UVU through time

Through the last three weeks, the past, present and a little bit of the future of this university was shown, but that is not where the story ends.

With the growth that has been shown over the past ten years, it is clear that the school is growing and getting stronger, so where will the school be in the future?

Will parking always be a nightmare? How will sports fare? What will students focus on and where will they go with their studies?

Arvo Van Alstyne, a former commissioner of the school district, made some predictions for the school in 1982 during President Sorensen’s farewell dinner about where the school would be in 2018. These predictions were saved in the book “A Miracle in Utah Valley.”

First, he did predict that the school would be a university, though he called it Mountainlands Technological University. Alstyne did actually guess that the school would have 42,000 students, which is close to the lastest predictions. He thought that parking would no longer be a problem, but not because of excess parking.

“Students are now transported among the three Orem/Provo campuses through and intricate network of people-mover color coded tubes arching over I-15,” Alstyne said.

These tubes would drop students into their major and would be controlled to keep tube traffic down to a minimum. He thought these tubes would be like the exposed heating tubes, but that the heating tubes would no longer be used because the school would be heated with “safe and low-cost use of nuclear energy.”

The school would not have a dentistry school because of the school’s development of “a sophisticated laser treatment that is applied early in life to virtually eliminate tooth decay.”

Of course there would be a football team in Van Alstyne’s prediction. It would become the preeminent team with BYU’s athletic programs on the decline. The football team would play in a 120,000 seat stadium built out of steel slag from Geneva steel. For perspective, Lavell Edwards Stadium at BYU seats 62,000 and the largest college stadium is 109,000 or so seats.

We would be an international school with broadcasts across the world coming from Osmond Studios in Orem, which is no longer around. Students would also be able to go on archeological digs in Saudi Arabia for a semester.

The school would lead the charge to clean Utah Lake. By this time, he predicted that the lake would be not only clean, but there would be a water filtration plant at the school coming from the lake.

What could be more realistic is building more campuses around the valley. The school has had talks of building in Payson and Thanksgiving Point, with property actually owned at the latter.

There are buildings on campus that have been proposed that may come in the next ten to fifteen years. Some of those buildings include a business building, a performing arts building and a clock tower.

Where else will the school end up? That may be  up to students that are attending now. While the predictions of Van Alstyne may seem far out, that is what most of the technological advances were at one point.

The future is built by students now and while it may seem far-out, everyone has their own thought of where the future will end up. For any student that has predictions of where the school will be taken in the future, comment on www.UVUReview.com and find what the future may hold.