Arts & Humanities

USU Breaks Ground for Heravi Global Teaching & Learning Center on Quad

Mehdi Heravi speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Global Teaching & Learning Center that will bear his name on the Quad at USU's Logan campus on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

Despite snow and rain, hundreds of people gathered Wednesday afternoon as Utah State University broke ground for a new building bordering the historic Quad on the Logan campus.

The Mehdi Heravi Global Teaching and Learning Center in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences will house programs in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. It is expected to serve the thousands of students who take language courses at USU each year.

After brief opening remarks by Dean Joseph Ward, the ceremony began shortly after 1 p.m. with a blessing by Rios Pacheco, an elder of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. Historically, the Cache Valley area was not just a place of residence for the Shoshone, Pachecho said, but also a place of physical and spiritual healing.

“And now we have many people here,” Pacheco said. “We're all one people today. The languages that we will listen and learn from each other will help us better understand, help us better to live, help us better to know the things that will keep our children in line and in peace with one another.”

College and university administrators say the center will create spaces for increased connection between students within a state-of-the-art facility that will help prepare USU’s students for careers in an increasingly global world. Its namesake is USU alumnus and philanthropist Mehdi Heravi, who founded a club to facilitate worldwide connections during his time as an international student.

Heravi spoke at the groundbreaking, calling it an honor to have his name attached to the new center.

“My hope and my dream is that everyone that goes through the Global Teaching and Learning Center in any capacity would become a promoter of peace, would be an advocate of freedom and friendship, would be a believer of justice, diversity, inclusiveness and equity,” Heravi said.

The center is being constructed just west of the Ray B. West building, diagonally southeast of Old Main. In early March, crews closed portions of Champ Drive to make road improvements to accommodate construction and the new facility. The project is supported by funds from the State of Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the O.C. Tanner Foundation, and individual donors.

USU hopes to see the project completed in time for the 2024-25 academic year.

Rios Pacheco, an elder of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, blesses the site of the Mehdi Heravi Global Teaching & Learning Center on the Quad at USU's Logan campus during the building's groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

A rendering of the new Mehdi Heravi Global Teaching and Learning Center on the USU Logan campus.

CONTACT

Rebecca Walton
Associate Dean
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
435-797-0289
rebecca.walton@usu.edu


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