About Us

The Bennion Center utilizes the Civic Competencies to assess student learning through community engagement. Civic Competencies are a set of defined behaviors, practices, and cognitive abilities that enable individuals to be effective in positive community change. We evaluate student learning based on this rubric.

view our Assessment Rubric

Since it's founding in 1850, the University of Utah has been home to people committed to community. This passion for shared knowledge, improved well-being and expanding research drives faculty, students, and staff to imagine new possibilities within the context of community. It is a collaboration that results in transformation.

That is why community engagement is a core component of the University of Utah's strategic plan. Engaging with communities to improve health and quality of life helps meet critical needs of the individual, the institution, and the populace at large. 

Today the U builds on its commitment to community engagement by discovering, developing, and expanding best practices in teaching and learning, research, scholarship, and service.  "We have an obligation to our students, our state, our nation to be a higher education innovator - leading the way in developing creative strategies that deliver value and ensure exceptional experiences in higher education. The U's value comes not only in our commitment to our students and patients, but from our commitment to innovation and discovery."    

Ruth V. Watkins, Former President, University of Utah

Our Acknowledgement:

While the Bennion Center is currently working on a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plan, it is imperative that we have this antiracism agenda. We recognize that there will be people who are marginalized and minoritized who may feel like they’re not visibly represented in this plan, and we think that no DEI plan will ever be able to serve all people, but we recognize that, given the state of the world today, antiracism is what’s most important for us to focus on. Therefore, there is a political need in this historic moment to take a specific stand against racism and anti-Blackness. It’s important to talk about that. It is not that we do not recognize that there are other systemic issues that need to be addressed; the committee affirms the need for thoughtful consideration of other forms of systemic exclusion. We believe that it is the responsibility of the staff to see themselves in the antiracist work of the Bennion Center, and in doing so to account for and explicitly work against the intersectional oppressions that we all recognize exist. In this way, the Bennion Center can begin to rebuild its spaces and programming to be inclusive of all identities: gender, sexuality/asexuality, age, SES, citizenship status, ability/disability, indigenous status, language, etc.--all without losing focus on the racial injustice that has deserved but been denied our focus in the past.

Systemic racism is a pervasive problem that affects the everyday lives of Utahns. Racism cuts across every sector within the state of Utah. In healthcare, racism leads to higher rates of mortality during childbirth among Black women, reduced access to quality healthcare for People of Color, and an increase in pollution-related illnesses in minority communities. In housing, minority neighborhoods that have been historically redlined still suffer from the consequences of systemic racism. In higher education, colleges and universities continue to be complacent in fighting against systemic racism. People of color are underrepresented in student bodies and faculty ranks, buildings retain names of racist forbearers, and socioeconomic hurdles to finishing degrees continue to disproportionately impact students of color.

Systemic racism goes against the mission, vision, and values of the Bennion Center, which compels its constituents to combat systemic racism whenever and wherever it exists. That is why the Bennion Center wholeheartedly believes that Black Lives Matter, and that incorporating explicitly anti-racist strategies and actions into the Bennion Center’s mission is essential. Antiracism is centered in the idea that racial groups are equal in their apparent differences- that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracism argues that racial policies are the cause of racial inequities, and antiracism requires the implementation of a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity. (Kendi, 2018)

In response to the senseless executions of countless Black and Brown lives at the hands of police brutality--the murder of George Floyd* being the catalyst--the Bennion Center has crafted this Antiracist Agenda. The purpose of this Agenda is to create opportunities for systemic change in the Bennion Center’s culture that will center all programming, policies, and dialogue around an antiracist ethic. For too long, the Bennion Center has stayed passive when the communities, students, and faculty we serve have needed our voice to speak up for real change. We know we can do better as an organization. While we’ve had multiple individuals affiliated with the Bennion Center model powerful antiracist actions in the past, we, as an organization, have not integrated such actions into our organizational ethos nor our leadership on campus. Guided by our mission of inspiring and mobilizing people to strengthen their communities through learning, scholarship, and advocacy, the Bennion Center chose to take an antiracist stance by implementing antiracist policies and procedures to promote equity and justice for the people with whom we work. 

This Antiracism Agenda addresses the ways that the Bennion Center has, in the past, failed to implement antiracist policies and has perpetuated Systemic Racism. However, the Bennion Center acknowledges that it does not have all the answers and cannot do this work alone. Through this plan, we will continue to engage all of our stakeholders to ensure that the Bennion Center is held accountable to take strong antiracist actions to support our belief that Black Lives Matter. We will also create shared accountability with our staff, faculty, students, and community partners to create an antiracist culture within and beyond the walls of the Bennion Center.

Anti-Racism Agenda Commitments

1. Nurture an inclusive and Antiracist environment in the Bennion Center
2. Be leaders in defining and implementing Antiracist community engagement

3. Create a culture that fosters the recruitment and retention of a diverse staff with equitable opportunities for advancement and compensation

How did the Bennion Center change you? Share your story by calling 801-585-6564 to schedule an appointment for a telephone interview. We look forward to hearing from you!