid for by the fund to make up for what insurance doesn’t cover. A similar program is the Special Assistance Fund, which received just almost $19 million last year.

In June 2020, the NCAA created the Aca-

demic Performance Fund, a program for all Division I schools that incentivizes academic excellence. In 2021, the amount allocated for the Academic Performance Fund was over $30 million.

NCAA funding has historically only favored schools in the power-five conferences.

However, student-athlete funds and NIL opportunities have provided ways for Division I athletes from other schools to receive the recognition they deserve.

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