College students sit on the grass close to the BYU Centennial Carillon bell tower on BYU campus on April 4, 2006. Stuart Johnson, Deseret Information
The Brigham Younger College campus in Provo is pictured on Oct. 12, 2020. Yukai Peng, Deseret Information
This text was first printed within the ChurchBeat e-newsletter. Signal as much as obtain the e-newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday evening.
Shane Reese would be the youngest Brigham Younger College president in additional than 30 years when he takes workplace on Could 1.
In reality, he’ll be the youngest since Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who launched Reese, 52, on Tuesday at a campus devotional within the Marriott Heart. Elder Holland was 39 when he took workplace as BYU’s president in 1980.
Previous presidents and principals of Brigham Younger Academy/College
Warren N. Dusenberry, Jan. 1876 – April 1876
That is one place the place the College of Utah and BYU merge in historical past. Along with his brother, Dusenberry based the Timpanogos Department of the College of Deseret, which later turned the College of Utah.
The Dusenberrys offered the financially ailing department in 1875 to Brigham Younger, who made Dusenberry, then 39 years outdated, the primary principal of the brand new Brigham Younger Academy that may change into BYU. There have been 70 college students.
Karl G. Maeser, Aug. 1876 – Jan. 1892
Maeser, a German, taught Brigham Younger’s kids after he arrived in Salt Lake Metropolis. He additionally served because the Salt Lake Tabernacle organist.
Maeser was 48 when he took over BYA. The varsity suffered severe monetary points throughout a lot of his tenure, which included the Panic of 1891.
At one level, he advised his household he would settle for a place on the College of Deseret. They packed their issues. Then he advised them he had modified his thoughts due to a dream that turned well-known in BYU lore.
“I've seen Temple Hill stuffed with buildings — nice temples of studying, and I've determined to stay and do my half in contributing to the achievement of that dream.”
Benjamin Cluff, Jan. 1892 – Dec. 1903
Cluff was Maeser’s assistant when he turned the college’s youngest chief at age 34. He inherited a monetary disaster in the midst of a despair. In the future, whereas strolling again to the college from downtown Provo, he mentioned the thought hit him like inspiration: “Give the college to the church.”
The board of trustees took over sponsorship of the college in 1896.
Cluff was in his remaining months as principal when he turned president: In October 1903, with 64 college students, the college formally turned a college. A member of the First Presidency confided in his journal, “I hope their head will develop sufficiently big (to fill their) hat.”
Cluff moved his household to Mexico and managed a rubber plantation.
George H. Brimhall, April 1904 – July 1921
BYU expanded to greater than 660 college students throughout Brimhall’s tenure, which he started at age 51.
Brimhall sported a bushy, walrus mustache and affable persona. He enhanced the credentials of the BYU school, hiring the college’s first three professors with doctoral levels and plenty of with grasp’s levels.
Franklin S. Harris, July 1921 – June 1945
At 37, Harris was the primary BYU chief with a Ph.D. of his personal, in agriculture. Each subsequent president has held both a Ph.D., a juris doctorate or a health care provider of medication.
Harris pushed lecturers to extra mental curiosity, saying, “...to begin with we wish to set up preeminent scholarship.”
One professor mentioned that Harris “turned the college right into a college.”
Harris was additionally BYU’s first non-polygamous president.
Howard S. McDonald, July 1945 – Oct. 1949
McDonald, 51, had a Ph.D. in training and was a World Warfare I veteran. The board chosen him to deliver a stronger non secular emphasis to BYU but in addition requested him early on to organize to shut the college.
McDonald satisfied the board the church wanted BYU. Close to the tip of his tenure, the board set the college’s future course by approving a grasp’s diploma program, in theology, and inspiring college students to check elsewhere for his or her doctorates.
The scholar physique doubled after World Warfare II to greater than 4,000 college students.
Ernest L. Wilkinson, February 1951 – July 1971
After McDonald resigned, Wilkinson, 51, was given the job. He was an legal professional who had received a $32 million settlement from the federal authorities on behalf of the Ute tribes.
Wilkinson led an brisk constructing increase and, as enrollment quintupled to greater than 25,000, mentioned 80 main buildings have been full and there was sufficient demand from potential college students for extra.
Dallin H. Oaks, Aug. 1971 – Aug. 1980
President Oaks, 38, was an legal professional who had been a regulation clerk to U.S. Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice Earl Warren and was a professor on the College of Chicago Legislation Faculty.
President Oaks formed a lot of what BYU is right now, introducing a three-semester plan with full fall and winter semesters and break up spring and summer time time period. He additionally oversaw the beginning of the J. Reuben Clark Legislation Faculty, the launch of the Marriott Faculty of Enterprise and the hiring of LaVell Edwards as soccer coach.
Oaks was appointed to the Utah Supreme Courtroom three months after stepping down as BYU’s president. The varsity then had greater than 27,000 college students.
Right now, President Oaks is first counselor within the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jeffrey R. Holland, Sept. 1980 – April 1989
Elder Holland, a 39-year-old with a doctorate in American Research, changed President Oaks. Right now, he's a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Considered one of his crowning achievements on the faculty, along with the soccer staff profitable the 1984 nationwide championship, was the founding of the BYU Jerusalem Heart in 1988.
On the finish of his presidency, BYU had 30,348 college students.
Rex E. Lee, July 1989 – Dec. 1995
Lee was 54 and an achieved legal professional when he took over for Elder Holland. He had been a latest Solicitor Normal of america who in his lifetime argued 59 circumstances earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, 9 whereas BYU’s president.
He streamlined BYU commencement necessities to assist college students graduate sooner and make room for different college students. Lee added the requirement of standard church attendance for enrollment.
Lee oversaw the “Lighting the Method Capital Marketing campaign” with a aim to lift $250 million for BYU and BYU-Hawaii. The marketing campaign earned over $400 million when it ended within the subsequent administration.
Lee resigned as a consequence of well being issues and died two months later.
Merrill J. Bateman, Jan. 1996 – April 2003
Elder Bateman, 59, was the Presiding Bishop of the church when he turned the primary serving normal authority of the church to steer the college.
He had earned a doctorate in economics from MIT and had been an government with Mars, Inc., and dean of the BYU enterprise faculty.
Elder Bateman mentioned on the finish of his presidency that he was most proud and enthusiastic about BYU’s mentored-learning program. The brand new emphasis offered many BYU juniors and seniors with the type of professor-student analysis partnerships normally reserved for graduate faculty.
Cecil O. Samuelson, Jr., Could 2003 – April 2014
Elder Samuelson, additionally a normal authority, was 61 when the medical physician skilled on the College of Utah turned BYU’s chief.
“We’d such as you to placed on a blue coat,” President Gordon B. Hinckley advised him.
BYU college students started to yell, “Whoosh, Cecil,” after each made free throw by BYU basketball gamers. The custom continued with “Whoosh, Kevin,” for his successor, Kevin Worthen.
Samuelson steered BYU by way of an odd second. Enrollment truly fell for as soon as, by about 3,000 college students, when the church unexpectedly lowered the age necessities for missionaries.
Kevin J Worthen, Could 2014 – April 2023
Worthen was 58 and one in all Samuelson’s vice presidents when he was chosen to exchange him.
He was an achieved authorized scholar who had clerked for U.S. Supreme Courtroom Justice Byron White and been a Fulbright Scholar. He was so shiny that the scholars in his class at BYU’s regulation faculty nicknamed him Zeus, the neatest and strongest of all of them. He completed first in his class.
Worthen constructed on Elder Bateman’s mentored studying program, which now known as experiential studying or, in Worthen’s time period, “inspiring studying.”
(Sources: Deseret Information, “Brigham Younger College: The First One Hundred Years,” “A Home of Religion,” BYU.edu.)
The Brigham Younger College campus in Provo is pictured on Oct. 12, 2020.
Yukai Peng, Deseret Information
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