Southern Utah University is a caring campus community where students come to explore their interests and prepare for meaningful careers and life experiences. With more than 145 undergraduate programs* and 18 graduate and certificate programs across six academic colleges, SUU proudly offers world-class, project-based learning opportunities where students gain professional experience before entering the job market.

Located in the world’s best backyard, SUU is the University of the Parks thanks to its close proximity to several outdoor recreational areas and its educational partnerships with the National Park Service. SUU’s safe, residential campus allows students - more than 10,000 - to create lifelong friendships along with once-in-a-lifetime outdoor adventures in conjunction with innovative academic endeavors.

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Expert Inquiry

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Achievement in Experiential Learning Award

Utah Campus Compact Engaged Scholar

Southern Utah University, 2007, 2009, 2012

Thunderbird Advisor of the Year

CASA Advocate of the Year

Hero in Healthcare Award

Primary Care Statutory Committee 

Utah TeleHealth Network Committee

Solid Rock, International, Governing Board 

With Love, From Strangers, Governing Board 

CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate)  Volunteer 

Family Healthcare – Community Health Centers – Board Chair 

Southwest Utah CHC – Board of Directors, Finance Committee, Public Relations Committee 

Rocky Vista College of Osteopathic Medicine Start up Task Force and Admissions Selection Committee

BIOL 2120 - Service Learning

SCI 3000 - Health Care Exploration - Rural Health Scholars

Rita Osborn is the executive director of the Utah Center for Rural Health. Osborn founded the highly successful Rural Health Scholars program at Southern Utah University, significantly broadening learning opportunities for undergraduate students and raising acceptance rates to graduate health professional programs. The program has since expanded to Dixie State University and Snow College. 

She has written and overseen successful grants and contracts to support many programs, including two recent $1 million federal grants to address the opioid crisis in several rural counties in Utah. Osborn founded the Free Clinic that operated in Cedar City until 2013 when it became a Federally Qualified Health Center. She continued to chair or serve on the board for the Family Health Center that operates five clinics in the region. 

Osborn is most passionate about assisting and advising students who aspire for health career careers, particularly for first-generation students who hail from rural or disadvantaged backgrounds. She is always enthused when such students matriculate to graduate programs, believing that we are helping to change our health care system in some small way. She also serves on statewide entities that include the Workforce Task Force with the Utah Hospital Association, the Utah Telemedicine Advisory Council, the Rural Health Association of Utah, along with others. 

Osborn’s thesis addressed health care shortages and challenges in southern Utah. She volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and works with foster children, leading to recent recognition as Iron County's CASA Advocate of the Year. In partnership with a local faith-based organization and drawing upon USDA federal grants, Osborn created and oversees summer lunch and after-school food programs in Iron County that for over a decade have fed hundreds of children daily.

Community Health Programs

Rural Health Care Access & Delivery

Property Management

Healthcare

Grants

Community Building

Utah's Opioid Crisis

Utah Center for Rural Health 

Southern Utah University awarded grant to help rural Southern Utahns with opioid addiction

SUU Receives $1 Million Grant from HHS to Combat the Opioid Crisis

SUU Opioid Response Planning Grant

Talking U & Med Student Life:

New medical schools — osteopathic and traditional — headed to Utah?

Rita Osborn

Opioid Response Program-Planning Grant

HRSA Rural Network Planning Grant

Executive Director of Utah Center for Rural Health

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