New education building breaks ground at USU Monument Valley

A new education center is set to open at USU Monument Valley around January 2026, representing a decades-long effort to revitalize the community and provide a new environment for students and locals alike. 

The building will contain classrooms and welding, nursing and technical education labs. At 10,000 square feet, the center will also house spaces for business development and public events.  

Tucked within the red rocks at the southern Utah and Arizona border, Monument Valley is a small, tightly-knit community. Its remote location has made access to education a challenge, one that USU Monument Valley hopes to alleviate with the building. 

Kristian Olsen is the senior associate vice president at USU Blanding.  

“We’ve been operating out of the same building in Monument Valley since the ‘90s, which is literally falling apart,” Olsen said. “We wanted a space that was new, didn’t leak when it rained and felt comfortable for students.”  

Jim Dandy is the Native American Serving Nontribal Institutions coordinator at USU Blanding. Dandy taught at Monument Valley High School for 21 years prior.  

“That building they’ve been utilizing is very unhealthy,” Dandy said. “They’ve found asbestos and that the structure is not very safe. I felt like we needed something better.”  

Currently, the Monument Valley campus occupies a portion of the old Seventh Day Adventist Mission Hospital, which was first built in 1951. According to Olsen and Dandy, the building is in desperate need of repair and cannot sufficiently meet student needs.  

As a result, students in Monument Valley frequently drive about two hours east to USU’s Blanding campus to attend classes and labs.  

New certificates and degree plans, like the CNA nursing welding labs, offer students in Monument Valley opportunities they previously would have had to travel 77 miles to reach.  

Donald Mose is the site supervisor for Monument Valley.  

“Having the labs available in Monument Valley would save students a tremendous amount of time and money,” Mose said. 

The building will be located within walking distance of the local elementary school and high school, allowing students to continue their education closer to home.  

“There’s going to be this little educational zone right in the middle of the valley,” Olsen said. “It’ll really help support education within the community.”  

According to Olsen, the building will host concurrent enrollment classes to get high school students thinking about their next steps towards college.  

“We’ll be offering concurrent enrollment classes, so high school students can just walk over and take classes at the building,” Olsen said. “We think it’ll help more students see that they have the potential and ability to go to college.”  

According to PBS.org, proximity to a college campus can significantly affect enrollment. One in six American high school seniors are unable to attend college due to a lack of nearby campuses and significant cost of relocation.  

“Whether a student decides to go to college or not, the closer they live to campus, the more likely they are to go,” Olsen said. 

The building’s location at the heart of Monument Valley aims to mitigate financial and geographic barriers for local high school and university students.  

“There’s something about having a college in your town,” Olsen said. “It sends a signal that we are invested in the community. For a place as remote as Monument Valley to have this building, it shows how much they want this and how much they value education.”  

Surrounding Monument Valley’s small township is almost entirely canyon backcountry. The nearest airport and big-box stores are over 100 miles away, with only small convenience stores scattered along U.S. Highway 163.  

“This is something we can be proud of,” Mose said. “Even if you’re not a student here. The infrastructure of Monument Valley seems to be improving every year. This building is a puzzle piece our community really needs.”  

According to Dandy, creating new job opportunities for residents of Monument Valley is another goal of the project.  

“One of the big things Kristian and I talked about was making sure professionals from that area are employed,” Dandy said. “I think it’ll bring a lot of teachers back and help native people take ownership of the building.”  

More than an education building, this will be a space for the community and gathering.  

“I would like to see not just college classes being taught there, but also for it to be a big resource of the community,” Dandy said.  

According to Data USA, Monument Valley was home to 729 residents in 2022.  

97.9% of these residents are Navajo and represent a majority of the students attending USU Monument Valley.  

According to Dandy and Olsen, the Navajo Nation and culture are heavily involved in the building’s plans.  

“I’m really glad they implemented a lot of the traditional cultural teachings with the building, like the four directions,” Dandy said. “I’m glad they are very sensitive to that and are valuing the culture and tradition of people in that area.”  

According to Dandy, the university’s partnership with the Navajo Nation on this building is a notable improvement from the past.  

“Back when I got hired here in Blanding there was a big disconnect,” Dandy said. “There was no support from the tribe or from Logan.” 

Dandy urges students from other campuses not only to visit Monument Valley, but to understand where the students of Monument Valley are coming from.  

“A lot of these students come from the reservation,” Dandy said. “A lot are coming from homes that don’t have electricity or running water. We want the people from Logan to experience how our campus and our students are different.” 

According to discovernavajo.com, community, ancestry and the sanctity of land are core tenets of Native American culture.  

“The Navajos are attached to family and land,” Mose said. “This building will help them stay in their communities. As we are multigenerational families, we are more able to keep with Navajo traditions like helping with our grandparents by being here.” 

According to discovernavajo.com, the number four is another prominent tenet of Navajo philosophy. The four directions are named for the four sacred mountains: Mount Blanca in the east, Mount Taylor at the south, Mount Hesperus to the north and San Francisco Peak to the west.  

Given the building will be constructed on Navajo land, incorporating cultural ideologies like the four directions and the indigenous language are going to be key objectives as construction continues.  

“I hope we maintain and value the language,” Dandy said. “Hopefully, we’ll have classes pertaining to that.”  

This new building will serve communities beyond Monument Valley and across state lines. 

“Being that we’re in a rural community just on the edge of Arizona, the impact of the building is not just going to be for our particular area in Utah but reach further into Arizona,” Mose said.  

According to Olsen, the building won’t just be a resource, but a place made by and for the community.  

“There’s a beautiful word in Navajo: ‘Hozho’,” Olsen said. “It means harmony and balance. We’ve worked with the architects and locals to build that concept into the building, so when students come they feel a sense of harmony and balance.”