Some Thoughts About the University

William James once observed, “The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man’s thoughts and another’s.”¹

Contemplating these few words leads me to the realization of the truth expressed. I begin this morning by talking about the communication challenge that exists here. It is not an easy task to come to a common understanding in our university. However, I do not think it is impossible to remove that barrier, so I shall try.

I frequently feel the need to stop by your offices and talk to you in-depth about the university and your work here. I want to know what you are thinking about. I’d like to hear your hopes for the future. I need the advantage of your insight and dreams. And I’d like to share with you some of the understanding and perspective that come to us in our offices as we struggle with the issues of the entire university.

I realize that occasionally a decision made by us might seem strange to you and the interpretations that follow even more strange. But I want you to know that the interpretations that you make following some of our carefully considered positions seem very surprising to us as well.

Let me illustrate. About three years ago, after long discussions with deans and the Faculty Advisory Council, we reached a decision to protect reading days. We supposed that essentially all faculty were in agreement that no activities should be scheduled and no assignments should be required during these days in order to give the students the time they needed to review and synthesize the work of the semester in preparation for good examinations.

On the first reading day of that semester, a complaint was registered in my office. Then a second complaint. And finally a group of irate seniors and graduate students, all from the same department, descended on my office demanding to know why they had been locked out of a laboratory that had equipment in it that they had to use to prepare for their final examinations. They reported that a sign had been posted on the door saying it was “locked by order of Jae R. Ballif.” The door was soon unlocked, and the students were reassured that I had no intention of causing them such stress.

I was deeply pained by the experience. It still hurts to think about it. With more discussion I am confident everyone concerned would have understood the decision as an effort to help the students. I know things like that go on and are usually a matter of inadequate understanding.

The candid, strong reaccreditation report completed a year ago drew our attention to this issue as did last year’s Faculty Advisory Council report on communication in the university. We want you to know that we have received the message and that we have not been as successful in establishing good communication with the faculty as we want to be.

There could not be a more clear statement on faculty expectations and the mission of the university than we heard yesterday from President Jeffrey R. Holland. Nevertheless, after such a ringing and persuasive description of our work, we still have the task of implementing the mission and seeing to it that our daily decisions are guided by wise principles and procedures. I believe it is here that we have our greatest challenge in coming to a common understanding.

One important message I give you today in a simple, declarative fashion is a description of the process by which we attempt to make you aware of and understand the decisions we reach and the organizational structure of the university provided to allow us to be responsive to you.

We do not mean to suggest that there are not improvements yet to be made. We may well need more creative thinking from you as well as from us. There are some facts that have to be recognized. The size, complexity, and dynamic nature of the university work against our desire and tendency to be open and available to everyone at all times.

We have recently taken some initiatives we believe will help. President Holland has increased his efforts to be in direct contact with more of you and with students by personally leading small-group discussions. My colleagues and I in the academic vice president’s office have begun a consistent effort to meet with individual faculty at least once a week in meetings in which we can listen and respond one-on-one to your views. During the last four months, about seventy of you have met for at least an hour with one of us to talk about the university.

As you know, it has been our policy to circulate to every faculty member written memoranda describing important policies and practices governing the university community.

We believe deeply in an extended, participatory sharing of authority and responsibility. For this reason we have delegated considerable authority for decision-making to the deans of the colleges and to the chairmen of the departments. Recently we have moved to strengthen and extend faculty councils.

Both the councils and administrative officers are charged with conducting extensive discussions with individual faculty members. We hope through these channels to have the benefit of your thinking in developing the policies that will most facilitate our growth and development as a strong university community. We promise you that no serious, carefully discussed suggestion will be ignored in our deliberations.

By extending the administrative responsibilities in this way, it has been our hope that each faculty member could initiate any concern he or she might have and inaugurate response to official memoranda that begin in our offices. We assure you we do desire to hear from you.

What I would like to do now is to sketch for you the view of the university that is emerging for us after working together for seven years under the inspired leadership of President Holland. It seems an appropriate time for us to step back a bit and assess the larger view. It is important for us to evaluate where we are, to acknowledge the progress we have made, and to make clear where we are going.

When I do this, I am encouraged. I have great optimism about the future. These are among the subjects I would discuss with you in your office if I could. I also hope to persuade you that there are clear principles and policies being identified that form the basis of all our evaluations and decisions. We believe we are developing an organization and an administrative policy that allow us to pursue our dreams together and that will make participative work among faculty, those who administer the university, and the board of trustees effective.

Finally, and perhaps most important, I want to convey my deep conviction that the most significant thing that happens or can happen at this university takes place in the individual souls of students and faculty as they struggle to a new level of understanding, to greater wisdom, and to greater faith. All else we do is to encourage this progress.

BYU began in 1875, heir to the long traditions of higher education and the continuity of Western education through the Academy of Athens, Aristotle’s Lyceum, the Palace School of Charlemagne, the medieval universities, and the enlightened academies of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The university tradition is to provide a place where mankind preserves the best thought of its brightest and most articulate sons and daughters, weaves those thoughts together into a coherent whole, and then passes them on to younger people—those who may then take them into succeeding generations to enrich and to enlighten. Also, the university is a place where vigorous study continues to push back the darkness of ignorance; it is a place devoted to developing character among its students so that they will be prepared to protect the common good and become men and women of virtue, fit to govern themselves and others.

At the beginning of this university there was another major thread added to the traditions of university work. This charge was given by the prophets of the Restoration, who said that in addition to the learning of the centuries, this university should teach by the light of the restored gospel so students could understand the essential harmony of all truth and so they could build their faith in the principles of salvation and in the redeeming mission of Jesus Christ.

Asked wherein he differed from others in religious views, the Prophet Joseph Smith once declared, “One of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism’ is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.”²

Brigham Young said:

All truth is the offspring of heaven and is incorporated in the religion which we have embraced. . . . Every accomplishment, every polished grace, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and in all science and art belong to the Saints, and they should avail themselves as expeditiously as possible of the wealth of knowledge the sciences offer to every diligent and persevering scholar.³

As we continue to evaluate our institutional mission, we realize some of the strengths of maintaining a culture based on faith and eternal principles. For instance, the gospel thrust has always been to teach us the value of the individual soul. God made us one by one, and He provided for us a plan of salvation dependent on our own individual actions.

He has revealed to us that, as His literal children, we are actually capable of unlimited growth and development. It is our birthright.

He has assured us that truth does exist and that we can come to know it. This saves us the time of seriously sorting through every whimsical idea and leads us to a more purposeful search for knowledge. He has provided us with communication from heaven in this period of time, and He has promised us that, as we study, great hidden truths will be made known to us.

He has promised us that we can uncap gushers of energy and joy if we will live according to the laws of love. He also assures us that there are eternal values of consequence by which we should direct our behavior.

President Holland made it clear yesterday that we do not need to reinvent this university. We do need to recommit ourselves to the finest view of the traditional university and to the enlarged vision of this university given to us by President Spencer W. Kimball and President Holland.

Television journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who broadcasts on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, was one of the first black students at the University of Georgia. She recalls the early days of the civil rights struggle. Ruby Doris Smith was a member of the Atlanta student movement who died of cancer in her twenties. She was often the glue that held everyone together. Once, during sit-ins in Atlanta, a crowd began tormenting the students, who wanted to scream back, but Ruby Doris walked the line whispering, “Don’t forget why you are here.”

So we too must hear that constant whisper: “Don’t forget why you are here”—especially when our detractors falsely declare the incompatibility of arriving at truth through study and through faith.⁴

Our Faculty

The faculty of this university, I believe, is now stronger than ever before. We are all surrounded by capable, devoted women and men who believe in the work we are trying to do here and who are giving their lives to make our dream a reality.

Listening to the young man at the alumni banquet the night before summer commencement this year assured me that individually you are opening doors and turning on lights for our students in just the way the prophets have asked us to do.

We now have 1,372 full-time faculty and about 325 part-time faculty. Forty-three percent of the faculty are full professors, and more than 10 percent are in professional faculty positions. The total number of faculty will remain nearly constant. Endowed chairs and externally funded positions will allow us a very small increase in the next few years.

Our faculty and administrators carry extraordinary ecclesiastical and family responsibilities. Far more than half of you are serving or have served as Relief Society or Young Women presidents, bishops, or high councilors or in stake presidencies. Furthermore, we know you fulfill your family responsibilities with unusual love and devotion.

In recent years there has been exciting and wonderful participation in discussions on the idea of a university, on university citizenship, on teaching responsibilities, and on the necessity for greater scholarship.

Last year the candidates proposed for faculty positions by departments and colleges were stronger than before. Far more thought and care are being given to filling valuable faculty positions. Everyone hired must have the potential of significantly strengthening both the department and the university.

To guide us in our work to build the strongest faculty we can dream of, we have developed an effective procedure that helps us identify, screen, and learn about those individuals being considered for positions here.

We participate in this process in a discussion in our office with the candidate and the appropriate department chairman. In that meeting we explore the candidate’s responses to our policies, our expectations, and our unique mission. We also discuss ways the department can help new members of the faculty meet the expectations required of those who do gain continuing status.

To help in this process and to evaluate the work of all of us in the faculty, we have established the expectations for professorial faculty at the university. Both the standards and the assessment are described in our recent memorandum to you. After President Holland’s clear and thoughtful analysis of these standards yesterday, I do not need to describe them again today.

President Holland made it clear that it is no longer possible to select one or two areas of responsibility and to ignore others. It is no longer acceptable to assume that one part of our work can be measured easily while the other parts are too subjective to attempt a review. It is difficult to assess quality contributions in citizenship, teaching, and scholarship, but we must do our best and learn to do better.

Most of us on the faculty share both institutional responsibilities and faith. Although a few extraordinarily valuable ones among us are of other faiths, they are sympathetic to the university mission and share in our effort to teach integrity and moral responsibility. We welcome them here. We want to increase our contacts with honorable men and women of other faiths, both on our campus and away.

The average age of the faculty is forty-eight. Between now and the year 2000 (in just thirteen years), 43 percent of the faculty will reach sixty-five years of age. Many of us have been blessed to be here during a time when the institution has grown dramatically in both size and stature. We should all be thrilled with the opportunity to help move the university to a still higher place. We must enthusiastically assume responsibility to do all we can do and rejoice as new members of the faculty bring strong new preparation to build on what we do and what we have done.

My beloved father taught me a profound lesson a few years ago without speaking a word. I was traveling down East Temple Drive at about five thirty in the morning. It was a cold Sunday morning, and I was on my way to stake meetings that I was responsible for. As I traveled along feeling just a bit unsure why I was out at that hour after fulfilling late-evening responsibilities the night before, I looked up and saw the light on in my father’s home. I could just barely make out his form as he sat at the table preparing for his priesthood class. At the time, my father was in his seventies. He had great experience and great understanding. He didn’t need to be up studying. He could easily have taught the class with little or no effort in preparation. My father would not do that. He believed he still needed to learn and grow. I felt lifted and challenged just seeing him there. All of us must continue strengthening our contributions to the university and in developing our souls.

Some of us pursued an undergraduate program that was not strong in religious or general education. Some of us were not required to develop our abilities to write and speak and calculate as we should. Some of us are still strangers to many of the significant books and ideas that provide the great intellectual heritage that we are responsible to make available to those who follow. We have a priceless opportunity and the moral responsibility to extend our own educations and become even stronger citizens of this community.

The only way we can become the university of our highest hopes is to recognize that our expectations must change over time. We must change also and at the same time insist that those who follow are up to the challenge of meeting our highest dreams.

The university can never be stronger than its faculty, although strong students and a supportive administration can free the faculty to do its work more effectively.

Our Students

The faculty are here to serve the needs of students. The students are the individuals for whom faculty are hired, buildings are built, and programs are fashioned.

We have the best-prepared student body for our educational program that has ever existed, and the students are getting stronger every year.

One of our sons is in this year’s freshman class, and I know he is far better prepared for a university experience than I was thirty-eight years ago when I entered as a freshman. I have seen abundant evidence showing there are many like him who will be in our classes and halls in just a few days.

Our students now come mostly from urban environments in which they have been immersed in worldly attitudes. Nevertheless, they have chosen to be true to the teachings of their homes. They are good young people trying to live moral lives, and they are willing to learn. They have made decisions that separate them far more from other young people in the world than we were separated from the young people of the world when we were young.

As you know, the maximum enrollment here has been fixed at 26,000 full-time equivalent students. The fall and winter semester enrollments have been constant at that number for more than ten years. This limitation will continue.

The composition of our student body will most likely remain about as it was last fall:

• 54 percent were male and 46 percent female.
• 17 percent were first-semester freshmen.
• 7 percent were first-year transfer students, and 49 percent had attended another university or college.
• 44 percent were returned missionaries, and more than 31 percent had served in countries in which they spoke a foreign language.
• 27 percent were married, 6 percent were foreign students, and 10 percent were graduate students.

We anticipate that the percentage of freshmen will likely increase slowly as the number of well-prepared applicants increases.

Students who attend here receive a subsidy from the Church for more than two-thirds of the cost of their education. In addition, 20 percent of the undergraduate students and 16 percent of the graduate students receive some kind of scholarship. Nearly 9 percent of the undergraduate students and 25 percent of the graduate students work on campus while they are enrolled. Far more work off campus. We must significantly increase the number and amount of undergraduate and graduate scholarships in the future.

We have made good progress in helping our incoming students understand that they have the responsibility of preparing themselves to do university work before they come to the campus.

We are also anxious to help our prospective students understand what to expect of the university experience. We want them to know it is more than preparing for a job and it is much more than memorizing material for a series of objective examinations in a set number of required courses. Students with this view often act as if they are as helpless as billiard balls ricocheting between collisions called exams caused by the cue sticks of their teachers.

We must help students discover the joys of enriched perspective available through a study of the gospel and through an understanding of the great traditions of human knowledge.

We face the task of informing the youth of the Church that attendance at BYU is a privilege, not a right. Only a small fraction of the youth of the Church and a small number of friends of the Church will have this opportunity, and therefore they will need to work hard at preparation.

We require that prospective students meet demanding requirements for personal worthiness before they are admitted. They cannot enroll unless their ecclesiastical leaders state that they are living the moral and personal standards of this institution.

We expect high school students who intend to enroll here to work hard at learning the rudiments of education—how to read and write, how to figure, and how to function in the classroom and in the laboratory—while in their elementary and high school years so they can take full advantage of their opportunities here.

Students who do not keep their commitments or who fail to use the opportunity of the university appropriately are not allowed to continue. If their lack of progress continues, they are first warned, then placed on probation, and finally prohibited from continued registration. Whenever their local ecclesiastical leaders indicate they are not living in harmony with the personal standards they professed to believe in and agreed to keep, they are counseled, and, when not repentant, they are not allowed to reregister.

The gospel principle concerning personal accountability must apply here. The single most important factor in the educational success of students is their own desire to learn and their persistence in fulfilling significant requirements set by carefully selected teachers. We are determined to help students here assume personal responsibility for their education and for their lives. We must develop and maintain a practice that will provide appropriate encouragement and instruction for our students and at the same time eliminate the inappropriate tendency to assume responsibility for them.

Our Academic Programs

President Holland’s clear statement on the focus of our academic mission has led us all to considerable effort to improve our programs. He emphasized religious education, general education, major education, and graduate education. I am pleased with our progress to this point. Our programs are good, and a few are approaching excellence. It seems to me there is increasing enthusiasm for the work of building a great university and for the work of improving our academic programs. I will describe my view of our progress in these four areas.

First, I must emphasize what should be obvious to us all. Many areas of study such as language, mathematics, and history are found at all great universities. These areas of study must exist and must be pursued vigorously for the work of the university to go on.

The initiatives and hard work of discovering truth almost always include an examination of what is known. This requires achieving an ability to use the major symbol systems by which men and women communicate ideas. The two fundamental systems are language and mathematics. One needs to know how both systems work and how to use them effectively. Ideas cannot be consciously accepted or rejected if they are not understood. Therefore, every university needs strong departments in language and mathematics. All of our students and all of us must work diligently to improve our use of languages.

Other significant areas of study may not be found in all great universities. Each institution must select from a very large number of more applied fields the specific programs they want to develop. As these programs are selected, the character of the university is determined.

It is not necessary to have a law school, a medical school, or a computer-aided engineering, design, and manufacturing program to be a great university. However, to be a great university, the programs you do choose must be superb. Furthermore, these special programs must exist in the university, not at the university. A great university is not a loose collection of professional schools. A university experience is inadequate unless it includes both the broadening, humanizing, awakening contribution of strong general education and the intensive, rigorous, continued probing of a good major. At this university, religious education, general education, and major education all support and strengthen one another. For our students to significantly influence the quality of life and the world in the future, we must require vigorous work in all three components of education.

Religious Education

Understanding the truths of the gospel is the central and most significant part of our university program. It gives strength, perspective, and vision to all other studies.

We are pleased that recent board action has approved an additional change requiring students to take a program strengthened in scriptural study.

Book of Mormon seminars sponsored by the dean of Religious Education to prepare faculty members across campus to teach Book of Mormon classes have strengthened our faculty.

We frequently hear students describe the great significance they find in religious education classes that require them to write, study, and think and, at the same time, prepare them for the spiritual confirmation of the truths they are studying.

We are also pleased that the Religious Studies Center is rapidly increasing both the quality and quantity of its scholarly work and including scholars from many disciplines in their projects.

General Education

An understanding of some of the great heritage of learning that is the legacy of the scholars and the believers who have gone before us is essential. Some knowledge of mankind’s history so that we and our students can appreciate the human experiences that have been lived and be able to discern change must be acquired. Continued experience in courses designed to require students to develop skills in analysis, the study of parts, and synthesis—the drawing together of the coherent whole—must be emphasized.

The effective work of the faculty council in general education and the leadership of the dean of General Education and Honors has brought great improvement to this academic work. Each course receiving general education credit has been reviewed. Many courses have been eliminated. Others have been strengthened. After seven years of this procedure, the number of courses acceptable for general education has been reduced significantly, and all that remain are much stronger.

Our honors education program has been revised and is now made available to all who seek it. Honors experiences provide students who are determined to extend themselves an alternative demanding and rewarding experience in general education. Anyone can choose an honors program who is willing to accept the challenge.

Many of our best faculty teach honors classes.

In recent years, symposia and seminars for teachers of honors and general education classes, the appointment of a dean of General Education and Honors, additional resources, and the remodeling of the Maeser Building to be the home of General Education and Honors have all served to strengthen the quality of this fundamental academic program.

At a time when many universities have succumbed to almost total specialization and at the same time see no way to again include the study of virtue and ethics in a fundamental way, we are making good progress in the development of a strong, liberating education in a religious context.

Major Education

I will now outline briefly what I believe a major education must consist of and assess our progress. In an intellectual discipline or acceptable major, there is the need for the student to grow from naivete toward maturity. This growth must be in the methods of study and reasoning used in the discipline, in familiarity with the foundations of the discipline, in comprehension of the major theories and their implications, or in clear awareness of the differing directions being taken by the best scholars in the discipline. Faculty members must agree that if something is important enough, the student should come to understand it.

The approach to the subject in a major must be both hierarchical and coherent. That is, there must be not only an agreed-upon order in which to study the material but there must be also in the set of courses we choose to offer a center of meaning—a center of principles or ideas or abilities that allows the student to see the relationship of the part one is studying to the whole of the discipline. The courses must be organized in such a way that it matters whether one is studying as a sophomore, as a junior, or as a senior. In this way the major education provides the possibility of the continuing intensity of logical and analytical demands that can lead to the literacy of the educated person.

Faculty responsible for a strong major will see to it that the students are required to write and, when appropriate, figure or calculate. Significant assignments of papers will be made and carefully graded both for content and language. Examinations must be designed both to teach and to evaluate. They should require writing to be done in a way that displays the student’s ability to reason, analyze, synthesize, and express conclusions in a clear and orderly manner.

Many fine major programs are quite specialized. Nevertheless, a good major program of this kind will be solidly based in the more fundamental disciplines that lead to it. Students in applied programs will take the fundamental subjects from the basic departments, thereby receiving the best preparation for a contributing, productive life in the world of work they must enter.

The quality of an academic major is far more important than the number of students enrolled in it. I believe we are making considerable progress in the development of majors, but there are still challenges to overcome. We still have too many major programs and too many specialties.

Occasionally the curriculum in a major appears to be little more than an array of courses representing the special interests of all the faculty who have ever served in the department. Too often students are allowed to select courses of interest from this array in such a way that if any integration is done, they do it for themselves. Sometimes specialization occurs too soon. Without a more fundamental base for the discipline, a student is ill prepared for the certain changes that will occur in the years ahead. There are still so many of us who evaluate with superficial machine-graded examinations that sometimes measure the information acquired by a student but inappropriately emphasize memorization instead of understanding.

Graduate Studies

I am heartened by the improvement in the graduate work being done here. There is a growing concern and understanding about what graduate education should be. Graduate faculty members in many departments across campus have been encouraged to higher levels of scholarly productivity.

We have integrated the research and graduate studies work in a single office. We have given and will continue to give high priority to the development of our library.

Research support funding has also increased, although neither this nor graduate assistance is yet adequate. Almost all faculty hiring decisions are influenced by evidence of scholarly activity and potential as well as by preparation, teaching ability, and the promise of citizenship.

A strong dean and the Faculty Graduate Council have begun to have a major impact on the quality of graduate education at BYU, and they will continue to do so. They have issued to faculty members a statement of philosophy for graduate education that sets the standard against which all the university’s nonprofessional graduate programs will be measured. The council’s reviews of graduate programs in the colleges have had significant influence on the number and the quality of our programs. The dean and the council have encouraged us to consolidate our efforts and focus our resources on the improvement of a few worthy programs. The quality of writing and analysis in graduate theses and dissertations is improving and must continue to improve in the future.

We will increase our efforts to first strengthen and reduce and then slowly and selectively expand the graduate programs of this university.

The Administration of the University

I will now characterize the way the university is administered as I see it. I believe it is useful for you to know—even more than you do—about the way the university is organized and operating. We are trying very hard to keep the mission of the university clearly before us and to facilitate the work of the faculty as you lead our students through the strong educational programs being developed.

The Board of Trustees

The university is organized under and given authority and responsibility by the board of trustees. The board is made up of the First Presidency of the Church, several members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a member of the Presiding Bishopric, and the presidents of the Relief Society and the Young Women organizations of the Church. An executive committee selected from the board gives extraordinary leadership to the work of the university.

I have observed the following:

The board expects us to become a great and unique university. Members of the board believe wholeheartedly in the mission and destiny of this institution.

President Kimball, then chairman of the board, stated in his inaugural charge to President Holland that we must become a great university. He challenged us with the metaphor of Mount Everest—long considered the ultimate summit, the highest mountain—and said that “the ultimate future of BYU is partially hidden.”⁵

Since then we have been climbing together, and we stand now on higher ground. Of course some of the peaks are still obscure, but we can see more now of both the mountain ahead and the valley below. I find that the view is already magnificent.

President Kimball outlined several

ways in which BYU can tower above other universities—not simply because of the size of its student body or its beautiful campus spread out below magnificent mountains but by the unique light BYU can send forth into the educational world. . . . You will do many things in the programs of this university that are done elsewhere, but you must do them better. At the same time, we expect you to do some special things here at BYU that are left undone by other institutions.⁶

President Kimball emphasized that we must weave together the

knowledge that history has amassed over the centuries along with . . . the vital and revealed truths that have been given to us from heaven.

This university shares with other universities the hope and the labor involved in rolling back the frontiers of knowledge, but we also know that through divine revelation there are yet “many great and important things” to be given to mankind that will have an intellectual and spiritual impact far beyond what mere men can imagine. . . . There must be an excitement and an expectation about the very nature and future of knowledge that underlies the uniqueness of BYU.

. . . BYU must be a bastion against the invading ideologies that seek control of curriculum as well as classroom. We do not resist such ideas because we fear them but because they are false.⁷

President Kimball said we must be extremely effective in sorting out that which is true from that which is not. He also assured us

that from this university there will rise brilliant stars in drama, literature, music, art, science, and all the scholarly graces. This university can be the refining host for many such individuals who in the future, long after they have left this campus, can lift and inspire others around the globe.⁸

President Kimball stressed the significance of selecting our faculty wisely. He also reminded us “that as the Church grows globally . . . , a smaller and smaller percentage of our [young people or of qualified faculty] will [be able to] attend [or work at] BYU.”⁹ It will be a greater and greater privilege to be here. President Kimball concluded his remarks by saying:

We expect—we do not merely hope—that Brigham Young University will “become a leader among the great universities of the world.” To that expectation I would add, “Remain a unique university in all the world!”¹⁰

The board delegates to President Holland and through him to all of us great freedom and responsibility to build the university consistent with its unique mission. I know of no other university with as much freedom and encouragement as we have to make important decisions within the framework of an agreed-upon mission. This freedom is greatly amplified because of the inspired leadership of President Holland. He has earned the universal respect and confidence of the board.

There are very few areas in which our unique mission leads our board and us to very strong positions. Not all views on these matters are equally valid. For example, we do not accept the view that integrity, hard work, chastity, and love are optional values. We do not accept the view that women and men are limited in their capacity to learn and progress. We do not accept the view that family relationships and responsibilities are merely cultural oddities. We do not accept the view that the Creation occurred devoid of divine influence. We do hold to the truth that through the Prophet Joseph Smith the gospel has been restored and a church established that is led by prophets who receive divine instruction. Because of our strong conviction concerning a few profound matters such as these, there is a tendency for some to be ignorant of or to ignore the greater freedom and responsibility we have here to find harmony in all that is true and to search diligently to learn the mysteries of heaven and earth.

The board has provided us with a generous and stable financial base to make it possible to build a great university. We must now acquire a large university endowment to make it possible to continue our efforts to strengthen the university.

The board rightfully retains the authority to guarantee that the university pursues its stated mission of achieving greatness based on both superb scholarship and unwavering faith. This mission will never change.

Furthermore, the stability, experience, ability, and inspiration that come to us through our board of trustees give us great advantage in being able to work toward significant long-range goals. It would be impossible for us to make the progress we are making under any other arrangement I have observed or can imagine.

University Administrators

I will now cite a few of the basic philosophical positions and policies that I believe characterize the administration of President Holland.

The entire administrative approach here is based on trust, respect, and love for faculty, students, and all who support the work of the university. This philosophy leads to relatively few rules and policies. It also leads to occasional disappointments when someone violates the trust given. We are grateful that almost all are worthy of this mutual trust.

It is essential in this administration to decentralize some important parts of leadership authority and responsibility. We must have strong deans and department chairmen who are able to make decisions that will lead them to greater success in agreed-upon missions. It has not been easy for all chairmen to respond to this greater responsibility and freedom that has been given to them. Our recent memorandum to you on this subject was intended to make clear our view of the crucial role of the chairman.

We have worked carefully with deans, faculty councils, and the board of trustees to establish clear expectations for all of us. President Holland’s mission statement, addresses in university conferences, memoranda to the faculty, and memoranda to the colleges synthesize the expectations we have arrived at after years of discussion.

The work of continuing review goes on in our offices, in the offices of deans, and in the offices of chairmen to evaluate the work of colleges, departments, and faculty members against these expectations. This systematic review and evaluation leads to the distribution of resources throughout the university. We are trying very hard to see that there is a significant relationship between evaluations made and the distribution of resources.

Academic leaders are members of the faculty. They are given temporary responsibility to sacrifice for the good of the university by giving significant leadership. After giving this service, academic leaders move laterally to their faculty positions, and others are assigned to build on the good work already done. We give primary consideration to the views of the faculty when academic leaders are selected.

We view all academic leaders, including department chairmen, as part of the university administration. In fact, all of us who are true citizens in the university share in the responsibility of pursuing our mission.

Faculty councils are now asked to provide a critical role in the evaluation of departments, programs, and faculty progress. Members of the councils must understand the university and accept the responsibility of exerting leadership in the institution. They must reach well beyond provincial or territorial interests. These councils are providing a great influence for good in the development of the university. Strong members of the faculty are giving exceptional, selfless work through these temporary assignments on faculty councils. Although the work of councils does not abrogate the responsibility of chairmen, deans, or those in my office, it does allow us to have strong, able faculty members carry out the thoughtful work we would never have time to do.

We attempt the difficult style of administration often referred to as participative leadership. Vigorous discussion is essential before policies and procedures are established. We have often taken several years to develop a policy in order to gain the advantage of thoughtful consideration in the Deans’ Council, the Faculty Advisory Council, and other faculty councils and in discussion with individuals who are able to help clarify issues.

We have worked to establish a simple, lean administrative structure in the university. Dozens of positions have been reassigned to the colleges. Many of the administrative offices on this campus function with just a fraction of the personnel assigned to similar offices at other universities.

Colleges and Departments

The administrative approach I have outlined seems to me to put great authority in the colleges and departments. Furthermore, it gives great opportunity for faculty to make significant personal contributions in their departments and through the faculty councils. Faculty members do have a great opportunity and responsibility to help shape the work of the university. We see the work of the dean, department chairmen, and faculty in each college leading them to accomplish the work of the university. They will establish their mission and work together to develop the kind of citizenship, teaching, and scholarship that President Holland has described.

We are summarizing these departmental and college responsibilities in a memorandum that we will send to you soon.

Academic Support

In recent years there has been an incredibly important development at the university that I think is almost invisible to you. I believe there has been a greatly increased understanding of the significant role Support Services provides for the academic mission of the university. It is important for you to know that significant resources, including positions, have been voluntarily transferred to our office by those who give their lives providing support for our work. By working harder and more efficiently and by eliminating less important activities, these good people have contributed immeasurably to the development of our programs. Moreover, they have worked with us to establish a single list of construction and remodeling programs that we assign priority to. Therefore, there is complete harmony between the priority given to academic programs and to remodeling and other construction programs.

I know you share my gratitude for the hundreds of devoted staff and administrative people who also love the university and who are making even greater efforts than before to provide the direct service and support we need to carry out our mission.

My dear friends, I am incapable of describing the gratitude I feel for you for what you are doing; for President Holland for his inspired leadership; for my closest colleagues for their devoted, brilliant work; and for the profound influence of the strongest group of deans I can imagine. I am troubled as I listen to leaders of other institutions and read about the conditions on many of the campuses in our land. I hear many express the view that there is no hope to strengthen general education programs on their campuses.

Last year I heard a historian from the University of California, Berkeley, address the subject of undergraduate education in the United States. He concluded that we were already doing about as well as can be done. He acknowledged that he could think of ways to improve the curriculum, but he could see no way to persuade others that his view was better than theirs. Therefore, he concluded that we should not concern ourselves about this matter. Everyone in the audience seemed to agree.

Ernest L. Boyer wrote recently:

At most colleges in our study, we found the baccalaureate degree [in universities and colleges in this land] sharply divided between general and specialized education. Students overwhelmingly have come to view general education as an irritating interruption—an annoying detour on their way to their degree.¹¹

Many agree and state openly that they see no reversal in this condition.

In the conference President Holland hosted here last year on moral values and education, our guests—who are moral people themselves and who are deeply concerned about the moral conditions on our campuses—still could find little hope that enough agreement could be reached on any campus to do much to encourage institutional responsibility in the moral development of students.

On the other hand, here I find an abundance of goodwill and cooperation. There is a general agreement that there are some matters of far greater consequence than others and that we have the capacity to come closer and closer to an understanding of the eternal principles that govern the heavens and all of us. I believe you generally agree that we must have both strong education for eternity and strong majors. I have no doubt the generation that follows us will be standing on far higher ground because of the decisions and the progress we make. The still higher peaks will be visible then, but we will already have accomplished the significant part of the climb given us. We will be approaching greatness. More and more of our students and faculty will be scaling the higher peaks and providing light to all the world.

As the students come to understand more clearly that truth does not conflict, they come to appreciate the constant refinement of scientific knowledge and begin to appreciate the blessing of eternal commandments given so purely and so clearly through modern prophets. Becoming learned in this way—recognizing the hazard that comes without the perspective of faith and the vision of learning precept upon precept—makes this university’s work satisfying and unique.

I believe it is a task worth giving our lives for. Those who changed this institution from a high school to a college and then from a college to the beginnings of a university have given us our opportunity. What a wonderful thing it is to have this challenge at this particular time. As we achieve the greatness that is our destiny, I am confident we will find that our mountain does not look like any others in the range. It will not be a technical college, although much good work is done there. It will not be a Harvard or a Stanford, although they do much that we admire and should emulate. As President Kimball and President Holland have said so often, it will be a unique institution in all the world.¹²

There are many things that a university is about. I have tried to outline today some important ideas. But underlying everything is the fundamental truth that the teacher’s work is to help each person to continue a lifelong involvement with education. This metamorphosis comes to people only one by one. After discovery of the joy of learning, then comes the awakening of wisdom.

I’d like to tell you a story as I conclude. The story is about a student and a teacher in the Boston Latin School. The experience happened to a man named Maurice Breslow, who later became a teacher. It is the sort of story that has happened to each of us, I am sure. I shall quote much of the story in the first-person style in which it is written. It first appeared in the Whig-Standard Magazine and in a very real way describes what education is about on any campus and in any classroom. It is about what our classroom in mortality is. It is also about gaining wisdom and learning to love one another. It is about a teacher and a boy—both of whom grew. It is about the personal interactions we are all trying to make happen. It is, I believe, about the theme of this conference.

The Stolen Exam

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the day I had reached the most exciting part of A Tale of Two Cities; it was the day Mr. McKim, the headmaster, had called an assembly to greet us new ninth-grade students to Boston Latin School. The temptation was too great. Who would see me if I sneaked a few pages of Dickens during the Bible reading?

“Hear, ye children,” Mr. McKim began, quoting Proverbs.

I slipped the novel from my pile of books under the seat.

“. . . keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding . . .”

Slowly I opened the book to the page I’d been reading. I bowed my head reverently and immersed myself in “The prisoner sprang up, with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his nostrils . . .”

My heart pounding, I read on.

So did Mr. McKim.

I turned the page and came up for air. Glaring at me was the sternest-faced teacher I had ever seen. He beckoned me to come with him.

My first week at Boston Latin. Was it to be my last? The school was known for wasting no time in ridding itself of disciplinary problems.

. . . Heavy-hearted, I followed the teacher to the office.

When Mr. McKim arrived, he stared at me. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Breslow, sir.”

“Breslow,” he repeated slowly, as if to fix name and face in his mind. “Didn’t take you long to show you’re not Latin School material. Let’s see what you found more interesting than your first assembly.”

I handed him the book.

“So, school is only three days old, and you’re already behind in English.”

“No, sir, that’s Oliver Twist.”

“What is?”

“In English. We started it yesterday.”

“You’ve been reading this on your own?” There was a trace of surprise in his voice.

“Yes, sir. I can’t stop, sir. I love it.”

He looked at me a long moment, then handed back the book. “We wouldn’t want to lose you, Breslow. But you’d better shape up, or lose you we will. Dismissed.”

It took me a while to realize that he was letting me off. I had emerged safely from my first encounter with Headmaster McKim.

It was not my last. Dr. Gruening (not his real name)—first-year German, Grade 10—saw to that. Dr. Gruening had come to America from Germany, the story went, just before World War II. . . .

. . . “We’ve got Gruening’s exam,” one of my classmates whispered to me. “We snuck a copy. . . . Make sure you get enough wrong, or he’ll suspect.”

The next day the questions and answers were discreetly given out. At home, I put my copy into a desk drawer. But I continued studying my German.

The night before the test I completed my studying, then opened the desk drawer and took out the exam. I sat and sat, without looking at it. At least ten minutes went by.

Do you really need this? I asked myself. You know your German. And at that moment, I realized with relief that I was unable to participate in an unfair fight against Dr. Gruening. . . . I dropped the stolen test into the wastebasket.

The results were predictable. I did fairly well, while the rest of the class, except for those not in on the scheme, soared.

Dr. Gruening asked me to stay after class. “I am disappointed,” he said. “It seems it vas an easy examination. You should have done better. Did you not study?”

“I studied—hard! And it was not an easy examination,” I exclaimed, irrationally exasperated at his blindness.

“Vy, then, did so many do so vell? Not you, who should have done even better. Vy is that?”

What was he asking me? . . .

. . . He pondered for a long moment, never taking his sad eyes from me. “No,” he said at last. “It vas not an easy examination. You studied hard, I know. You did on it vot you should have done. I understand.”

My heart pounded as I started to gather his meaning. There was a long silence. “Now you may go to next period. Guten Appetit.”

The next day Dr. Gruening made a startling announcement to the class. “Ve have one veek left. In two days, another examination. Study hard. It vill count for forty percent of your mark.”

There were gasps of disbelief as Dr. Gruening calmly looked around the class as if inviting further discussion. But there was only silence.

Once again, the results were predictable. I did about the same. Most of the class did considerably worse. Dr. Gruening handed back the marked exams without comment. The matter was closed. . . .

I sensed that declining to use the stolen exam had been the most important thing I’d ever done. Something in me had changed, or was changing. I didn’t quite know what or why. . . .

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom . . .”

Yes, something in me had gone. I had refused the stolen exam. . . .

I looked again at Dr. Gruening. . . .

“. . . and with all thy getting get understanding.”

It was the best of times.¹³

For me, here, these are the best of times. I hope I have communicated to you some of the guiding principles that direct the decisions of the academic vice president’s office, and I hope I have sketched for you the major elements of our university. The synergistic energy of many productive individuals will, I am sure, propel us forward. And because of you, I am confident there will yet be better times at BYU.

I feel I must add a postscript.

I confess I do tire of some of the things that need to be done as we pursue the work of the university. Occasionally I get frustrated when things that seem both important and obvious are not understood. I really tire of those who vigorously and often ignorantly attack the university and the faculty.

However, I never tire of the idea of this university. When I first heard the dream of the university described by my father and mother when I was a very young boy, I was excited by it—they gave their lives to it—and it has mattered.

The dream of this place is far more vivid now. I love it still, and I never tire of trying to make it a reality. As my wife and I and you give our lives to it, I believe it matters more than ever.

I sincerely pray that all of us and all of our students will be driven by that dream and find abundant joy in our work toward a great cause, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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