COMMENCEMENT: SUU to Hold Groundbreaking Celebration for New Teacher Education Building

Published: May 01, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes

On May 5, 2006, Southern Utah University will celebrate the beginning of what will become the old and new home to the Beverley Taylor Sorenson College of Education. Everyone is invited to attend the special program to mark the rebirth of Old Main—the original building at SUU, and the groundbreaking for a brand new Teacher Education building.

The festivities will include a formal program, a ceremonial event to honor the efforts to build Old Main the first time, a chance for everyone to turn a shovel of dirt for the new building, refreshments, and souvenir keepsakes of the event. It will all begin at 3:00 p.m. in the Adams Memorial Theatre in the upper quad of campus and it will finish on the west side of Old Main, where the new building will be constructed.

After an extensive six-year campaign to garner funding for a new building for the Teacher Education program, SUU is excited to mark the beginning of the actual construction by holding a traditional groundbreaking ceremony. On the same day, the University will celebrate the re-birth of Old Main as that remodeling project begins to bring the iconic structure up to construction standards of the 21st century. It will not only be made seismically-sound but also technologically-modern, as well as a beautiful tribute to the original founding purpose of the community—a place to train teachers to teach children.

A special tribute has been published to mark the occasion and will be given to each person in attendance that day to mark the significance of the rededication to the Education program at SUU.

“This is a real cause for celebration,” beams President Steven Bennion, who spent the last half-dozen legislative sessions pleading the University’s case to fund the new Teacher Education building. “Once again, Education will be in the heart of our campus as it has been in our hearts for the past 108 years.”

The construction on the two separate buildings that will house the Beverley Taylor Sorenson College of Education will be completed sometime in the late fall of 2007.

“It is so much more than just a construction project,” spokesman Dean O’Driscoll says. “Old Main is the history of this campus and an integral part of the moving story of the pioneers who founded this city. It is the most perfect representation of a true love for knowledge and learning that was held by our Founders.

“Thanks to the dedicated staff in the University’s Advancement office, and the generous contributions of so many caring individuals, the Old Main structure will be refurbished into an edifice worthy of the commitment so many made more than a century ago,” says O’Driscoll.

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