Welcome from President Bassis

Welcome to Westminster College

Westminster is doing some very exciting work: our faculty students and staff have been working together to create a unique environment for learning –

• a college where students are fully and actively engaged in the learning process;
• a community that offers students a vibrant major city complete with opportunities to pursue internships, attend lectures, plays, music, and dance, all just minutes from mountains and wilderness that offer skiing, hiking, solitude, and an opportunity to study nature;
• a campus which has proven that its graduates will be accepted by major business, law, medical, and graduate schools and can compete for some of the best paying and most exciting jobs in the country.

The key to the Westminster experience is the notion of moving from a model that emphasizes teaching to one that is focused on learning.

In traditional models, colleges focus on what is taught and measure student success by the time they spend in classes and the grades they get on tests. We have a different approach. At Westminster, we focus on results: what students learn, both in and out of the classroom. And we know that students will learn more - they will understand concepts more fully, consider ideas more thoroughly, and identify relevant information more readily - if they are actively engaged in learning rather than just passively sitting in class taking notes, which they will try to reproduce on an exam.

Our model requires students to participate in activities which encourage active, experiential, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary learning. And because the way Westminster students learn is different, what they learn is different as well. 

Each course we offer supports what we call college-wide learning goals, the skills and attributes that business and community leaders told us they believe college graduates must master if they are to be successful in their chosen careers. You’ll see signs referring to these college-wide learning goals all over our campus. They remind us that Westminster graduates will demonstrate

• Critical, analytical, and integrative thinking
• Creative and reflective capabilities
• Leadership, collaboration, and teamwork
• Writing and other communication skills
• Global consciousness, social responsibility, and ethical awareness

The kind of learning we promote takes more than classroom experiences. We recognize that our community – the campus, the city and our spectacular regional ecology – can serve as a learning laboratory as well a source of entertainment. So our environment becomes a part of a student’s education. Sociology students may go to an NBA game and write a paper about crowd behavior; Environmental Studies majors may examine recycling practices and policies on campus and recommend ways we might improve; all students attend lectures, concerts, and plays, participate in outdoor recreation or wellness activities and watch our student athletes compete. More often than not, they end up talking about their experiences with each other, in classes or in the student union, and drawing conclusions about what they learned from or felt about the activity. Learning is enriched when a vibrant community becomes a part of our extended campus.

Perhaps as a result of that sort of focus, Westminster has become nationally recognized for the education we provide. We have consistently been ranked as a “best buy” by U.S.News & World Report, been identified as one of “The 366 Best Colleges” by the Princeton Review, and as one of “the Most Interesting Schools in America” by Kaplan/Newsweek. As nice as those institutional accolades are, what we are really proud of is the fact that our graduates have a track record of success. Independent research conducted by the non-profit Utah Foundation reported that more of our graduates earn above the median starting salary than students at any other school in the state (perhaps because, as the same report indicated, a greater percentage of our students participated in internships than students at other schools in the state).

Over 90% of our alumni who responded to a survey we sent out were either employed or in graduate school within five months of graduation. And the jobs were at companies from “A” to “Z” – American Express to Zions Bancorporation with stops along the way at place like Boeing, Ernst & Young, Hewlett Packard, and Wells Fargo Investments. In terms of graduate schools, we can only claim “B” to “Y” coverage – Babson to Yale, with other students at places like Columbia, Georgetown, Stanford, the University of London, Michigan, and Purdue. 

But as much as I boast about our unique environment for learning, I suspect the best way for you to get a sense of what we have to offer is to visit our campus. Traditional tours can be arranged by contacting our admissions office. But I also encourage you to wander around our campus and talk with our faculty, students and staff. Wander around Salt Lake City and drive into the mountains. I think you’ll find that we have something special to offer to everyone who is eager to learn and anxious to succeed.


Best regards,
Michael S. Bassis, PhD
President