My son, who attends George Wythe College, in Cedar City, Utah, texted me today to tell me that the institution is moving to Salt Lake City by fall time. He said that it hasn’t been making enough money down in Cedar City. The powers that be at the school want to locate the school within six blocks of the capitol building so the students can get hands-on work with the government process. Dr. Schulties, the current president, will be leaving for a job in Rexburg Idaho. Here’s a statement by the school as to why it is not building on the property it acquired a few years ago in Monticello. http://newsletter.gw.edu/a/CampusNews/166

I have mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, I am excited for the school. Hopefully this location will attract a lot more students, because it will be in a much larger city. The students will have a much wider job market to choose from than what Cedar has, so hopefully more students will attend because more students will be able to work at more jobs, and therefore pay tuition, than what Cedar would carry. Maybe the students will be able to pay a higher tuition as well. My son has a scholarship to pay his tuition but he searched a long time to find a part-time job to pay his living expenses.

He finally had to take a full-time job because that’s all that was available. That was really hard for him, to be a full-time student and employee. He earned enough and saved enough he was able to quit the job with enough money to carry him through the end of the school year. With GWC being in such a big city, more people will be able to get the GWC experience.

On the other hand I am sad because I always had this dream of moving down there and having the rest of my kids attend college in the small town atmosphere of Cedar at a small school, while living at home. I dreamed about knowing all their classmates (My son has only about 22 or so classmates in the combined freshman/sophomore class) and encouraging my kids to host parties at our home.

I actually wanted to live in New Harmony, which is 20 minutes from Cedar and about 40 from St. George, because I wanted to live in a really small town. The town has an LDS church, a gas station, and a public library. What more could you want?

Twenty years ago this fall, my husband’s sister attended the charter class of George Wythe when it was located at Duck Creek. She described the college to us and how the curriculum was all about the classics. I was intrigued but skeptical. Could you really get a great education by studying classics and talking about them? I had a few classes at BYU that involved classics and discussion, but I was really shy, not willing to discuss much, and I still had a conveyor belt education mentality. Now I believe that a student can get a great education by reading and discussing, instead of just hearing lectures.

She left after the first year because she decided she wanted to go to midwifery college on the Wasatch front. That same sister was there, practicing her midwifery skills, when my son was born, the one who is at George Wythe College now. I have enjoyed talking to here about her experiences and I have loved traveling to southern Utah for Youth for Freedom camps (TJEd based summer camps for youth). I just have all these memories of GWC being in southern Utah. I am sad that the era of TJEd Land being in southern Utah is coming to a close.

This is a bust of George Wythe, the college’s namesake.