Amplify Utah supports and facilitates dynamic journalistic storytelling to celebrate diverse points of view. By partnering with traditional media, we cultivate an environment that encourages stories be shared widely and made easily accessible for our communities to read, hear, watch and engage.
Sandy’s new female speaking club strives to amplify women’s voices
07-06-2025 By Savannah Stacey
These women have entered their public speaking era.
Utah Vipers women’s rugby team takes shot at a national title
05-15-2025 By Elle Crossley
There’s “no choice but to win” for this team, whose members range in age from 18 to 52.
80 Years Later: Student Documentary Revisits Utah's Topaz Camp
05-11-2025 By Jordan Thornblad
"It [is] so important to Utah history that we don’t brush this under the rug."
Your voices matter. Let us help you get your stories out to our media partners.
Amplify Utah helps facilitate the connection between student work and traditional media outlets to encourage more diversity of voices.
For those interested in replicating, adapting or building upon the Amplify project in your own community, we've put together a comprehensive playbook. We are also happy to share with you a branding toolkit to get you started.
Art has been a journey for Luis Novoa, and one part of that journey was a calligraphy course he took at Salt Lake Community College.
Now, years later, Novoa and two of his colleagues have completed a mural for the college’s new Peace and Justice Garden, at SLCC’s South City Campus on Salt Lake City’s State Street. Administrators say they hope the garden will become a place for people to come together to heal from past traumas and build connections.
The artists – Novoa, Alan Ochoa and Miguel Galaz, all former SLCC students – formed the Roots Art Kollective in 2019, based on their shared vision to enrich their community with public art. They say their experiences as Mexican American artists drive their mission to create environments that help people learn about different cultures.
Roots Art Kollective’s works can be found all around the Salt Lake City area: On a Japanese restaurant near downtown, in a people’s garden along Jordan River Parkway, outside a barber shop in the Fairpark neighborhood, on a car repair shop in South Salt Lake (as part of that city’s Mural Fest), and on a Mexican bakery in Kearns, among others. In 2021, the trio created one of the murals for an ongoing exhibition in the great hall of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
The garden’s intention, as a place honoring peace and justice, informed the mural’s design, the artists said.
“Lotus flowers grow in harsh environments, but turn out to be very beautiful,” Novoa said. “That represents that kind of struggle but also the peace that you find there.”
When looking for a color palette, Galaz said they reflected on healing and relaxation. “The color palette ended up being the same as SLCC’s, which was a cool coincidence while designing this piece,” he said.
A main component of the mural is the monarch butterfly, which the trio said is a symbol for migration and rejuvenation — as shown by the butterfly’s migration from northeastern North America to Mexico every autumn.
The mural also features calligraphy on both sides, a connection to Novoa’s past — and the calligraphy class he took at South City Campus.
Novoa said he spent that class “learning those basic structures, and now we’re working on a mural and doing some calligraphy there. … So hopefully it’s received by my calligraphy teacher pretty well.”
The artists said they hope everyone — not just SLCC students, staff and faculty, but local high school students and anyone who has a chance to see it — will appreciate the mural. Novoa said the message they hope to convey with the mural is that, with enough determination, anything is possible.
“There will be a lot of youth walking around there, and hopefully they will find some motivation or inspiration from that,” Novoa said.
The mural is on the north wall of the Peace and Justice Garden on South City Campus. For more information about the Roots Art Kollective, visit the group’s website, RootsArtKollective.com.
Zane Smith wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
###
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Zane Smith wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Native mascots are gradually being removed across the United States.
In 1972, Stanford University dropped the headdressed Indian as its mascot after 55 Native American students and staff petitioned the school.
In Utah, the Bountiful High Braves, a fictitious Native mascot, changed in April 2021 to the Redhawks after advocating efforts from Native American activists, including James Singer, a Salt Lake Community College assistant professor, and Carl Moore of Peaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue and Organizing Support.
“Researchers have repeatedly shown mascot use disproportionately affects Native students in negative ways. It reinforces the racist ideas that White Americans have towards Native Americans,” said Singer, co-founder of the Utah League of Native American Voters. “If you get rid of a Native mascot it doesn’t harm anyone, but if you maintain a Native mascot people will be harmed and there will be persecution and contention.”
“There has been a long-standing solidarity between black and indigenous communities and our stories are so intertwined with the formation of this country and resistances to injustices,” said Dr. Luhui Whitebear, a member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation.
Whitebear, a scholar, mother and Indigenous activist, was elected to the Corvallis, Oregon school board in 2021. Taught as a young girl that her voice mattered, her mother marched with Cesar Chavez and her father was an active member in the historical American Indian Movement.
Whitebear believes the murder of George Floyd, occurring in the pandemic when everyone was isolated, has catalyzed a greater social awareness that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. The world slowed down enough to finally listen to what social justice groups have been voicing for decades.
This shift globally motivated groups to put pressure on businesses and sports organizations to “change the mascot.”
Daniel Snyder, owner of the Washington Football Team, which was previously known as the Redskins, responded to pressure back in May 2013 during an interview with USA Today.
“We’ll never change the name...It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps,” Synder said at the time.Years later, that pressure has increased, and now those sports teams are starting to change. The Washington Football team plans to announce a new name and logo in early 2022.
Because of social and financial pressures, more sports teams are joining the shift, including the Cleveland Indians, which recently changed their mascot to the Cleveland Guardians, and discontinued the use of the mascot “Chief Wahoo.”
Some schools, universities and sport organizations continue to use mascots and imagery from Native American tribes. For example, the University of Utah has a standing agreement with the Ute Indian Tribe to provide education and support to their tribe in exchange for use of the “Ute” name.
“We’re honored to continue using the Ute name, and we acknowledge the special responsibility our athletes and fans bear to the Ute Indian Tribe,” stated Mark Harlan, University of Utah athletic director during an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune in 2020. The Ute tribe continues to support the agreement with the university.
Whitebear made it clear she does not speak for sovereign nations that she is not a part of, and it is within the sovereign rights of their governing bodies to act how they see fit.
She does remind people and organizations to consider the behavior of those associated with rival schools.
“There is no responsibility to the opposing teams and how they mock sports teams with Native mascots,” Whitebear said.
American sports fans will talk trash with their opponents during games, sometimes derogatory imagery including signage that has included the words “Trail of Tears Part 2.”
“[Mascots] are not a remembrance or honoring of Native peoples, but the creation of what the ‘Indian’ is in terms of the white settler colonizer,” said Singer, who is also the coordinator of ethnic studies at SLCC. “It is a way to assuage their fears and a way to comfort themselves from the past, which was a physical and cultural genocide that continues today.”
Native people have often been told by defendants of Native American mascots that they should be honored by the noble and brave sports team mascots that represent Indigenous heritage in a positive light.
“These types of depictions of Native imagery wouldn’t be necessary if Indigenous nations were seen as equals in a democratic society,” Singer said. “Public schools are required under law to be as equitable as possible to all of our students.”
Singer has seen the inequity among indigenous populations. He would often travel to Navajo Nation as a child to visit his grandmother and noticed she had no running water, yet nearby at Lake Powell visitors would have access to all amenities, including running water.
Singer is working on his PhD at Utah State University in sociology, researching labor markets and social policy.
The removal of Native American mascots and Indigenous activism has in part rested on the shoulders of Native scholars, who are active community members and involved parents raising the next generation of leaders.
“We are so much better than what we have been told and we have so much to offer...and I am optimistic,” Singer said. “Our teachings, our Indigenous knowledge can actually help heal ourselves, each other and our planet.”
Valene Peratrovich wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
###
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:
This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Valene Peratrovich wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
A crowd of young adults nod their heads in time to a jazz trio as it weaves through its set on the stage at Fountain Records.
The dimly lit underground venue at 202 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City buzzes with energy. The place is small enough to create an intimacy that seems to unite the room. While timeless music and old brick walls elicit the past, the space allows young adults to connect, live and in person.
That has been Adam Terry’s goal since COVID-19 halted live performances and similar gatherings, particularly in small spaces. Terry, the store’s owner and founder of the creative label FOUNTAINavm, said bringing musicians and audiences back together has been crucial to redeveloping a community around music after the pandemic pulled many people into solitude and dependence on technology.
“I hope these third places get you off your phone and into the world more,” he said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fountain Records, a gathering space for music lovers, hosts their all-ages “jazz night” with live music in downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
Researchers have found many communities and people are still recovering from the months of isolation brought on during the pandemic. Fountain Records and other spaces away from home and the workplace, for which American sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third places,” offer venues for socializing with others around shared interests as a way to build community. Cultivating such social connections, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can stave off chronic illnesses like heart disease, stroke, dementia and depression.
Fountain Records, said Ashby Worth, a Brigham Young University student who attended the jazz show, is “a great place to meet people with similar interests. … There’s definitely a crowd of regulars. [The event] just attracts a fun group of people, and it’s easy to make friends here.”
Music, Terry said, has always been a vessel through which culture and community have thrived.
“Anyone can make music, anyone can play music,” Terry said. “You don’t need anything. If you look at any culture in the world, the music is there in the middle, and anyone can contribute.”
Since the end of lockdown, as restrictions have been lifted, people have returned to the public sphere, creating their own communities of fandom.
One of the best-known examples is Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour,” which ended its nearly two-year global run in December. The tour famously built community among the singer’s fans — the Swifties — who traded friendship bracelets, copied the singer’s outfits and sang along to every song.
On a more intimate scale — without the thousands of dollars needed to buy a ticket to hear Swift — Salt Lake City residents can find another sense of fellowship through the local music scene in local record shops that double as low-cost venues, keeping music accessible.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fountain Records, a gathering space for music lovers, hosts their all-ages “jazz night” with live music in downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
"That was part of the original model, to create a third space,” Terry said of the Fountain Records space, which opened in November 2023.
Fountain Records hosts jazz nights most Thursdays, at 7 p.m. Admission is $5 at the door.
Randy’s Records, which opened in 1978 and remains one of the city’s oldest local record shops, strives to keep music accessible by hosting warehouse sales, said Eric Whisamore, an employee at the store who has been involved in the local music-selling industry for the last decade.
Whisamore said that every few months, Randy’s sells a variety of LPs, CDs, DVDs and cassette tapes for two dollars or less. These sales are an opportunity for listeners to meet new people with similar interests and discover new music, he said.
“It’s cheap enough that people buy stuff on a whim and explore new types of music,” Whisamore said. “Trying to keep things affordable is a really difficult part of maintaining a community.”
For Whisamore and the rest of the Randy’s Records staff, the community formed makes the active effort it takes to keep prices affordable worth it.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Randy’s Record Shop in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 — two days after founder Randy Stinson died.
“Building a sense of community with people surrounding music is an easier way to build a community. People already have that common ground,” he said.
The store’s founder, Randy Stinson, died Dec. 14 at the age of 83. His son, Sam, told The Salt Lake Tribune that connecting people with music and introducing them to new artists and albums were his father’s favorite parts of owning the shop.
“Whatever culture that Randy brought to the city and the local community, it was just a place for music lovers,” he told The Tribune.
Sam Hurtado, founder of the Salt Lake City alternative band Hurtado, said he recognizes the value of the local music community in both his life and the lives of others.
“I was hit super-hard by the pandemic. I loved going to shows and talking to people and meeting new people and seeing new bands,” he said. “Live music is the best thing that you can do with your time, to be honest.”
Since the band’s formation — the band’s first gig was at Kilby Court on April 27, 2023, according to their Instagram account — , Hurtado has seen a community form.
“The band is very much me, because I write all the stuff, but [I appreciate] whoever can be involved in it,” he said, “whether that’s taking video or making art for it or taking pictures or playing or collaborating on stuff. I feel very blessed to have a community of people that stands behind it.”
Amelia Lepore, Hillcrest High senior and guitarist with the band Dr. Teeth, said she has already begun to see more people seeking out the local music scene in response to hyper-expensive arena tours.
(Dr. Teeth) Guitarist Amelia Lepore performs with her band, Dr. Teeth, at a backyard show in the Salt Lake City area.
“As quarantine stopped and people are getting out, more people are seeking local shows rather than huge arenas, due to the huge price increases in popular shows,” she said. “It’s so accessible and cheap to go [to local shows].”
Lepore said she also thinks people would benefit from experiencing new bands, even if they’re unfamiliar with the work.
“Sometimes we see posts and think, ‘I don’t know any of these bands … I’m going to be left out.’ [But] there’s always room for everybody and anybody,” she said.
The best way to get involved with and support the local music, Lepore said, is by attending events at some of the city’s smaller, unexpected venues.
“Just go to a show. Even if you’re by yourself. Just being able to be in a room and stand there and appreciate the music,” she said. “That’s what it is at its core, right?”
Grace Pruden wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
###
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Grace Pruden wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Utah has a water problem.
According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, 2022 has been the driest year on record in Utah, with 79.12% of the state in extreme drought or worse this summer. It is affecting everything in the ecosystem, including the local population.
Colleges and universities in Utah are taking their own steps to address the water crisis. Weber State University created a Water Action Plan to optimize water use. Salt Lake Community College switched multiple irrigation systems. And the University of Utah is installing more efficient water fixtures in its buildings. All three are committed to water conservation efforts — and they are all seeing results.
Kerry Case, the University of Utah’s chief sustainability officer, said a lot about water conservation can be learned by looking at schools across the Intermountain West, particularly other schools in drought-sensitive areas.
“This is of keen and unique importance to universities who are situated in arid regions,” Case said. “There is lots more we still need to do, and lots of plans to do more.”
University water conservation, among other indicators of sustainability, is tracked by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System ( STARS). The system serves as a database for self-reported sustainability indicators, and allows people to see how their university stacks up against the rest. The U. received a gold STARS rating of 65.48 in 2020, with Weber State receiving a silver rating of 61.40 in 2022, though SLCC, Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University were not rated.
The rating, Case said, “really indicates that the university is doing a good job in this space compared to our peers.”
One of the metrics that led to the U.’s rating was the university’s decrease in water usage from 2010 to 2019. In those years, the U. saw its water use, per campus user, drop by nearly 30%, even though the school added about 4,000 campus users in the same nine years, according to The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Case said the decrease could be credited to several campus projects and initiatives.
“Some of that is landscape conversion, away from turf towards more water-wise landscaping,” Case said. “Some of that is improvement in irrigation systems and controls. Some of that is also indoors, by both new construction with more water-efficient fixtures and retrofitting existing buildings with more water-efficient equipment.”
The U.’s efforts at water conversation, Case said, could affect the health of the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, hitting a new record low this summer when it dropped to 4,190.1 feet, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
“We are part of a more sustainable path forward for the Great Salt Lake, not only through our operations … but also the way we contribute through research and education,” Case said.
If the lake continues to
to dry up, the repercussions would be many. The lake’s brine flies and brine shrimp would die off, ski conditions at resorts would deteriorate and the extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop, according to The Salt Lake Tribune and The New York Times. Most concerning, because the lake bed contains high levels of arsenic, “the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous.”
Case listed another contribution from the U.: The Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, which works to keep state policymakers informed on the issues concerning the Great Salt Lake.
Weber State also expressed commitment to water conservation.
Drew Hodge, the water conservation and Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System stormwater coordinator at Weber, said he is cheerful about the university’s water conservation efforts.
“Weber State has done a lot for water conservation,” Hodge said. “We recognize that water is an issue and that we’ve been in a long-term drought.”
Weber State created Hodge’s job in 2016, because of the need for better water management. Hodge said he started drafting a Water Action Plan as soon as he started at the university, and it took more than a year to put together.
“We really tried to get any stakeholder that would be involved and has a reason to care about water on it,” he said.
Hodge said the Water Action Plan is broken down into three categories: culinary water (water used in buildings), secondary water (water used for irrigation) and stormwater. The plan integrated input from students, faculty, staff and people from the surrounding areas. Weber State also created a water council that is open to the public and meets annually.
According to Hodge, the water council created a list of goals that were “realistic, but stringent.”
“We already knew what we needed to do, and we moved forward a little bit faster,” Hodge said. “It really set us up for success.”
Once the plan was implemented, Hodge said, it helped Weber State reduce its secondary water usage by half.
Weber State also requires any new development to use the most efficient water practices available. “Indoors,” Hodge said, “we use EPA WaterSense-certified fixtures. That conserves the most water indoors.”
Also, Hodge said, Weber State is monitoring “distribution uniformity” from sprinklers, to ensure water is distributed efficiently, and the school performs “regular water audits” to make sure the sprinklers are operating as effectively as possible.
Weber State is also implementing xeriscaping, landscaping that requires little to no water, in certain areas on campus.
“We prioritize xeriscaping in areas where it does not make sense to have turf,” Hodge said. That includes smaller areas, big hills, and areas where students and staff don’t gather.
The university also created a program, Water Warriors, to unite and reward Weber State landscapers for water conservation projects.
“Everybody chooses an area that they are struggling with that performs poorly [with water use],” Hodge said. “We do a water audit on it. And then we supply some funds.”
After identifying an area on campus, Hodge said, campus staff make an action plan to upgrade it. An additional audit is conducted to compare water use once the water conservation project is completed. The title Water Warrior is then awarded to the landscaper that has implemented the most water conservation that year. The university completes between 12 and 14 Water Warrior projects annually, Hodge said.
Hodge said the unique features of Weber State’s Ogden campus also help with water conservation — for example, the Duck Pond traps stormwater.
Weber State, Hodge said, wants to help the Great Salt Lake while it is in crisis. “We put into the [Water Action Plan] that we want to be able to eventually allocate our unused water to get to the lake,” he said. The water council is scheduled to formulate a plan to accomplish this goal at their next annual meeting.
Joel Evans, the grounds manager at SLCC, said the college has made recent changes to conserve water, including upgrading the irrigation system at two of its 10 campuses in 2020. A WeatherTRAK Irrigation System monitors water evaporation from sprinklers, among other things.
“It basically monitors daily the wind speed, the heat, the humidity,” Evans said. “It also takes into account what type of crop [is watered], which in our case is predominantly bluegrass, and makes an incremental adjustment on a daily basis.”
The Jordan, Redwood, South City and Westpoint campuses and the SLCC International Aerospace/Aviation Education Center all use this irrigation system, and the new Herriman campus also is expected to use the system.
Smaller campuses, such as the West Valley Center and the Miller campus, haven’t received this upgrade, but Evans said all campuses will use this irrigation system once the money to buy the irrigation systems is secured.
Evans said switching to this irrigation system simplified outdoor water conservation.
“We’re now able to monitor flow a lot better … giving us the ability to identify [when water isn’t being used efficiently] without having to check each individual zone,” Evans said. “It’s a little bit more effective and efficient.”
As The Globe reported in 2021, SLCC has emphasized xeriscaping, particularly within the Redwood campus. The college has plans to prioritize xeriscaping even more, by implementing it across campuses and significantly reducing grass on the Redwood campus.
Evans said that “less than 10, but probably more than five” acres of turf grass will be removed. “Right now, our focus is on areas that aren’t really utilized … I guess low-usage areas, like parking lot islands,” he said. “We’ve made quite a bit of headway there.”
SLCC also began a project in May to update the soccer field with “sports turf.” This type of turf is nonagricultural land, which means it doesn’t require water and will significantly decrease outdoor water usage.
Jacob Freeman from the University of Utah and McCaulee Blackburn from Salt Lake Community College wrote this story, as part of the Daily Utah Chronicle’s November print issue, which focused on collaboration. The story is available on the websites of The Chronicle and The Globe at SLCC, and the print issue can be found in stands on the U. of U. campus. It is published here as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
###
NOTE TO MEDIA PARTNERS PUBLISHING WORK
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:
This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism. Jacob Freeman wrote this story as a journalism student from the University of Utah and McCaulee Blackburn wrote this story as a journalism student from Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
