In May, we welcomed the biggest group of graduates—8,723—to the ranks of our 300,000-strong alumni network. Congratulations! What a wonderful way to finish off an academic year filled with many notable milestones and achievements.
Last year we welcomed our largest and most diverse class ever to a bustling campus back in full swing following the pandemic. We launched the Wilkes Center for Policy & Climate, and we formed the Great Salt Lake Strike Team with Utah State University and other state agencies. We kicked off plans for the John and Marcia Price Computing and Engineering Building and launched the Stena Center for Financial Technology. We saw research grants grow to $686 million, getting closer to our goal of $1 billion.
As you’ll see in this issue, we’ve increased mental health resources for our students and community, and more student housing is on the way as part of an exciting campus transformation plan. On the athletics front, we played in our second consecutive Rose Bowl, women’s basketball made the Sweet 16, women’s softball advanced to the NCAA World Series, and women’s gymnastics reached the national championship for the 47th season. And in a year of record-breaking snow, for the fourth consecutive year and 16th time overall, our Utah Ski Team was named national champion.
I want to thank the Utah Legislature for sharing our vision to impact the lives of all 3.4 million Utahns and for helping fund many of these important endeavors. I also want to thank all of our generous alumni, donors, and supporters who helped raise a historic amount of $3 billion over our nine-year capital campaign that closed out this spring.
This truly was an amazing year. And there is more to come as we move ever closer to reaching our goal of becoming a top 10 public university with unsurpassed societal impact.
Last year a friend of mine and I that also graduated from the U took a trip to Utah to view the University campus. I was surprised (no astounded) at the expansion of the University campus. Even the new building structures are encroaching into the Wasatch foothills with many new structures built across or adjacent to the Wasatch Fault Zone, which i understood is an active fault. Wonder if someone could explain this to me? Perhaps this fault is now not considered active?