Utah Valley University prides itself on being “A Place for You.” But in 2026, some students need that place to come to them.
Utah Valley University prides itself on being “A Place for You.” But in 2026, some students need that place to come to them.
Fortunately, UVU is prepared to meet the needs of Wolverines wherever they are, through more than 75 degree and certificate options that can be earned completely online.
And people are taking notice — Newsweek named UVU one of “America’s Top Online Learning Schools” for 2026, and OnlineU included UVU on its Best Online Colleges and Most Affordable Online Degrees lists.
Bonnie Rodriguez Mortensen, senior director of online and graduate studies at UVU, said flexibility is the key to the university’s success in delivering online options for students.
“At most institutions, you're an online student, or you're a face-to-face student,” Mortensen said. “At UVU, students are able to flex in and out of modality. Wherever you are, you can still be a Wolverine.”
While some UVU online students do complete their work from far away, Mortensen said more than 80% are Utah residents, and the majority live within 30 miles of a UVU campus. The focus is on flexibility more than distance, she said, and making sure the same resources are available online that students could find in person.
“Academic tutoring is available online. The Writing Center is available online. The library has a specific webpage for online learners,” Mortensen said. “Wherever we can add a virtual component, that is added. But if you want to come to campus, you get the same services. You’re not limited in anything.”
That means students who live nearby can choose to have that experience of coming to athletic events, studying in the library, and meeting fellow students in person when their schedules permit, while tailoring classes and assignments around their life obligations.
“It’s about having the flexibility to meet the needs of their lives,” Mortensen said.
Instead of using a centralized online academic department, UVU’s online courses and programs sit within the university’s colleges and schools, run by the same academic administration and faculty as in-person classes.
Mortensen said no faculty member has to teach online courses if they don’t want to, but for those who are interested, the flexibility helps them as much as it helps their students.
“I think students know when a faculty member is happy,” she said. “If they're happy in the classroom, the students are going to have more success anyway. They're going to be more engaged. So we’re not growing just for growth’s sake.”
For faculty members who have been especially successful in creating and delivering online courses, Mortensen’s team has created videos where they share their techniques with other professors and instructors who want to teach online.
“It’s almost like built-in faculty training,” Mortensen said. “A faculty member can say, ‘Hey, I need some ideas on assessment,’ and they can find a video, and they can know that a peer and a colleague has done that. Now they have a built-in person, a resource that they can go to.”
When UVU physics professor Dustin Shipp was thinking about how to translate his classes to an online setting, he knew he needed to prioritize interactions between students and faculty.
“We want to make the student feel like they're in a course and not just by themselves,” Shipp said.
Shipp’s favorite instructional tactic is the “big problem of the week” — a regular assignment students have to complete in groups, where Shipp deliberately doesn’t provide every piece of information needed to solve it.
“They have to go out there and attack this like a real-world problem,” Shipp said. “So it has a lot of advantages where it gets the students engaging with each other, teaching each other. They get deeper into the material; they see how it's applied in the real world.”
In 2022, Shipp won a Flex Teaching Award from UVU’s online team in recognition of his success in designing and delivering educational experiences online. “These are faculty that have gone above and beyond in their development of an online course,” Mortensen said.
Shipp said his favorite moment is when he can see a concept clicks for a student — something that is just as evident even when he can’t see the student’s face.
“That's really what makes me happiest as a teacher. Whenever I get to experience that, it really makes it feel like I'm doing my job,” Shipp said. “And what's really interesting is I can still hear that even if it's online. I'm not hearing the actual noise, but in just the tone of messages that I receive from students, I can still hear them making that ‘Oh, now it works’ sound. And that's been really fun to experience.”
For students, the UVU online experience empowers them to structure their time and schedules to fit their lives, while also taking advantage of the variety of available resources in person as well as online.
“I honestly love online classes because they're self-paced, and for me, that's really easy to work with,” said UVU business student Anneliese Nielson. “I have to prioritize my time, and so I take about a couple hours out of one day to do all of my assignments for the whole week, and that's how I manage my time.”
UVU faculty members emphasized that, whether virtually or in person, they’re available to support Wolverines in any format.
“What I would want you to know as an online student is we want to hear from you,” said Marinda Ashman, UVU associate professor of student leadership and success studies. “We might meet through Teams. We could meet in person if you would like as well. But we want to meet with you. Anytime you can make a connection with professors, we want to do that.”
For more information on online courses, resources, and options, visit uvu.edu/online.
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