Prosperity U is a student experience.
“It’s not a club, it’s not a program,” Steve Alder, executive director of the Center for Business, Health and Prosperity, said.
Prosperity U is “focused on improving economic, social and personal well-being across communities,” according to its webpage. It emphasizes experience students get through participation.
The program works under the U’s Center for Business, Health and Prosperity, which focuses on the field of prosperity science to boost prosperity on local and global levels.
“We focus on integrating innovation and entrepreneurship with health-enabling practices in pursuit of economic, social and political well-being,” the center’s website reads. “Prosperity science is about discovering what makes this type of progress happen and ways to expand it.”
The new Impact and Prosperity Epicenter houses Prosperity U.
The Creation of Prosperity U
The idea for Prosperity U first came to fruition in January 2021, alongside the establishment of the U’s Center for Business, Health and Prosperity.
The Center wanted to respond to a call from the University President to engage students more during their academic experiences at the U, so they turned directly to students to see what they wanted most out of their college experience.
According to Alder, students first said they wanted to be a part of a community on campus and exposed to students from different academic backgrounds.
Next, they wanted hands-on involvement in the things the U was doing, rather than just hearing about it.
“Finally, they wanted the opportunity to make a difference in the world,” Alder said. “Now. Not simply wait till they graduate.”
Prosperity U was officially announced in April 2023, built to address all these wishes. It launched with the goal of creating opportunities to engage students academically, personally and professionally.
Prosperity for Communities and Members
The program’s objective is purposefully broad according to Amelia Miller, programming assistant for Prosperity U. She’s currently a junior at the U, double majoring in operations and supply chain, and environmental and sustainability studies.
“Its goal is to get any student of any year from any major into a community that can help them learn how they can make an impact in whatever field they want to go into,” Miller said. “[Its] to show what they can do, to kind of contribute to either their community or globally.”
Prosperity U doesn’t only focus on the prosperity of others, but also its own members. That’s why student feedback drives the program’s events, Alder said.
“We frequently say, what would you like to do as students?” he said. “When we look at how we drive prosperity over several years, we were exploring this and pursuing it. [We’re] thinking, what does it take to create opportunities for people to thrive and to do well?”
These opportunities range from member socials and football watch parties to hands-on community partnerships.
Prosperity U also hosts a number of guest speakers at requests of its members. One of their guest speakers was Dr. Tariq Banuri, a member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 under his direction. Its also hosted Osei Boateng, a healthcare leader whose work in Ghana earned him the CNN 2023 Hero Award.
Local and Global Opportunities
Miller was initially drawn to the experience for its opportunities in community engagement and humanitarian work. Locally, Prosperity U works closely in the West Valley community through the U’s West Valley Project. Alder said students have connected with stakeholders in the region to tackle the question: “What can a university do to help to raise the prosperity of people living in a section of our city that are clearly not experiencing the same opportunities that others do?”
This project explored how the socioeconomic landscape impacts community health and the challenges the community is facing. It did this by working with West Valley’s future University of Utah Health medical campus.
Additionally, members have partnered up with the Prog Development Center. This center focuses on furthering the education and careers of West Valley residents. Prosperity U hosted a career workshop in collaboration with the center to provide valuable resources to the region’s citizens and U students alike.
The mission to increase prosperity reaches far beyond Utah. Prosperity U also gives students the opportunity to work and study in Ghana over the summer semester or spring or fall break. The global programs focus on interactive work. It looks at things like West Africa’s emerging business market and how to deliver health services to rural communities.
The Student Experience
Miller went to Ghana with the program this past summer. She got an in-depth tour of the public health system while there.
“You go into bigger health clinics and hospitals in bigger cities,” Miller said. “And then you go all the way out to very rural communities that are just very small. They kind of run independently on their own.”
Scholarship money Miller received from her participation with Prosperity U made this opportunity possible. Members have special scholarship opportunities for global programs to remove the financial barriers that may limit student access to these programs.
Prosperity U’s experiences are open to everybody. Students just have to tap their UCard at an event’s entrance to be put on the distribution list for Prosperity U’s regular email updates.
“It’s also just highly accessible, because you can come to as many or little events as you want, and if you come to one, then you are a member,” Miller said. “It really targets people that just care genuinely about their community or creating something positive in whatever scope or field that they want to go into.”
