PROVO — Brigham Young University is closing its Semester at Nauvoo program, but school officials aren't saying why.
The program started 12 years ago in the sleepy Illinois town on the Mississippi River and expanded in 1999, but it will close at the end of this semester, in April.
"At this time, BYU and its Board of Trustees believe it is prudent to discontinue the Semester in Nauvoo program," university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said as part of a four-sentence statement.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors BYU, inspired and has been a major player in a growth boom in the Nauvoo area since 1999, when the church announced it would build a temple in the city more than 150 years after it abandoned one on the same site to flee persecution.
"For the past five years everything has been about growth and expansion, with no stopping it," said Doug Endres, a reporter with the Hancock County Journal-Pilot in Carthage, Ill.
The program began in 1994, with students living in restored historic homes. It expanded in 1999 after the church bought St. Mary's All Girls' School from the Catholic Church — directly across the street from the temple site — and converted it into the Joseph Smith Academy. The program's capacity was 120 students, with 86 on-site this semester. About 110 attended Fall Semester.
The old Catholic building is a Nauvoo icon, but an aging one.
"The facility is very old, the pipes are rusty and leaking, boilers are very old and the windows have become inefficient," faculty director Evan Ivie told the Daily Universe, BYU's student newspaper. "It is estimated that it would cost $10 million to renovate."
It's unclear whether the building will be torn down or renovated to meet safety standards. The community still uses the building and its 600-seat auditorium, said Nauvoo Mayor John McCarty.
"The university is very grateful for the many volunteer faculty, directors and staff who have made this program possible," Jenkins said. "It is also appreciative of the kind manner in which the students have been received by the Nauvoo community."
Jenkins couldn't speculate on the future of the site or whether the program might be reinstated in the future. Founder and former BYU religion professor Milton Backman expressed hope the program could be restored some day.
Journal-Pilot reporter Endres said rumors in West Central Illinois include the LDS Church buying old Carthage College dorms in nearby Carthage and moving the BYU semester program there, but rumors have been rampant in the region for years.
"There are new rumors every week," Endres said. "One is that the church will buy land between Carthage and Nauvoo to build their own town. You can't take anything seriously until it happens because you hear all kinds of things."
Mayor McCarty said the building might be the bigger reason.
"It's been rumored for a bit more than a year now the building was too expensive to maintain and the program wasn't paying the bills," McCarty said. "There's been talk it might come back bigger and better, or it might not come back at all."
"One hundred students a semester really helps out the town," McCarty added. "They do a lot of service and they shop in town and yet you can't tell they're really even here. The consensus in town is we'd like to see the program continue and even grow."
About 1,200 students have studied in the program over the past 12 years. They studied LDS Church history, early American history and literature and the teachings of Joseph Smith, the first LDS president and founder of the faith.
The travel study experience was open to students from any college or university and included field trips to church history sites in Palmyra, N.Y.; Kirtland, Ohio; and Missouri. Field trips in Illinois included Carthage, where Smith was martyred, and Abraham Lincoln sites in Springfield.
A semester cost $4,725, including tuition, books, housing, meals and field trips.
The February 1841 Nauvoo Charter established a university, but it was never built for lack of funds.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com