Astrid Tuminez, Utah Valley University’s seventh president, will step down at the end of the semester. She announced the decision on Wednesday during a State of the University address, speaking to a packed audience of students and faculty.

Tuminez, 61, said in an interview that the decision to step down had been building for some time. “There’s never a good time,” she said. “I love UVU so much.” The choice, she explained, came with a mix of grief and relief. “It is a swirl of emotion. I am heartbroken on one hand, but also happy and excited on the other, because life has its rhythms.

“I cried a lot last night, and I am not crying today,” Tuminez said, as she told the crowd she planned to leave the role in early May.

The decision follows a year marked by personal grief and institutional crisis. Her husband, Jeffrey Tolk, died suddenly in February 2025. “My heart was broken. There’s no other way to describe it,” Tuminez told the Guardian. In a later interview, she described the loss as leaving her “disconsolate and desolate”.

Months later, on 10 September 2025, the day that would have marked her husband’s birthday, Tuminez was travelling to Rome on a planned spiritual pilgrimage when news broke that Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old far-right commentator and founder of Turning Point USA, had been assassinated on campus.

“Our bodies feel these things,” Tuminez later told the Guardian. “Just utter shock, like my whole body was on fire.”

The killing thrust Tuminez and the university into the centre of a national political crisis, as political violence in the US intensified and the Trump administration escalated pressure on universities over campus speech.

Utah Valley University is still reckoning with the aftermath of Kirk’s death. Many faculty, students and state officials remain divided over how to remember Kirk, with some Republican leaders and university officials pushing to memorialise him, while others have warned against politicising the campus tragedy.

Tuminez, who became president in 2018, was the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first immigrant to lead Utah Valley University, located in one of Utah’s most conservative counties. She has described her ascent to the role with characteristic understatement. “I’m an accidental university president,” she said. “I never planned for this. It wasn’t even on the list.”

Trained as a scholar of Soviet politics, Tuminez has worked across academia, government and international institutions, an experience that shaped her approach to leading the university through an increasingly polarised national moment. She has argued that universities remain central to the American project, describing them as “facilitators of the American dream”, and has said they should prepare students to grapple seriously with questions of civic discourse.

Her nearly eight years as president, one of the longest tenures in Utah’s public university system, were marked by significant growth and institutional change. During her time in office, enrolment increased by more than 20%, the university’s endowment more than doubled from $55m to $129m, graduation rates rose sharply, fundraising expanded and new centres were established in applied artificial intelligence, fintech and constitutional studies.

Her departure comes as universities across the US face mounting political pressure from the Trump administration, including heightened immigration enforcement and deportation of many students, visa restrictions affecting dozens of countries and growing fears among international students. Tuminez, herself a former international student, said she remained concerned about what a more closed US could mean for higher education.

“One of the superpowers of America is our influence globally,” she said. “We educate people who go back and lead in their home countries.” She said she had hoped to expand UVU’s international student population, arguing that openness benefits both local students and those who come from abroad. “I had to get my own F-1 visa,” she added. “It was very, very difficult. “I think it’s good for Utahns, and it’s also good for these students, to have this experience, to be educated here.”

She framed the moment as political flux rather than sound policy, suggesting decisions driven by fear or politics risk long-term harm. Tuminez said she was concerned that fear among international students and a more closed immigration posture could erode one of the US’s defining strengths: its openness to the world. When asked about her next chapter, Tuminez was clear about one thing: she plans to pause. “I need a break,” she said. “This is not the kind of job you do for seven and a half years and feel rested.”

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — John Marino scored at 4:03 of the third period to break a tie and give the Utah Mammoth a 2-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.

Marino also assisted on Nick Schmaltz’s 17th goal of the season and Karel Vejmelka made 26 stops as the Mammoth won for the fifth time in six games.

Mikko Rantanen scored and Jake Oettinger had 25 saves for Dallas, which has lost nine of its last 11 games.

Schmaltz broke a scoreless deadlock with 7 seconds left in the second period, tipping in a feed from Marino. It was the fourth latest goal in any regulation period in Utah’s short franchise history.

The Mammoth nearly made it 2-0 just 38 seconds into the third, but Lawson Crouse had his goal wiped off the board for high-sticking.

Rantanen leveled the score with a power-play goal at the 2:04 of the third.

Marino answered two minutes later, snapping the puck home from long distance to put the Mammoth up 2-1 with his second winning goal of the season.

Utah improved to 16-1-1 this season when leading after two periods.

Up next

Stars: host Tampa Bay on Sunday.

Mammoth: host Seattle on Saturday.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

One proposal eliminates the voucher program for private school and homeschooled students. Arts programs, suicide prevention and dual immersion may also be trimmed.

Utah’s education leaders are considering what programs should be cut to meet the Utah Legislature’s mandate to trim 5% of the state’s budget — and everything from suicide prevention to school vouchers is on the block.

The Utah State Board of Education is meeting Thursday to consider recommendations to cut the state’s nearly $6 billion schools budget. The board is scheduled to meet at noon to discuss two proposals, each of which recommends cuts of just over $295.7 million.

The biggest proposed cut is the elimination of Utah Fits All, the voucher program that allocates money to students in private schools or being homeschooled.

One proposal recommends defunding the $122.6 million Utah Fits All program, while the other suggests cutting $6.1 million, or 5%, of the voucher program.

These are some of the programs suggested for elimination in both proposals:

• Student mental health screenings, a program the Legislature created in 2024 to improve students’ well-being: $1 million.

• A suicide-prevention program the Legislature created last year, to help prevent student suicides and track schools’ efforts: $1 million.

• Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarships, which are available to students with disabilities who attend private schools: $8.6 million.

• Dual immersion programs that allow students to learn a second language through classes that are half in English and half in another language: $7.9 million.

• A program that helps school districts with construction, renovation and debt service of new buildings: $27.6 million.

• A program that adds $4,100 to the salaries of qualifying secondary math and science teachers: $26 million.

• Software licenses for early literacy education to help students in grades K-3 who are reading below grade level: $10.6 million.

• Digital teaching and learning programs that help educators find ways to use technology in the classroom: $18.4 million.

Each of the two proposals also recommends eliminating one of the state’s arts education programs. One suggests cutting the $19.4 million allocated to the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, which provides funding for arts-integrated education in elementary schools.

The other calls for cutting the $6.1 million given to the Professional Outreach Programs in the Schools, or POPS, which pays to bring in nonprofits — including Tanner Dance, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and others — to teach the arts in schools.

Here are other programs that are being suggested for elimination on one of the two proposals:

• A program aiming to strengthen human trafficking and child sexual abuse education in elementary and secondary public schools: $1 million.

• Software that evaluates the reading level of elementary school students: $2.8 million.

The Utah Legislature has asked all state agencies to look for 5% to cut from their budgets, House Majority Whip Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton, said Monday at a United Way-sponsored preview breakfast. Pierucci said House Speaker Mike Schultz is spearheading the budget cutbacks, which she said are a response to the rise in local property taxes around the state.

“With everything we see at the local level, we thought we could not ask our local [leaders] to cut budgets if we’re not willing to show [we can do] that,” Pierucci said.

Whatever recommendation USBE approves Thursday will next go to the Utah Legislature for consideration. The Legislature’s 2026 general session begins Tuesday.

This is a developing story.