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On Monday, thousands attended an all-day party on campus on the eve of Utah Valley University in Orem officially receiving university status. The next day, school, community and religious officials including LDS Church Pres. Thomas S. Monson dedicated the university's new Digital Learning Center on the UVU campus.
Hundreds of students and university and community leaders gathered on the shaded west side of the new library Tuesday for the standing-room-only ceremony, where master of ceremonies UVU President William Sederburg slipped and called the school UVSC -- but only once.
"We're all Wolverines today and I salute you on this great accomplishment," said U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.
The new Digital Learning Center, which doesn't have a formal name for lack of a naming donor, was dedicated by President Monson. Pastor Scott McKinney of the Christ Evangelical Church in Orem offered an opening prayer at the ceremony.
"Bless all the students who come here," Monson said in his dedicatory prayer. "May all truly gain the knowledge they seek as they come to Utah Valley University."
Monson generated a lot of attention from those who wanted to meet him. He was thronged before the ceremony and at a luncheon after. Members of UVU's student government sneaked into the luncheon to snap a picture with him.
Sederburg said Monson has been a friend of the university for a long time.
"You are a true Wolverine," Sederburg said.
Before Monson spoke, he walked over to 91-year-old Wilson Sorensen, former president of the institution, shook his hand and placed his white UVU baseball cap back on his head.
As a member of the board of regents, Monson was at the 1975 groundbreaking for the Orem campus. At that groundbreaking, Monson said everyone was assembled and ready to go -- including the governor -- except Sorensen, who rode up on a horse, hitched it to the bleachers and went on with the ceremony. Sorensen said he rode the horse because the school had a rodeo team.
Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn, who attended the UVUphoria celebration, the library tour and Tuesday's dedication, remembers standing on the gravel pits where the university now stands back in 1975 as Wilson Sorensen explained his vision of an institution of higher learning that might someday become a university.
"In my lifetime, to see that fulfilled, is really gratifying," Washburn said. "To have Wilson Sorensen there and the fulfillment of his dream was a real high point for me."
Monson, who grew up spending summers in Provo Canyon, said visiting the UVU campus "was like coming home to me."
The transition of the state college into a university, Washburn said, is a wonderful thing for Orem and the community. A large percentage of Utah Valley residents attend there and with the current economic challenges faced by the community and the nation, the new university will be an added benefit.
"Having that school with university status provides us an opportunity to give a first-class education to our students without having to travel far away. They can stay at home, for the most part ... Tuition is affordable," he said.
The prestige of having a high-quality university in Orem's front yard doesn't hurt either. More residents will have access to educational and employment opportunities, academic programs and the arts than ever before.
"We'll have much deeper and more accredited programs that will bring to our community things we don't even envision right now," Washburn said. "This is a really big deal for Orem."
On Monday, intertwined green "U" and "V" symbols were found painted at intersections along University Parkway in Orem to celebrate the transition from Utah Valley State College that is finally official.
The change to university was accompanied by a party that lasted all day. Festivities lasted all day and into the night, including a dance that lasted until midnight.
More than 15,000 people, including Utah Senate President John Valentine and other community and university leaders, celebrated at UVU's Brent Brown Ballpark in the 90-degree heat with an outdoor concert that included a clogging duo of UVU students and country music stars Josh Gracin, Joe Nichols and Collin Raye.
Valentine said the transition to university began for him when he was in the house of representatives and students would ask for an educational opportunity close to home.
"Today is a fulfillment of a dream I had back in 1988 when I first ran," Valentine said.
• Michael Rigert also contributed to this story. |
