As chairman of the executive committee of the Brigham Young University Board of Trustees and by assignment from President Russell M. Nelson and the First Presidency, who chair that board, I hereby install you, Christopher Shane Reese, as president of Brigham Young University this nineteenth day of September 2023.
In doing so I confer upon you all the rights, responsibilities, authority, and prerogatives necessary to act as the university’s chief executive officer, institutional spokesman, and overseer of its assets.
I charge you to commit your time and talents in leading the university during this second half of its second century and to help it become what prophets past and present have foreseen it would become.
In accomplishing this lofty expectation, I charge you with the responsibility to be the university’s chief moral and spiritual officer—this being the most important and most demanding of all your duties as president of the university.
I charge you to teach and amplify the university’s mission with each member of the university community. Ensure that each understands and fully embraces this mission and can inspire others to be a light to the world, even as they withstand the challenges of our day. I charge you to help students and employees realize their divine identity as sons and daughters of God and as disciples of Jesus Christ who can lead in their families, the Church, and their communities.
Since Brigham Young University is first and foremost an undergraduate teaching institution, I charge you to elevate that core mission. You should likewise prioritize scholarship that is aligned with the purposes of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the mission of the Church.
I charge you to center Brigham Young University on its prophetically inspired direction. The Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University, with the prophet at its head, will safeguard you through an increasingly challenging landscape and point the way to academic and spiritual success.
Finally, I confer upon you all the blessings and spiritual gifts needed for you to fulfill your office and accomplish this sacred trust.
President Oaks, I invite you to stand with President Reese as we ask Wendy W. Reese to place the medallion of office upon him. [The medallion was placed upon President C. Shane Reese.]
President Reese, with this you are now formally inaugurated as the fourteenth president of Brigham Young University.
We love you, we honor you, and we sustain you in this office. We look forward to serving with you, and we would now invite your response to this charge.
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D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, delivered this charge at the inauguration of BYU president C. Shane Reese on September 19, 2023.
