Inn has room for learning

Salt Lake to Boston: 2,392 miles. To New York City: 2,170 miles. Philadelphia is closer at only 2,152 miles away.

But for students from Utah who attend the Palmyra Education Center, these historic sights will be as close as a bus ride.

Nestled in upstate New York, the Palmyra Inn will be not only the first large motel in the area, but a sort of college campus, with 60 student rooms, large classrooms and the opportunity for a school-away-from-school experience.

The idea for the education center came from other study-abroad programs at Brigham Young University and BYU-Idaho.

For one college semester, students will travel to upstate New York to take classes and do homework, while still leaving plenty of time on the weekends to travel to Philadelphia, Boston, New York City and Nauvoo, Ill., learning about U.S. history, as well as the beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Although most of the students who sign up for the program may be LDS, the center is not connected to the LDS Church. It is an independent project by those who want to give students a chance to see history come alive, organizers say.

The finishing touches are being put in place and the building is scheduled to be finished in July. The first semester and trial run will start in August and go until mid-December.

Academic classes, offered through Utah State University, will allow students to watch live broadcasts in specially prepared classrooms and interact with the professor through microphones and video screens.

The classes are mostly lower-level courses, such as math, English and biology.

Randy Hayes, a religion professor at BYU-Idaho, has taken a year's leave from the traditional college setting to direct the education program at the new center.

He and his family will head to New York for a year, where they will work with the 75 students enrolled for this fall.

"It's going to be a great thing," Hayes said. "The more I look at what they can be able to do — three full days in Washington, D.C., three full days in NYC — just some neat things, especially for kids from out here in the West, and not fall behind a semester."

But more than just a mini-college, the Palmyra Inn will also have regular rooms for guests, providing a lodging increase for the area. Each July, thousands of visitors come to upstate New York to watch the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a large outdoor drama presentation, and often have a hard time finding somewhere to stay.

Steve Israelsen, chief financial officer of the Palmyra Inn, said the city of Palmyra is excited to see this building go up. It means more people will be able to visit Palmyra and stay longer, pouring money into the usually sleepy economy.