OREM, Utah (AP) — It took Utah Valley University 20 years to evolve from a small community college to the state’s largest school.
It only took a few seconds for the image to be crushed by the assassination of a right-wing activist. Charlie Kirk.
The vast campus of nearly 50,000 students under the Wasatch Mountains will forever lead to the event on September 10th. The event defeated the founder of Turning Point USA when bullets spoke to a large group of people at an outdoor amphitheater in the center of campus.
The university, which had previously been little known outside of Utah, was locked into an unnecessary national spotlight during the search for Kirk’s murderer. Students and faculty members I’ve returned to class This week I’m still engulfed in sadness, fear, anxiety, and facing troublesome questions. How do they deal with UVU’s sudden infamy?
“We’re a great leader in our branding industry,” said Timothy Calkins, a professor at Northwestern University. “They certainly didn’t want this situation, but they have to find a way to come back.”
University leaders say they are currently focusing on the safety of students and their communities, but they are already beginning to think about ways to reconstruct the school’s shattered identity.
“We’re not going to be embarrassed.”
Kyle Reyes, one of Utah Valley University’s vice presidents, said he hopes the school will become a model for healing and accepting difficult dialogue.
“We know our eyes are on us, and we are not going to be ashamed to show our resilience together about this,” Reyes said.
Schools have had minimal violence for years, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Education. UVU’s latest report on Orem’s main campus targeting 2021-2023 showed reports that police have investigated or received in four aggravated assault allegations, 13 rape allegations, one obvious arson, murder or manslaughter. Kirk’s murder was the first murder on campus known to administrators, said Ellen Trenore, a university spokesman.
University officials cite this data and support the claim that it is “one of the safest universities in the country.”
UVU also promotes its strong ties with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, home to the world’s largest educational institute for young Mormons. The mascot is Wolverine. “Like Wolverine, UVU students are determined, ambitious and fearless,” the university’s website states.
“We’re all still together.”
Marjorie Holt, 18, a student studying primary education at UVU, was late by Kirk Larry and arrived minutes before being shot. She ran alongside the others and took shelter into a nearby building.
Since then, Holt has taken a break from work, went home and spent the night with his family in Salt Lake City. She said she feels the university has failed Kirk and his family by not providing better security. She is worried about going to class in a building near the crime scene.
However, as Kirk’s shooting deepens the country’s political disparity, Holt believes that shared trauma has brought UVU closer.
“We’re all people who loved him or hated him,” she said of Kirk. “We all still come together no matter how we believe it. We feel this brings our school closer than ever.”
I’m going back to class, but not normal
When students returned Wednesday, they reported that their classes were quieter than usual. “I felt like the professors had a better understanding of all their beliefs and ultimately shared those beliefs,” said 24-year-old Matthew Caldwell in a history class.
Kyle Karimore’s student president urged classmates to stop putting labels on each other and see them as human beings during Friday’s alert, urging UVU to be “a place where differences of opinion do not erase our dignity.”
Other schools, which have become synonymous with shooting, offer a variety of templates to deal with fallout.
The 1999 Columbine High School massacre increased security and training for shooters at schools across the nation the same day Kirk was killed, and was tested in a shooting at Colorado’s evergreen High School when two students were injured and the shooter took his own life. It is the same school district as Columbine, and officials praised the years of preparation and training to avoid more casualties.
Following the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in 2019, communicated student victims and their families to gun control activities.
In Ubarde, Texas, authorities voted to destroy Rob Elementary School after mass shootings that killed 19 students and two teachers.
Remaining the story
At Kent State University National Guard soldiers killed four students Professor Johanna Solomon, who injured eight other people in the 1970 Vietnam War protests, said the school relied on its role as a place to express ideas freely.
There was a struggle along the way. Starting in 1986, Ohio schools began changing their athletics uniforms, letterheads and signs, highlighting “Kent,” and putting “State” in small letters below, trying to distance themselves from the shootings. Karen Cunningham, a professor of peace and conflict studies in Kent, established in response to the 1970 shooting, said the change was removed in 2000.
“As a university, I am extremely proud of their decision to realize that they have not escaped or forgotten what happened,” Solomon said. “After this happens, leaders make really tough choices. One is to lean on division, the other is to humanize people, bring people together.”
When UVU students ventured last week, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox met with a small group on campus. “For all of us, that was rough,” he admitted. He knows only one thing about UVU now.
“This place is incredible and it’s incredible thanks to the students here, the amazing faculty,” Cox said. “The world desperately needs change, but they’re not going to find it from politicians. It has to come from you.”
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Brown is reported by Billings, Mont.
