The newly-founded Grassroots Shakespeare Company is a rare treasure of Utah Valley theater. Created and peopled by local college students, Grassroots uses the techniques that acting companies used in Shakespeare’s day to create plays that are “fast-paced, funny, intriguing, and simple,” according to grassrootsshakespeare.
David Tinney, prolific Utah Valley director/choreographer and the theater department’s Artist in Residence, made his directorial debut at the Hale Center Theatre in West Valley on June 13 with the classic musical, Hello, Dolly! Tinney’s resume is long and impressive.
Sophomore at East High School and participant in Utah’s statewide federally funded GEAR UP Education Program, Nia Jamshidi has been accepted to the Oxbridge Academic Program at Oxford and Cambridge. In addition to her acceptance, she was awarded a $3,500 scholarship to help pay tuition for this summer’s program.
Local SWAT teams, fire and police departments, and medical evacuation teams by land and air rushed UVU campus on June 14; dodging the explosives and smoke to disarm 12 gunmen holding hostages during a mass-scale training exercise. “The officers that responded into the campus buildings reacted better than anticipated,” said Detective Kelly Liddiard of the UVU Police Department, “[They] took control and neutralized any threats that they came across faster and better than we as the planning team expected.
The Ethics Across the Curriculum Faculty Summer Seminar was held May 4-8 with sponsorship from the Center for the Study of Ethics. “This conference benefits the UVU faculty because it allows us to get together with colleagues from across campus and discuss an interdisciplinary topic with renown visiting scholars.
Pres. Matthew Holland was given the ceremonial key to the university last Wednesday as another finishing touch in his transition to his role as president. The key was passed to Holland by Elizabeth Hitch, who served as interim president in place of Pres. Bill Sederburg, who made the decision to move onto his new role as Utah’s Commissioner of Higher Education last summer.
In an effort to facilitate international understanding, the Open World Program has invited five government leaders from Kyrgyzstan to explore various aspects of Utah from June 12 through the 20. The Open World Program is dedicated to establishing a system of leaders in specific regions who have had significant exposure to American democracy, government and our free-market system.
The beauty of Rock Canyon in Provo is known around the world. Local students flock to it for hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking and camping every day of the week, and the canyon has had visitors from as far away as Austria and France. It is almost literally our own back yard, located just behind the Provo LDS Temple — a five to fifteen minute drive from downtown Orem, Provo, Pleasant Grove, Springville, and many other local cities.
June 3rd- Warrant Service – A 37 year old male was arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail for outstanding warrants discovered during a routine traffic stop. June 4th- Hazardous Materials – The Woodbury Business building was evacuated for most of the day due to a suspicious substance found in the building.
Plans to improve public transportation with an enhanced bus system called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) have been underway since the Provo-Orem Rapid Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis was completed in 2005. BRT is an innovative, high capacity, lower cost public transit solution that can significantly improve urban mobility by operating on bus lanes or other transit-ways to combine the flexibility of the buses and the speed of the rail.
