Announcing the 2018 Common Good Award recipients
Each year, Envision Utah and hundreds of other leaders in our community come together for the Common Good Awards – a chance to honor the people and organizations that make Utah a better place for everyone. This year's event will focus in on the power of a vision and the impact that can have on both individuals and a community.

Monday, October 15, 2018 | 11:30 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.
The Grand America Hotel | 555 Main Street, SLC, UT
Read more about our awardees and keynote below. Ticket sales end Friday, October 5 – get yours today!
The 2018 Common Good Award Recipients
Larry H. Miller Group –
Gail Miller
Gail Miller has fostered a strong legacy of giving back to the communities in which her company does business. Last year the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation offered to match up to $10 million in donations towards services and programs provided by Shelter the Homeless, a Salt Lake County-based nonprofit working to build three new shelters and resource centers in 2019.  
Cowboy Partners – Dan Lofgren
 Cowboy Partners is committed to the idea that our community is a profoundly better place when we succeed in nurturing and creating affordable housing and housing stability. Led by founder Dan Lofgren, the Cowboy Partners team has applied itself with remarkable tenacity and with an innovating approach to creating affordable housing solutions in a decades-long effort that continues to grow.
Kids On The Move –
Scott Bean
For more than 30 years, Kids On the Move has focused on early intervention, early head start, and autism programs that support the development of young children and their families. With an autistic daughter of his own, Scott Bean, KOTM Chief Executive Officer, knows first-hand what parents of disabled children face. He and the KOTM team use that empathy and their professional expertise to help families find hope and answers for their individual situations.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez
Born into extreme poverty in the Philippines, Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez relied on education to rise and become an international leader in the tech industry. She’ll share her story and her thoughts on Utah’s position in the global market – and what that means for the fastest growing county and university in the state. Click here to watch Dr. Tuminez share a little of her story...in six different languages!
Thank you to our generous event sponsors:
GOLD
SILVER
BRONZE
Envision Utah is grateful for a generous matching grant from:
Governor Herbert's teacher shortage press conference
This month we held a press conference at the capitol with Governor Herbert, State Superintendent Syd Dickson, and 2017–18 Teacher of the Year Aaryn Birchell to issue a plea for former teachers to return to the classroom, and for students and professionals interested in changing careers to consider teaching. 

Governor Herbert and Superintendent Dickson acknowledged that while progress has been made in the last year, there's still work to be done to make teaching a more attractive career – including increasing teacher compensation. As Ms. Birchell put it, "The working environment of a teacher becomes the learning environment of our kids."

That's why we've spent the last nine months working with our teacher initiative group to create and implement a four-part strategy to address the teacher shortage:
  1. Recruit students into Utah's academic teacher prep programs
  2. Retain great teachers
  3. Re-engage former educators
  4. Elevate the perception of the profession as a whole

Speakers also highlighted returntoteaching.org , a website and survey that will provide districts and schools with contact and other information of teachers interested in returning to the profession. We've been thrilled with some stellar press coverage and over 1,000 responses to the survey.

See some of that coverage at the bottom of the page and stay tuned as we work find solutions to the Utah teacher shortage. And if you know any former teachers who might be interested in coming back, be sure to point them to returntoteaching.org !
Attend the first-ever Move Utah Summit
Join UDOT, UTA, MAG, WFRC, the Utah Department of Health, and Get Healthy Utah on Sep. 26 from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for the Move Utah Summit. The Move Utah Summit is Utah's only event that brings together subject-matter experts and community leaders to discuss the deeply interconnected relationship between transportation, land use, and health.
 
Attendees will hear from local officials and industry experts on the funding and resources available to local communities. Representatives from cities and counties will share best practices for planning and implementing successful active transportation improvements in their own backyard.  

The summit features morning and afternoon panels, including breakout sessions with three tracks: health, transportation, and land use. Click here for to view the full agenda and breakout sessions.

How our communities grow and develop directly impacts our health and well-being – the summit will provide some great and unique opportunities for attendees to learn what they can do to make a difference. We hope to see you there!
Support Envision Utah!
We greatly appreciate all of our contributors for enabling us to carry out these efforts. Please consider a donation to support Envision Utah today!
In the news
The Deseret News
There are about 30,000 Utahns who have teaching credentials who are currently not in the classroom. The survey at returntoteaching.org will help determine if they are willing to come back to the classroom.
Good 4 Utah
State leaders acknowledge that teachers leave the classroom for various reasons, but they believe many problems could be solved or helped with better funding in classrooms.

The Salt Lake Tribune
To get more people to stay in the classroom, there needs to be better support systems in schools and districts, less pressure on teachers to work off-hours, and more respect for the profession overall.
Envision Utah | (801) 303-1450 | envisionutah.org