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.
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."
'Don't Let It Happen Again': Topaz Survivors Warn of Detention Powers
05-11-2025 By Marissa Bond
“When you forget your history, you repeat it,” says a 94-year-old Japanese American in the University of Utah student-made documentary.
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Women are still few in science and technology fields, and the women working in those fields want young girls to know there is plenty of room for them.
Amy Jenkins, a material science and engineering major at Salt Lake Community College, thinks girls would be less hesitant to pursue STEM studies if teachers and parents normalized the opportunities rather than prefacing them as being difficult or far-reaching.
“There is a misconception that [girls] have to be super nerdy or extra smart,” Jenkins said, comparing studying STEM to driving a car. “Everyone can learn to drive. It’s not a ‘man thing’ or a ‘nerdy girl’ thing to do.”
A recent study by Pew Research shows women continue to be underrepresented in technology fields despite efforts by colleges and businesses to create an inclusive environment. To see more than a small handful of girls in any college science, technology, engineering or math class would be unique at many universities. Educators believe lack of female support may be a contributing factor. Women seem to have their minds made up before they set foot on college campuses, and lack of exposure in early education may be the cause.
A more in-depth look at the study done by Pew shows the STEM gap is closing, with women making up 50% of technical careers in 2019. While this number seems promising, 74% of these women hold a job in health care, while fields such as math, technology and engineering continue to fall short, holding at less than 25% female.
Gabrielle van Brunt, an aerospace engineering major at Utah State University, theorizes it’s predetermined from a young age for girls to hate math and science.
“There’s a lot that can be done in the way teachers present [STEM studies] to keep it from deterring students from going into those fields,” said van Brunt, explaining that the attitude of parents and teachers is key to encouraging young minds.
As the president of Utah State’s chapter for the Society of Women Engineers, Van Brunt and her team visit elementary schools in northern Utah to do engineering experiments, such as creating paper and straw rockets with the kids. Their hope is to pique interest in engineering for all kids and to show young girls they do belong.
According to NASA, 565 people have traveled in space as of March of this year, and 65 of them were women. Young girls watching media coverage of launches are seeing the low number of women, which may be a contributing factor in why girls don’t think they belong.
Studies show that girls – and boys – tend to associate people working in the sciences as men. A 2006 exercise, later published by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, asked several elementary-aged girls to draw someone working as a mathematician or similar STEM field. The experiment revealed that girls were twice as likely to draw a man in these fields as opposed to a woman.
The question educators are facing is how to encourage girls in these fields from a young age. A study by Columbia University found that men tend to use the left side of the brain (verbal reasoning), while women rely more on the right (visual, verbal and emotional connection).
Some teachers, like Andrea Wood, choose to tackle STEM subjects in a way that taps into the left side.
“I use a lot of music in my teaching,” said Wood, a fourth-grade teacher in the Granite School District. Wood explained that students perform far better in difficult subjects such as math if she introduces concepts to the tune of a catchy song with matching dance moves. Something else that has worked well for Wood is to connect difficult-to-understand STEM subjects to things that are fun, and she does this by using real-life examples.
Jamie Titensor, an engineering teacher at Viewmont High School, believes girls usually have their minds made up about whether they are STEM material before they get to high school. For the girls who do take her class, Titensor does her best to discuss their futures and encourage them to stick with their studies in college – even if they are in the minority in their classes.
Titensor received a bachelor’s in engineering from Brigham Young University and was one of the only women in several of her classes. She hopes she can be a role model for high school girls, showing them a woman can be successful in STEM.
“Girls are just as smart as boys, but we have a lot [of] options these days,” said Titensor.
According to Harvard Business Review, 40% of women who receive engineering degrees eventually quit their jobs. While the most popular reason is to raise their family, there is also toxicity in the workplace. Women said that they often felt treated stereotypically, one example being an assignment as the secretary in group projects while the men did the “real engineering work.”
to remove themselves from a situation where they don’t feel accepted. In a 2020 study done by BYU, researchers learned that women are less likely to speak up if they are outnumbered by their male counterparts.
Sharalyn Beazer, a math teacher at Viewmont High School, said being the only girl didn’t bother her.
“I was an electrical engineer major for a while, and in my calculus class there were two girls, and the rest were guys,” said Beazer.
While the lack of females in her college courses never swayed her, Beazer admits it was the pressure of the culture she was raised in that eventually pushed her to change her major to teaching – a career, she was told, that was more appropriate for a woman.
The BYU study suggests that women are more likely to speak up if there are multiple other women within the group. Beazer uses this idea in her classroom as she pairs students together. By putting more girls together in a group, she hopes they feel supported by one another and empowered to speak up. Today, Beazer said she sees more girls in her math classes, including honors and continuing education classes. Inspiring girls in high school and earlier education, Beazer said, is key to further bridging the gap.
Women role models, engaging classwork, and normalizing subjects previously seen as “nerdy” are a few steps to motivate girls towards STEM. Programs like “Stem like a girl” – a nonprofit organization created to empower elementary-aged girls through virtual workshops – may spark something everlasting within young girls. “When girls know what they’re talking about,” Beazer said. “Society needs to listen.”
Lauren Loock Wilcox 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.
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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. Lauren Loock Wilcox wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Eight women – thin or pregnant, in their 20s or early 30s, and sporting waist-length curls and long eyelashes – dance around a beige hotel room in matching black sweats to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” and blow kisses with full lips playfully at the camera.
It’s a common scene among the hundreds of videos posted by the social media influencers behind “MomTok,” which started to go viral in 2020 and has drawn international fascination, fueled by some of the women starring on Hulu’s reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
Other Utah-based reality TV shows, such as Bravo’s Salt Lake City edition of the “Real Housewives” franchise, frequently spotlight medical spas, with its stars checking in for treatments. From Botox parties featured on the shows to “Real Housewives” cast member Heather Gay’s two Beauty Lab + Laser locations in Murray and Riverton, these procedures are often prominently promoted on-air.
For Brookelyn McAllister, 23, seeing these nonsurgical cosmetic procedures on television helps normalize the trend, she said.
“When you know someone who's done it, it makes it less daunting,” said McAllister, who graduated from Utah Valley University in 2023.
Utah reality TV stars and social influencers, many boasting followers in the hundreds of thousands on their social media accounts, frequently promote their procedures, blending on-screen appearances with online endorsements.
Pioneered in the late 1990s, medical spas combine more traditional spa treatments, like facials and chemical peels, with noninvasive aesthetic procedures, such as laser hair removal and injections. Today, billboards with slogans like “Freeze Your Fat For Good” and “Love Thy Selfie” from these clinics are common along Utah’s highways.
“When I was living in Pennsylvania or different states, [I didn’t] see plastic surgery billboards like you do here,” said McAllister.
The commonness of the ads helps create a sense of normalcy, said McAllister, who has had lip filler and underwent a labiaplasty, a cosmetic surgery to resize the labia.
This surgery, familiar to those who watched the first season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” in 2024, was featured when one of its stars, Jessi Ngatikaura, underwent the procedure. She celebrated the occasion with a “mommy makeover” party, celebrating alongside her castmates, who gathered around Ngatikaura’s bed and examined the blurred-out results on air.
“After getting my labiaplasty, I was a lot more confident,” McAllister said. “That was a major insecurity of mine for a really long time.”
Seeing and hearing about other women getting other procedures, however, makes her question whether she’d like to do more treatments as well, she said.
“I think, ‘OK, well, I have done some stuff. If I do [more], is it going to make me happy? Or am I going to be like, I need to fix something else? It’s just a cycle,” she said.
Plastic surgery has become increasingly popular with younger people according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, nearly 230,000 cosmetic surgeries and nearly 140,000 noninvasive cosmetic procedures were performed on people under age 19 in 2020.
Stephanie Godfrey, a certified aesthetic nurse practitioner who specializes in cosmetic injectables at Aesthetica Medical Spa in Pleasant Grove, said she’s seen an increase in younger people visiting her spa, as social platforms like TikTok have grown.
“Injections have become extremely popular over the years, especially with younger people,” she said. “I wish … social media didn’t give young people this biased view of what they should look like.”
This phenomenon is especially noticeable in Utah, which has more plastic surgeons per capita than the Los Angeles metropolitan area, according to a 2017 study by researchers at Utah State University.
Courtney Grow, a Utahn whose fashion posts on Instagram have amassed a following of more than 170,000 people, said influencers have expanded their reach beyond traditional celebrity culture.
“[They] have kind of taken this celebrity tier and expanded it,” she said. “We used to only have celebrities, … but now there are so many people we have parasocial relationships with online.”
Grow said she has also noticed her influencer peers promoting plastic surgery procedures more frequently.
“I feel like I've seen a shift where it's like, ‘Come with me to get Botox’ or … something like that,” she said. “[It’s] being incorporated into content.”
While reality TV has attracted audiences drawn to Utah’s unique culture, often revolving around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the state’s beauty standards have also attracted attention online. The TikTok suggested search “Every Utah Girl Looks The Same” showcases women with similar looks to that of the state’s reality stars and have drawn over 1 million views.
Godfrey said this shift is also reflected in medical practices across Utah.
“Influencers are huge in Utah, and they really do set the standards for beauty in the state,” she said.
As an increased focus on “preventative Botox” has extended to people in their 20s and younger nationwide, Godfrey said she feels an obligation to educate younger patients on anti-aging procedures.
“You don’t need to start until your 30s,” she said. “The way I treat is more of a natural approach.”
The medical aesthetics industry has seen steady growth over the past 15 years, with the number of spa locations increasing from 8,899 in 2022 to 10,488 in 2023, according to the American Med Spa Association. This growth reflects ongoing consumer demand for aesthetic treatments and suggests that the market remains far from saturated, according to the association’s 2024 state-of-the-industry report.
With a second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” confirmed for spring 2025, Godfrey said she expects interest in med spa procedures to continue as well.
“With ‘Mormon Wives,’ everyone wants to know what they do,” she said.
Georgia Metcalf wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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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. Georgia Metcalf wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Libraries at Utah’s colleges and universities, like many businesses throughout the country, have felt the impact of COVID-19 on its workforce over the last two years.
Some — including libraries at Salt Lake Community College and University of Utah — have remained partially open throughout the pandemic, providing services for students and community members such as internet access and laptops. But keeping staff has been a challenge.
“We’re running a bare-bones crew here, so if somebody’s been exposed but has no symptoms and can’t get a test, [I ask myself] ‘Can I let this person work?’” said Angela Beatie, assistant director of library public services at SLCC.
In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, three of SLCC’s four campus libraries — Jordan, Miller and South City — were closed until June 2020. They reopened, with shortened hours, through August 2021. Then the Omicron variant surge hit.
For the past two months, Beatie said she starts every day asking herself, “How many people are going to be out sick today?”
Since December, more of SLCC’s library staff have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing them to be out for three to 12 days at a time. The increase in cases and exposures, Beatie said, has led to one-on-one discussions about what to do — because of the need to have employees work in-person.
The University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library, meanwhile, was closed from April through June of 2020. During that time, onsite employees worked with students and patrons on research requests over Zoom and mailed out books, laptops and other materials, said Melanie Hawks, assistant dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and director of Library Human Resources.
The Marriott library reopened in June 2020, under shorter hours, through August 2021 — when the library returned to its pre-pandemic schedule.
Early in the pandemic, the library staff made contingency plans to address potential staffing shortages, Hawks said — but the library has not had to put those plans in action.
Hawks said employees “have been able to maintain our service levels despite any absences due to illness or isolation/quarantine requirements.”
Jon Glenn, director of SLCC library services, said that even before the pandemic, his school’s libraries were having difficulty hiring and retaining people in some positions, such as evening and weekend shifts.
Beatie, who worked at three Kansas schools before arriving in Utah, said she was surprised by the number of part-time positions — which are less stable than full-time jobs — at SLCC’s libraries.
“We rely a lot on part-time employees, and we’re having trouble getting them and holding on to them,” she said.
Beatie oversees three full-time and 25 part-time employees — all important, she said, to keeping SLCC’s four campus libraries functioning. (Another 11 part-time employees also work in SLCC’s library system, under other supervisors.)
“A lot of the positions I hire for don’t require previous work experience or an associate degree,” Beatie said. “So, we’re competing with a very broad market as opposed to more specialized positions that you need a lot of education or experience for.”
At the Marriott library, part-time positions are reserved for students which, Hawks said, means higher turnover in those positions as students balance other priorities like courses and family life or graduate.
As the pandemic, and its economic effects, continued, Glenn said, many SLCC employees put in their notice.
“People started leaving for better paying jobs, or just because it had become too stressful to work on the frontlines with a pandemic raging and the state taking away the ability to require protocols to keep staff safe,” he said, referring to state laws that limited public-health officials’ authority to issue emergency health orders.
Julie Meldrum, who works at SLCC’s Miller Campus library, said pay is likely a large factor discouraging applications. Entry-level part-time positions at SLCC pay an average of $12 an hour — a level that was raised from $10.25 last July — and applicants have more options that pay better, she said.
“Unless we raise the average pay at SLCC, we will have an increasingly difficult time hiring and retaining quality employees,” Meldrum said.
Zack Allred, assistant director for library academic services, said pay across the board is still not competitive enough, compared to other businesses and colleges.
“I’ve had both part-time and full-time job candidates turn down job offers because the pay is so low, and I have very little control in how much I can pay,” Allred said, adding that he has experienced a 120% turnover rate in his team’s part-time employees over the past two years.
“Even if I can get someone to take the position, they usually don’t stay very long, and they all say the pay is why they leave,” Allred said. “They enjoy the work, they like the college environment, but they can’t survive on the pay.”
Beatie said she has spent too much time, sometimes weeks, guiding applicants through the hiring process — only to have them reject a job offer because of the low pay. She has learned, she said, to be upfront about pay in applicants’ job interviews.
At the Marriott library, Hawks said, the entry-level pay for student employees isn’t much higher — ranging from $11 to $13 an hour, depending on the position. “We raised our student pay rates in August 2021, and are currently analyzing our budget to determine what more we can do in 2022,” she said.
Supervisors, she said, have felt the pinch of the job market when replacing vacancies. “Applicants get hired elsewhere before we can interview them or get multiple job offers along with ours,” Hawks said.
Students turning down job offers, Hawks said, “used to be an uncommon occurrence, but in 2021 it happened with 10% of the offers we made to students. Our acceptance rate in 2022 is looking better … but the recruitment and hiring process is still more challenging than it was prior to 2020.”
Because of staffing shortages, the Markosian Library at SLCC’s Taylorsville Redwood Campus began to shut its doors last fall at 10 p.m. instead of midnight. Early closures have continued into the spring semester.
Over the last six months, Beatie said she has continuously struggled to fill between five and eight of the library system’s 36 part-time positions. SLCC’s library services have tried to solve the problem internally, but understaffing “stretches us all,” Beatie said.
Beatie said she would like SLCC to consider hiring more full-time employees, but the system is limited by its staff budget.
“I feel like we would have a lot more stability [and] be more competitive,” she said. “I would like to continue to have conversations across the college about our historical reliance on part-time employees, because any potential change needs to be supported by our leaders.”
Although Beatie said she feels like the library system is “climbing out of the fog a bit,” she said there still is a small chance the libraries will have to be closed Saturdays during the spring semester, depending on such unpredictable factors as staff illnesses.
“I feel like Silly Putty, where I’m just being stretched and stretched,” she said. “There’s going to be a point where things break.”
Andrew Christiansen 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.
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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. Andrew Christiansen 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 hashtag that includes emojis of a seedling, flower and bee has amassed more than 50 million views on TikTok.
The tag is a nod to the trend known as “flower bombing,” a form of guerilla gardening where native wildflower seeds are planted in unoccupied public spaces. The purpose is to promote biodiversity, re-establish native plants and disrupt urbanism.
“When you are young, full of ideals and just want to make a difference – the idea of tossing a little [flower] bomb that will take on a life of its own, I think, is appealing,” said Keith Homer, a Utah-based landscaper and high school teacher.
A decrease in roadless areas results in less biodiversity, as flora and fauna lose their habitats to road development. This then leads to pollution and human interactions, such as vehicle collisions with animals due to increased traffic.
Homer said he has done his own share of guerilla gardening, recalling one occasion when he planted extra tulips in his neighbor’s backyard under the cover of night. “[My neighbor’s] wife went on and on about the miracle of these tulips popping up, and she was crying because she thought it was a miracle,” he said.
While flower bombing can help beautify urban spaces, it’s illegal to garden on a property you don’t own. It can also pose an environmental risk.
Brittany Blackham, an environmental and sustainability student at the University of Utah, said anyone considering flower bombing should think first about the possible effects, good and bad.
“I have some automatic hesitations,” she said. “Just thinking we can go in and do whatever we want has created a lot of problems in terms of climate change, unsustainable practices and abusing resources.”
Once something has altered an ecosystem, Blackham said, it’s challenging to remove the seeds, which can be detrimental to the environment if plants sprouted from those seeds become invasive and threaten native species.
Homer said one of the dangers of invasive species is not knowing how it could affect people and animals. For example, myrtle spurge, a succulent that sprouts yellow and white flowers, is an invasive species that the Salt Lake County Health Department considers a noxious weed.
“I’ve gotten it on my skin … and it just starts to itch and you get a big rash,” he said, noting that some people can suffer swelling, blisters, eye irritation and temporary blindness from touching myrtle spurge. “That’s one the people have propagated in the past because it looks cool.”
Before planting any flowers, Blackham suggested first doing research to ensure those flowers are native and non-invasive. She recommends resources like the National Invasive Species Center, Utah Pollinator Habitat Program and Utah State University’s yard and garden web page.
“Support it with education,” Blackham said.
Thoughtful and informed flower bombing, Homer said, can create eye-catching flora and improve biodiversity — so long as those engaging in the practice are aware of the potential long-term consequences.
“If you can make someone stop in their tracks or do a double take when they’re [walking] by, your design has changed someone’s life,” he said. “You have affected the universe in a way.”
Paige Ney wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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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. Kyle Paige Ney wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
