As the leader of a university that was the site of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Utah Valley University President Astrid Tuminez has been faced with the task of helping students grieve.
It just so happens that as she guides the university through that process, Tuminez is dealing with her own personal sorrow. Her husband, Jeffrey S. Tolk, died on Feb. 5 while climbing Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador.
On this episode of “Deseret Voices,” host Jane Clayson Johnson asks Tuminez what she has learned from these tragedies and why she feels pain is sacred.
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Note: Transcript edited by Steven Watkins
Introduction: This week on “Deseret Voices,” a profoundly moving conversation about grief and hope with Dr. Astrid Tuminez, president of Utah Valley University.
This past year has tested her in unimaginable ways, both personally and professionally — from the sudden death of her husband to the tragic and violent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk right outside her office windows.
In this intimate and revealing interview, Dr. Tuminez speaks openly about faith, resilience, the sacred work of healing, and how grief can break you open, even as it teaches you to live again.
This is a conversation that will stay with you.
Jane Clayson Johnson: It’s been a very difficult year for you personally and professionally. I want to start with Sept. 10. That’s the day that many people will never forget, when conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated just outside these windows here at Utah Valley University. In those first hours and days. What guided your response?
UVU President Astrid Tuminez: Sept. 10 definitely is a day that I will never forget. I was in the Atlanta airport. I had just landed and received that news, and, you know, the initial reaction, of course, your whole body kind of goes into shock. And I remember pretty much making that immediate decision to turn around and return. And the first thing I did was try to find a quiet spot in the Atlanta airport. And I just sat on the ground. And I actually really had to tell myself that regardless of all these feelings that were rising in my body and my mind, that I had to think very clearly that when a situation like this happens, one must ask what needs to be done and what needs to happen right away.
JCJ: And so in those first few days after the shooting, what did students and faculty need to hear from you?
AT: They needed to hear that they were on my mind, I think is the first thing and that we felt their grief, their shock and pain. And it was not just the students and the faculty and staff. I was also thinking a lot about the Kirk family at that time.
I was widowed earlier this year, and so that was really top of my mind. Very, very raw, very real and very powerful.
JCJ: Speak more about that. In what way? What was the connection that you felt?
AT: My own experience of losing my husband and the feelings of losing safety. I think the students, staff and faculty were going through that trauma of losing the feeling of safety in a place that was safe and kind and loving for them. And I could relate to all of that deeply and viscerally and in real time. At the beginning, I was actually thinking, maybe, you know, I can just be here on the surface, just do what needs to be done without these other deeper feelings. But that really, you know, by the second day that really hit me in a very, very powerful way when I was giving a message to students.
JCJ: So that loss of safety, what were some of the other emotions that the students and faculty were feeling? Was it anger? Was it fear? What was it?
AT: Fear, certainly. When your context is totally blasted apart in that manner, or you see a murder in front of you, I think it changes the nature you think about, can I still work there? Can I still study there?
JCJ: During that time, you said to your students, “Embrace your pain. Cradle it like a baby. Hold it. Don’t repress it. Don’t deny it. And then lean on one another.” Could you tell me more about that?
AT: When those words came out of my mouth, I think, those words were coming from a very, very raw place of grief and pain and suffering. Yes. In the recent past, because I lost my husband and everything in my life, if you will, was upended. You know, it was a shock, a trauma to the system. But beneath that, maybe way deeper is, is my my life experience.
Because I grew up in the Philippines in a situation of really great, poverty, great suffering. I saw a lot of death. I saw a lot of illness. I saw a lot of people who couldn’t help themselves because of life circumstances. And I grew up thinking, actually, you had to be strong all the time. I grew up thinking that, you know, you just problem-solved all the time.
And it was a little bit embarrassing or shameful to to let people know you’re falling apart. But one of my big lessons in life is that we need help. And asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. And when I say cradle, I mean feel it, feel it. There is so much research about this. If we don’t feel it, it will come out in terrible ways. And what I mean by cradling it is, to say to your pain, I truly do see you. This is to say to your anger, I really do see you. To say to your hopelessness, I really do see you. And just by feeling you today and seeing you today, I will probably get better tomorrow.
No feeling is permanent. I might feel better three hours from now.
And I think when you are stripped of all security, when you’re stripped of all confidence, when you are stripped of all certainty, you have to ask what is inside me? What am I made of? What do I not even know about myself? How do I lean on others? And how do I begin to understand the journey? And by the way, it doesn’t come overnight.
I think with Charlie Kirk and my personal pain, this journey has been all about patience, grace, surrender.
I’m very bad at surrendering. I lived in New York for 14 years, and I had kung fu lessons for 11 of those 14 years, and I was a relatively decent fighter. And my sifu, my master, would always say, you know what’s wrong with you, Astrid? you don’t know how to be a limp noodle. You don’t know how to be soft, you don’t know how to surrender or how to relax. And I think in great grief and pain and trauma and shock, we learn to surrender. We learn to lay on the floor and say, I can’t get up and it’s fine. Lay on the floor 12 hours, don’t get up. And you know what? It feels really good. And it’s fine.
JCJ: Tell me how in the process of losing your husband and moving forward in your own life, how grief has transformed you?
AT: Yeah. Grief, I think, is still transforming me. And I think it will continue to transform me until the day that I die. It’s not the first time that I’ve experienced grief. I was 27 when I lost my father, and that also was a very painful loss because he was the parent who raised me. My mother left when I was only 5 years old. So the suddenness of it was a very severe trauma.
So, grief transforming me, sort of the processing of the loss in so many different ways. And I don’t think I even understand it today, but it obliterates you. It obliterates your self, your identity, your safety, your habits.
Everything you assume was, you know, true about your life or what you’re planning for the rest of your life. And so the transformation for me, No. 1, I think I have come to understand more honestly the meaning of the word trauma. I’m a doer, I’m used to solving problems, and I’m used to working my way through anything. I’ve felt that, I can smash walls, I can work through. But once you experience this kind of trauma and depression, I have to mention the word depression, is very real. And so how you move with it, how you even physically get up, you know, how you move with it. And I feel like it is a sacred dance where you’re dancing with the sorrow, you’re dancing with rage. You’re trying to see if you could still move. And then where it takes you.
JCJ: You use the word sacred. I find that very interesting. Pain is sacred to you?
AT: Yes, absolutely.
In many ways it’s fascinating what grief does to you. The way that I talk to God, you know, changes completely. It’s a transformation. There’s another transformation. So there’s a physical, emotional, mental transformation, a spiritual transformation. It launders you, you know, in, Psalm chapter 51, in the Bible, it talks about God washing us. It’s like laundry. I was being laundered in this process of grief.
JCJ: And how has your faith impacted this journey? How has it strengthened you?
AT: It’s both, I think, kind of destroyed faith and also rebuilt faith. You know, faith is great when life is easy, but really, who understands — and I’m a Christian — who understands? Jesus Christ. Who understands loneliness? Who understands being forsaken? Who understands physical pain?
And, so it’s a rebuild. It’s a destruction. And a rebuild. And I think that’s a profound and also a sacred process, because sometimes we go along our merry way and certainty is a very dangerous thing. Certainty often leads to hubris. And when certainty is destroyed, you are left asking yourself, what is it that I really believe in and in this journey? For me, it’s been thinking a lot about Christ.
JCJ: Your personal story, to me, is so compelling. And I’d like to ask you a little bit more about it. As you mentioned, you were born in the Philippines in poverty. The Catholic nuns found your family?
AT: Yes.
JCJ: In the slums.
AT: Yes.
JCJ: When you were 6 years old. You could not read or write.
AT: Yeah.
JCJ: What do you teach your students about your own story? About your own journey?
AT: When I came here in 2018, I discovered that my story was very powerful for students because they would come up to me and say, you know, “My mother came from Africa,” or, one student came up to me and said, “I never thought someone who looked like you could have power.” And people of color, we are almost 20% students of color.
So what my story is about is, well, one, that, you know, the kindness of others matters a lot. The Catholic nuns who found me, I was only 5 when they found me. I didn’t know how to read or spell my name. I didn’t know numbers. And having them educate me was so magical because once I learned to read, it opened a universe to me that I didn’t even know existed.
And I think that speaks to the students here when I talk about the American dream or when I talk about coming from, you know, I was born in a rice farming village, and then my mother moved the family to the city because she thought we’d have more opportunity. So we ended up living in the slums. And there were seven children in this grass hut on stilts in the sea.
The hut was in the sea. And my father earned the equivalent of less than $50 a month. So to grow up when you cannot throw money at your problems and to say, I will work hard. And the nuns also raised me deeply in faith. I think that resonates with many students at UVU and I think they find it very empowering for themselves because it takes courage to try something that you think might not be for you, or that might be extremely difficult.
We have students who were formerly addicted. We have students who are 4.0 students and go on to Harvard and Oxford. The diversity of that group is beautiful. And to have each of them feel like they could look at my story as the president and use that to inspire, maybe and inform their own lives is a real privilege for me.
JCJ: It’s an incredible example, that little girl from the Philippines, in the slums who went on to Harvard …
AT: Yes.
JCJ: … earned a Ph.D. at MIT, became the first woman president of this university. You are living proof of the American dream. Is the dream that propelled you still alive today? For many students?
AT: I think if you’re talking about foreign students in particular, I think it’s a little bit harder today. And they’re discouraged. And I know that, because I wanted to increase the number of foreign students at UVU. And in fact, we put that plan somewhat on hold right now because of the difficulty. I also think about students who are already here, whether they’re immigrants or refugees or born here, native born Americans, and how we need to continue to keep this dream of college alive for them.
I believe very much the university remains one of our single most proven tools for improving the human condition, for taking a person and saying, what are your dreams? And maybe we cannot make them all come true, but maybe you could get two steps closer to those dreams. And what is your potential?
JCJ: What about the affordability of a college education today? Are we reaching a breaking point for someone like you who maybe could not have afforded this kind of an education? Who should go to college, President Tuminez? I mean, how do we think about vocational and technical programs at a place like UVU that does those so well?
AT: I think I would begin by reframing it slightly and asking, who deserves to succeed in work in life and at what cost? So I would begin in general by saying everyone deserves a chance to succeed in work and life. And we know that one of the big variables in success is having a profession or a vocation that is meaningful to you while you live and that could also earn enough money so that you can support yourself and your family. So I will begin with that. And UVU is terrific at that. Our tuition and fees are $6,000 in one year.
And UVU is open access. We accept everybody. And you see transformation here. You see that when people belong and get the help they need that they blossom.
Now, as far as the vocations and technical education, we have privileged for a long time cognitive thinking as the intelligence that matters most.
But what we know in the last 20, 30 years is there’s so much research on different types of intelligence. And I think from the vocational, technical, bachelors, philosophy, culinary arts, we have an aviation school here, we have a police academy. We value all forms of intelligence.
So I think we need to de-prejudice ourselves, you know, as to what intelligence means. Because in an economy that is diverse and in an economy that is going to be powered by artificial intelligence, all of the things that humans bring to the table, especially creativity, color, empathy, all of these things are going to be needed.
And I think that UVU, the diversity of programs here, speak very powerfully to what is needed. A society evolves.
And I think that’s really critical. Without social and economic movement, you breed hopelessness, you breed poverty, you breed ignorance. And none of those will help a dynamic democracy or a thriving economy.
JCJ: Let me bring it back to UVU. After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, some lawmakers and alumni and even students called for a memorial or a statue on the UVU campus to honor Charlie Kirk. There’s also been a student loan petition, with thousands of signatures opposing that statue. They want a memorial reflecting broader principles of free speech rather than just a memorial to one figure. Could I ask you, President, where you stand on that?
AT: What we have done here at UVU is we have put together a memorial committee.
The process right now is to elicit as much feedback as possible, because memorials are only powerful when you can see them 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road. And they have that kind of lasting power. So I have confidence in this committee and it will require time. And I think some patience for that memorial to be decided.
JCJ: Do you have a personal opinion yet about what the memorial should be?
AT: My own hope is that it emphasizes the best in us and that it emphasizes conversation, reconciliation and healing.
JCJ: Tell me what the university is doing to heal after this terribly traumatic incident.
AT: Healing took the form of the memorials that organically came up all over campus. I think putting the flag in the courtyard where Charlie Kirk was killed was powerful. Because the flag is a neutral symbol. It reminds us that love for this country, love for what this country has given us and what it represents. It does unite us rather than divide us. We had a lot of mental health and trauma counseling.
We had dogs and alpacas on this campus that our students really loved. And in fact, in my opinion, was the most powerful element of of healing.
JCJ: And so what have you learned from your students about resilience and about courage?
AT: I’ve learned that our students are wise and strong and courageous. It’s very difficult after a crisis to just manufacture community. And I’ve talked about the beauty of community that I’ve seen, the human connection that I’ve seen. And again, there is a difference of opinion. There is a hurt that’s very real. At the vigil for unity, when I spoke, I said, “We are hurting for different reasons.” I wanted to acknowledge that in the open, but as I said, “grief transforms you.”
It has to make you see the other person as a human being and be willing to listen to them. And I’ve heard students use the phrase the necessity for conversation that we are one school, this is one community, and we need to talk to one another. it’s really been, it’s really been something to see, something to witness.
JCJ: Is it hard for students even to walk through campus? Is it hard for you to walk through this quad?
AT: At the beginning, it was very hard. And I think every day that we come here, every day that we go to classes, every day that we have a big conference with thousands of people, is another day of healing. At the end of the day, to heal, you need to reclaim space. You need to address what happened, but also reclaim what you came here to do. And our business is hope. Our business is education. And I am so grateful for the courageous people who returned.
JCJ: I’m so moved by the way you speak about challenges and the way you speak about hope. And I wonder if you would leave us with your thoughts about what brings you hope now, after everything you’ve been through this last year, and how you’re leading your students through this period of crisis to this place of hope.
AT: What brings me hope at a personal level is, I am not today what I was four, five, six months ago when I could not even get up. So that brings me a lot of hope, that I could sleep five hours. That’s amazing. That’s a miracle. So that brings me hope. What brings me hope also at UVU and in my own personal life is human connection. Sometimes the things that make us fall apart are also the things that will put us back together again. Sometimes our pain is also our medicine, and human connection is just such a big part of that.
There is a tomorrow. There’s another bend. A friend of mine who likes to run river said there’s always another bend. And around each bend something might shine and something might surprise us and something might heal us. And we have to believe in that. And that’s where my hope is.
JCJ: I have to ask you about your school spirit, because I have not met many university presidents who have the color of the university in their hair —
AT: Yes. And I also have green pom poms. So school spirit. When I arrived at UVU in 2018, there was a survey done that showed that only 42% felt proud of being here at UVU. The students. And I felt that that pride was so important because I don’t know what hardships they’re having, but if they felt proud to be at UVU, they’ll do their homework. They’ll show up to classes, they’ll drop off their children at daycare here. They’ll do what needs to be done. And I had not yet started the job, but I went to a soccer game and there was this little tiny, like straw pompom, really, really tiny.
And I was waving that and I thought, you know, and the next day, I was living in the president’s residence. Some cheerleaders knocked on my door, and they said, “President, we noticed you had this really puny pom poms that are not pom poms. This is a pom pom.” And they had a big fat pom pom, and I took the pom poms, and I said to my husband, “Will people think I am an unserious president?”
You know, especially being female? They might think. But I do have degrees from Harvard and MIT. I’ve written a book. I’ve written peer-reviewed articles. So I thought maybe, you know, they’ll see me as serious. I just went everywhere with this pom poms. And then in December of 2018, my first semester, I put the green streaks in my hair.
And then I noticed students were doing it and they were loving it. And when we repeated the surveys of how proud you are to be at UVU, it’s like in the high 60s, maybe low 70%. It’s amazing how that transformation has happened, because at the end of the day, that’s the kind of superpower students, staff and faculty should have a deep pride in this institution and what we are accomplishing. And that’s my school spirit and I try to celebrate the successes that we are having.
I’ll mention one statistic, which is a little bit mind-blowing. In 2019, we had fewer than 6,000 graduates. That’s my first year here. In April 2025, we had 12,600 graduates. So you can see that that trajectory, every number is a person, every person that might mean a family and that might mean children and grandchildren. So you are changing the trajectory and that makes me more happy, you know, than anything. It really so worthwhile.
JCJ: You talked about, you’re supposed to learn something from every situation. Which is what you want to teach people so, what have you learned? What’s the answer to your own question?
AT: What I have learned is that from darkness and tragedy, we are led to ask the most important questions. We are led to be more honest. We are led to a space of perhaps greater empathy and compassion. If we are lucky. Not everybody gets there. And I think if we are sincerely asking what the moment, what the bend in this road or in this river is asking of me, because life is finite.
I think, I hope it’s not strange, but I think about death all the time. Since my 20s. The finite nature of life is something most humans deny. But if there’s any truth to anything, that’s it, is that it ends. And therefore, what we learn, we should be applying it. And it has always to be bigger than ourselves. It always has to be bigger than ourselves.
It has to be about others. It has to be about service. It has to be about leaving something better for those who follow after us.
JCJ: Thank you so much.
AT: Thank you.