‘This is our Happy Valley’: Students returning to Utah Valley University reckon with their campus becoming Kirk crime scene

Orem • Nearly every student who walked by on their way to class at Utah Valley University early Wednesday stopped for a minute at the spot where everything changed.

A week ago, political commentator Charlie Kirk had been speaking in this campus courtyard when a single shot rang out, striking and killing him. Now, the place where he spoke is surrounded by a thick metal fence as officers patrol nearby.

The loudest sounds were whispers Wednesday, quietly shared below a new, 25-foot tall American flag that hangs over the solemn space.

“I think a lot of people are scared to return,” said Raymond Lopez, a 26-year-old pre-health student at UVU.

Wednesday marked the first day back for students at the Orem school, returning to a campus they say feels markedly different.

“It was really a tragedy for our community. This is our Happy Valley,” Lopez added. He sat on a purple couch near the campus entrance, holding a sign that offered free hugs, hoping to comfort his classmates.

Makeshift memorials to Kirk popped up in various spots, with smaller American flags, handmade drawings of Kirk, roses, carnations and boxes of fresh blueberries — which Kirk’s widow, Erika, has said were a family favorite. Chalk messages covered many of the sidewalks, noting, “Violence is not the answer.”

Some added more offerings to the growing piles. Others wiped away tears. One person whistled “The Star Spangled Banner.”

UVU President Astrid Tuminez said she wants those on campus “to feel what they need to feel” in the aftermath. She waved to students and hugged several.

“It will take time for everybody to feel that confidence again,” Tuminez said.

The school has added extra security officers from agencies across Utah County. Tens of squad cars surrounded the entrances to campus parking lots, and a uniformed officer walked in nearly every sightline.

One security guard paced around inside by the school’s wolverine statue, UVU’s mascot.

A message directing students to report anything they know to the FBI still appeared on digital screens on campus, where more than 46,000 students attend.

UVU is offering extended mental health resources for anyone who needs to talk. Signs pointed the direction to counselors, who will be available to students and employees each day this week, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sorensen Center.

Tuminez, whose seven-year anniversary at the helm of the school is Thursday, said, “This is a time when the resources of this university will not be enough.”

The school is receiving additional help from the state health department and Wasatch Mental Health Services to add to its own battery of counselors.

The university has also set up 24 “care stations” across campus. At each, there are information sheets about responding to trauma and scannable QR codes to see additional options for help.

Those had first been set up during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep students informed, said Kyle Reyes, the school’s vice president for institutional advancement. The university has since kept the tables going at the start of each semester.

Now, Reyes says, they are there as students navigate a new normal.

“We’re doing our best to keep our ear to the ground for how students are feeling,” he said.

The school, he added, is focused on “a safe return” to campus. “We’re taking every precaution.”

Students said they felt some comfort seeing the extra officers and knowing there was help on hand.

“School has always been so safe, and this safe space was violated,” said Laila England, 18, a UVU student in emergency services.

She said returning to campus has been a blur. “My whole body’s been in fight-or-flight mode all day, from the moment I stepped off the train,” England added.

She stood at one of the makeshift memorials with her friends, Isabelle Bird and Caden Tomseth, also both 18.

Bird said she had a panic attack in her car before walking to class this morning. She called her mom and said, “I literally can’t do this.”

“It’s just a shaky, empty feeling returning,” Bird added.

Tomseth said he cried seeing all the tributes to Kirk. “He was a hero to me. He inspired me and so many others our age,” he said.

All three said they were glad to see students coming together, instead of divides deepening. One student handed out heart stickers in green, UVU’s school color.

Reyes said the university is ensuring there is flexibility for students who are feeling fearful about returning to campus, including extending when it’s OK to drop classes and letting professors give students more time to complete assignments.

In the fallout, too, Tuminez said she wants to harness the power of the university to teach students about healthy dialogue and discussion and “love being stronger than fear.”

“I don’t mean that as a line of poetry,” she said. “I mean it as a practice.”

Those skills, Tuminez said, include having a debate without turning to hate and learning “to expel extremism.” The president said she’s taken to heart the calls for unity from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who made a brief appearance on campus Wednesday.

“All I care about is you are American, you are Utahns,” Cox told one group of students who cheered when he was done speaking.

Madison Wheat, an 18-year-old UVU student studying sociology, welcomes that. She wrote a green-chalk message on a campus sidewalk that read: “Everything will be OK.”

Wheat had been at the Kirk event on Sept. 10 and pointed to the spot in the courtyard where she’d been standing, about 50 feet from Kirk.

“The day of the shooting, I realized anyone could choose to hurt you,” she said. “But in the following days, I learned anyone could choose to be kind to you. I think we should all choose to be kind.”

She said she felt braver Wednesday seeing her classmates also return to that place.

Archaeology student Caden Benson, 24, remembers hearing the gunshot, too, and running. He said he’s been reflecting on how he’d like the world to be.

“You don’t have to take that bad as if that’s how it should be,” he said.

The person charged in the shooting, Tyler James Robinson, allegedly told family members he disagreed with Kirk about LGBTQ+ topics. In a text after the shooting to his roommate, whom authorities say was in a “romantic relationship” with Robinson and who is transgender, Robinson allegedly wrote: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

Robinson is currently being held at the Utah County jail without bail. Crime-scene tape that once wrapped around the Losee Center, where Robinson allegedly fired from, had since been taken down as employees began returning to their offices there.

Benson gathered with other students just beyond the closed courtyard to look down at where Kirk had spoken.

The school has since repaved the spot where Kirk spoke before he was shot. The university is also reviewing its security measures, Tuminez said, to see what it could have done better.

The courtyard will also reopen, in time, she said. “It’s all being informed by security expertise.”

For now, a small sign taped to one of the metal posts barring access read, “Smile despite the darkness.”