On Wednesday, civic and business dignitaries gathered alongside state educators and religious leaders to celebrate the University of Utah's new Thomas S. Monson Center located at the heart of Salt Lake City in the newly renovated Enos A. Wall Mansion.
The facility will act as an “ambassador” for the university and will house the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Together the center and institute will bring diverse voices from across sectors to discuss policies and ideas that will help Utah succeed.
Yet the newly renovated center itself is already serving as a symbol for the success that comes when communities and core institutions collaborate.
The mansion was donated to the University of Utah by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and previously housed the LDS Business College. Its renovation and new identity came about through a broader collective effort involving local philanthropists, business leaders, and, of course, the church and the university. Even this paper contributed to the cause.
Indeed, the mansion's journey from owner to owner evinces a shared history befitting this cooperative effort. Originally built as a Victorian style mansion for the chancellor of the University of Utah and past Salt Lake City Mayor James Sharp, it was subsequently redesigned in the neo-classical style by the Utah Capitol's architect on behalf of Kennecott mining baron Enos A. Wall. After Wall's death in the early 20th century, the building once again changed hands, housing the Salt Lake Jewish Center and then in the 1960s the LDS Business College. After the business college moved to the Triad Center at 300 West North Temple in 2006, many speculated about the fate of the edifice. Its new role serves as a fitting bookend that will continue the tradition of serving the needs of various communities and associations in Utah.
One of the most incisive observers of 19th century American life, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote that "Americans use associations" to do everything from building churches to distributing books. "In this manner," he said, "they create hospitals, prisons, schools," and, as of this week, a new university center.
“[A]t the head of a new undertaking,” Tocqueville said, “you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.”
The idea that citizens work together through free association — through, in this instance, foundations, churches, universities and businesses — in order to promote the betterment of the community was, for Tocqueville, exceptional to America.
This spirit of collaboration is embodied in the state's symbol of the beehive, and now, in the University of Utah’s Thomas S. Monson center. The state’s ethos of cooperation, however, doesn’t just manifest itself in the history and renovation of the Wall mansion, it also bears out in public policy.
Take, for example, the Utah Compact and the Utah Compromise. While the former dealt with immigration policy and the latter with non-discrimination, in both instances, Utahns of various ideological and cultural backgrounds collaborated to find common ground. And in both instances, this synergistic spirit has been praised nationally as a contrast to the all-too-common partisanship that defines so much of politics today.
In unveiling the new facility, the University of Utah’s President David Pershing shared an anecdote regarding Enos A. Wall's successful efforts to bring divided citizens together to fix a problem with the leveling on 5th Avenue then referred to as Brigham Street. He remarked, "We hope that like the Brigham Street of old, the Thomas S. Monson Center will be a place where the university and the community can intersect, where we can come together and talk about problems of the day, where new perspectives will be gained and new knowledge discovered."
In many ways, the Thomas S. Monson Center, like its namesake, has already helped the university and the community to intersect in rich and edifying ways. We are excited as it continues to fulfill this important role.