February 2025 marked the fifth anniversary of the announcement that LDS Business College would become Ensign College. The name change to the 139-year-old educational institution came with expanded educational offerings and symbolic and historical significance. The name change helped reaffirm the full name of the institution’s ownership, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the scriptural use of the word “ensign,” meaning a new covenant, a symbol of peace and a standard to the nations.
Of the change, Ensign College President Bruce C. Kusch said, “As we embrace a new name, I invite each of us to think more carefully about that light and being a standard of righteousness.”
On this episode of the Church News podcast, President Kusch and his wife, Sister Alynda Kusch, talk about their journey of faith, the academic changes the school is making and the power of aligning one’s life to the Lord’s mission and timing.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
President Bruce C. Kusch: I have learned the vital importance of being in alignment with prophets, seers and revelators. And when we are in alignment with them, we are in alignment with the Lord. I have come to know the importance of the Lord’s timing and that He does things in His time and in His way, and it’s our blessing and privilege to be instruments in His hands with Him. And just recently, I have felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for what continues to happen throughout the Church Educational System and being in alignment with our mission, which is being in alignment with heaven.
1:03
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
February 2025 marked the fifth anniversary of the announcement that LDS Business College was becoming Ensign College. The name change to the now-139-year-old educational institution came along with an expanded educational offering as well as symbolic and historic significance.
The name change helped reaffirm the full name of the institution’s ownership, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the scriptural use of the word “ensign,” meaning a new covenant, a symbol of peace and a standard to the nations. Of the change, Ensign College President Bruce C. Kusch said at the time, “As we embrace a new name, I invite each of us to think more carefully about that light and being a standard of righteousness.”
On this episode of the Church News podcast, we are joined by President Kusch and his wife, Sister Alynda Kusch, to discuss the ever-expanding mission of the school of “Developing capable and trusted disciples of Jesus Christ.”
Welcome, President and Sister Kusch.
President Bruce C. Kusch: Thank you very much.
Sister Alynda Kusch: Thank you.
2:15
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, I want to start with the two of you. You have a fascinating story as I looked back at where you’ve come from and how the two of you have arrived here. So I would like to give you a chance to kind of introduce yourself to our listeners with a little bit of your own history as individuals and as a couple.
2:32
President Bruce C. Kusch: So, we have been here almost nine years. We came down from Rexburg, Idaho, but Sister Kusch and I are Southern California natives. We met singing in an institute of religion singing group. And after we got married, we stayed in Southern California for five years and then moved up to the San Francisco Bay area, where we raised our family. It’s been an amazing journey. We’ve had more opportunities than we could have ever, ever imagined. In fact, I think maybe now would even be the best time for Alynda to talk about what you’ve said many times about allowing the Lord to guide us and take us where He’d like us to be.
3:11
Sister Alynda Kusch: Well, our time in San Jose was wonderful. We did not live close to family, and so our ward members were our family. We had a great life. It was a wonderful place to raise our children, and we had excellent and wonderful experiences. When we had the opportunity to go to Rexburg, there were some friends of ours that thought we were crazy to leave the beautiful weather and the beautiful area of San Jose and go to the frigid north.
But it had really been confirmed to us by the Lord that it was the right thing for us to do. And so, with courage, we packed up our things and sold our home and went. I have often thought about that, and I have thought if my life had been left up to me, I would have stayed in San Jose, because I loved it there, and I had great friends, and it was a great place to be. And if I had done that, I would have missed out on all of the opportunities and blessings that we received in Rexburg and then on our mission, and now here with our wonderful students.
So, I have learned that if we let God prevail in our life and if we follow where He is leading us, He will give us much more than we could have ever planned for ourselves. I would have settled for much less than what He said, “Here, have this.”
4:34
President Bruce C. Kusch: We had some very profound spiritual experiences that led us from California to Rexburg and then led us from Rexburg to Salt Lake City. And they were experiences that we looked back and realized that the Lord was educating our desires and preparing us for things that we could have never imagined.
4:56
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah, there are a lot of songs about California, including, literally, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” Not a whole lot of songs asking, “Do you know the way up to Rexburg?” So, following that inspirational path is evident in the life that you’ve led. And I think, though, part of that time that you had in San Jose, you’re raising your family; President Kusch, your professional career is there in Silicon Valley.
I’d love to hear maybe some of that decision-making process of what went into the decision to go to Rexburg.
5:26
President Bruce C. Kusch: You know, before we went to Rexburg, for the years before, I had felt a little bit of being unsettled as far as my career was concerned. And I was having desires more to be involved in consulting and maybe teaching. And it took me a while to figure out just exactly how that was going to evolve, I guess.
And we had a daughter. Our youngest daughter went to Ricks College, and we went to her graduation in April of 1998, sitting in the Hart Auditorium at commencement. I think the commencement speaker was President Ballard. But sitting in that auditorium, I had a profound feeling and impression that the Lord wanted me to come and prepare myself to teach at then Ricks College. And that’s where I intended to finish my working life.
And I knew then — and I shared that with Alynda — I knew then what it was that I needed to do. And at the time, I didn’t have a master’s degree, so I found an evening MBA program. And people would ask me why I was doing that at a relatively advanced stage in my career, and I would say, “Well, there’s this little school in southeastern Idaho where I want to go teach, and if I’m going to do that, I’m going to have to have a master’s degree.”
And so, we forged ahead. And in my mind, I had a time frame, which was about 2005. I thought, that, probably, would be a good year to go. Well, I’m just about done with my MBA program in December of 2001, reading the Church News, by the way. The Church News publication used to publish all the faculty openings in all the Church schools, and I noticed now BYU–Idaho is hiring 30 or so new faculty members, a couple in the Business Management Department. and I looked at the job description, and it was very close to my background now.
And I had a very similar impression: “Hey, Bruce, this is your window of opportunity, and it’s opening. If you’d like to walk through it, that’s up to you. If you don’t, someone else will have the blessing of going to BYU–Idaho, and you will never again have another opportunity. So you’d better do this.”
So, I took the paper into the kitchen, where Alynda was fixing dinner, and I said, “So, what do you think?” And she said, “Well, one thing you know for sure is that if you don’t apply, they’re not going to come knocking on your door.” And so, I got everything together, I applied, and a few months later, we were on our way to Rexburg, Idaho. Once I got there, I did realize that if we had not done this when we did it, there would not have been another opportunity for me.
8:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: I was thinking of asking, “Did you know that that was going to be like the beginning of getting on a roller coaster?” But I don’t want to assume that the ride has been a roller coaster.
But did you realize, or did you have a feeling that that was getting on a track that was going to move you quickly in some other directions?
8:22
Sister Alynda Kusch: No. No, really. I think it’s a really good thing that we do not know what our future holds, because then the Lord can unfold it for us, and it is amazing as you go along. We could have never imagined being mission leaders. We could never have imagined that we would be doing this now.
Our parents were not college graduates. We are, by the world’s standards, completely unknown people, and we are the first in our families to graduate from college. So, if you’re making a list of, “Hey, these are the really good things that we need in a college president,” we had none of that. But the Lord knew who we were, and He provided these experiences to help us prepare. We could have never planned this ever. Hey, isn’t that great?
Jon Ryan Jensen: And here we go.
9:13
President Bruce C. Kusch: In one of my final interviews, when I was interviewing at BYU–Idaho, the dean of the College of Business — who became a great friend and a mentor, his name is Fenton Broadhead — asked me what my long-term plans were. And I said, “My long-term plans are to come here and be a teacher until the day that I retire. And then after that, my wife and I will go on missions. And beyond that, I have no long-term plans.” And that was true. That was absolutely true. And that’s what we went to Rexburg to do.
9:46
Jon Ryan Jensen: Your educational journey personally, though, didn’t end with that MBA or that move up to BYU–Idaho. You went on to get a PhD as well.
Yes, I did. My Ph.D. is in instructional design from Idaho State, and my undergraduate degree is in business, so I have an MBA. And I thought, “I want something different that would complement the things that I had done professionally before.” And I had designed already at BYU–Idaho probably half a dozen, at least half a dozen, new courses, because I got there in the second year of the transition, and there were still a lot of things to do.
And so, I really loved the idea of designing courses and designing instruction, and so the instructional design program just checked off all the boxes of things that I was looking for. And it’s turned out to be very helpful, because it’s informed my work. Before I finished the Ph.D., I was asked to take a role in academic administration responsible for curriculum at BYU–Idaho. It informed our work in the mission, and it certainly informed our work at Ensign College.
10:47
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love hearing you say all the ways that that influenced you, because — I don’t want to jump ahead to this yet, but — I do love some of what you have been talking about recently in your current role with subject matter immersion. And so, watching how that path developed, I can kind of see some of those steps that have led you to where you are now. But we’ll come back to that in a second.
So, you stay at BYU–Idaho. You’re there for a few years. You get the Ph.D. Before you came to Ensign College, you do get a mission call. So that part of your plan does, in a way, get fulfilled.
Sister Alynda Kusch: Well, so an interesting thing, he had been serving as a stake president of a campus stake during the time that he was working on his Ph.D. So he had been recently released, he had finished his dissertation, had defended it and had been awarded the degree. And in my little finite mind, I thought, “OK, now life is going to be calm, and he’s not going to be so busy, and we’re going to be able to do some other activities.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Ready for the comfy chair in the living room.
Sister Alynda Kusch: Yes. And two weeks later is when we got the initial call from Elder Bednar’s office that he wanted to meet with us. And it was a different kind of interview, because there are things that they need to know about your finances and your family in preparation for our call to be mission leaders.
12:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, did you know, because Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve had been at BYU–Idaho previously, did you anticipate when the call first came that maybe it pertained to the university? Or did you know pretty quickly it was mission related?
President Bruce C. Kusch: I think we had a pretty good idea that it was mission related.
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, they do the preinterview and talk with you. You go through that calling process. You receive a call to serve in the México Cuernavaca Mission. Had — I actually don’t know this — had either of the two of you served in Mexico previous to that?
President Bruce C. Kusch: No. I, as a young missionary, I served in Guatemala and El Salvador. I had been traveling a little bit to Mexico but had nothing to do, obviously, with mission service. It was BYU–Idaho-related things, but we particularly had no connection to Cuernavaca whatsoever.
12:48
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, you’re called to serve in Cuernavaca, different from all the educational and professional backgrounds that you have. What did you see and learn there? You’re going from a stake president over a number of students, but now you have this direct responsibility over hundreds of missionaries in Mexico. Talk about what you saw, blessings from the Lord, miracles from the Lord, during that time.
Sister Alynda Kusch: There were some very interesting experiences that we had that prepared us to do what we are doing now. We got to Mexico in July of 2012, and it was in October of that year that President Thomas Monson announced the age change for missionaries.
When we got to the field, we had 14 sister missionaries, all from Mexico, wonderful sisters, and we love them. We went from 14 to 97 sisters during a period of a few months. It completely changed the complexion of the mission for better. Well, they were wonderful, and they did such good work. So, we learned how to adapt, because it was very different when we got there.
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that.
13:54
President Bruce C. Kusch: I will tell you, frankly, when we got the call, we were excited for the blessing of serving. But I will tell you that I thought about my mission president. My mission president was Harvey Glade. He was a wonderful mission president, and I tried to follow his example in my service. But I know how I put my mission president on a pedestal. And I know how missionaries put their mission presidents on a pedestal. And I initially thought, “I’m not that guy. I’m not. That’s what I envision of a mission president.” I thought, “I don’t know. Can I do this? Can I be that?”
Well the Lord helps us become what we need to become. Now, I don’t know that I ever became the perfect mission president. But there is a depth of love that we feel for our missionaries, felt for our missionaries, that is limitless, I guess. No, there are no boundaries. You have to do difficult things. You have to correct. You have to sometimes do some things that you’d just as soon not have to do. But the love that we felt and still feel for those missionaries is — there aren’t words to describe it. And every time we see one of our missionaries or talk to one of our missionaries, it just puts a smile on our face.
15:22
Jon Ryan Jensen: My in-laws served as mission leaders in Ecuador, and I know there’s nothing that makes them happier than to send a text to the family text group saying, “Elder so-and-so or Sister so-and-so just stopped by or just gave us a call.” And it just changes for the mission presidents their day, their moment, as well.
And so frequently, we talk about the impact you have on them, but the impact back to you is equally great.
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah. It’s a great day when we hear from one of our missionaries.
15:46
Jon Ryan Jensen: I would like to move forward and talk a little bit, though, about that transition. So, then you have that period of mission service and come back. Did you anticipate, “OK, well, we have the mission, and now we’ll go right out to retirement at BYU–Idaho,” Or did you already feel, “Something’s coming”?
President Bruce C. Kusch: We were headed back to Rexburg, Idaho, forever. That was our plan. Now, while we were gone, a year before we came home, there was a rainstorm that hit Rexburg in July of 2014 — we came home in July of 2015 — that did millions of dollars of damage on the BYU–Idaho campus and flooded our basement with over 250,000 gallons of water and mud. And everything we owned was in that basement.
Jon Ryan Jensen: I remember seeing the video of that, where the dorms, apartments, those basements were all flooded up to almost the ceiling. That was a tough time.
16:39
President Bruce C. Kusch: So, our daughter and her family were living in our home while we were gone, and she sent me a text message. I should first preface, though, this story with: I woke up early the morning of the flood, about 2 o’clock in the morning, with a very, very ominous feeling. It was just an ominous feeling. And late in the afternoon, I got a text message from our daughter that said, “Dad, call me. The house is flooding.” And so I called her, or we did a FaceTime call, and she shows me our backyard, which was front to back, 3 feet of water just cascading into our basement. She shows me a picture of our basement, and it’s almost up to the ceiling with muddy water. And so it was horrifying to see that.
Anyway, so we get that taken care of when we come home. I mean, we start working on that. So for a year left of our mission service, we’re still kind of worried about our home, but we came home fully expecting to stay in Rexburg, Idaho, forever. You know, I jokingly say we hadn’t quite gotten to the point of buying cemetery plots in the Sugar City Cemetery, but we were thinking about it.
Sister Alynda Kusch: We were close.
President Bruce C. Kusch: But before we came home from Mexico, about three months before we came home from Mexico, independent of each other, Alynda and I had some very strong impressions about Salt Lake City and then LDS Business College. And I didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to me at the time, because I felt that the impressions that I had received — I’m sure she felt the same way — but I felt that the impressions I received were not mine to act upon, until or unless someone in authority invited us to do something that would require us to act upon those impressions.
18:18
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, in contrast to the BYU–Idaho experience. This wasn’t you going and looking at a job opening. This was a “If this one’s going to come.”
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t going to call the commissioner or somebody and say, “Hey, I’ve had these impressions. Do you want to talk to us about something?”
Jon Ryan Jensen: “Where do you want me?”
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah. That would not have been the appropriate thing to do. And so, it was about six months after we came home when President Richards approached me about a position here. And I then went home and I talked to Alynda, and I said, “Here it is. And oh, by the way, I had these impressions, and I didn’t say anything to you.” And she said, “Well, that’s really interesting, because oh, by the way, I had these impressions, and I didn’t say anything to you either.” And so we knew that the Lord was preparing us for something here. We didn’t exactly know what it was.
19:05
Sister Alynda Kusch: Well, and something that was really interesting is that other mission presidents that we had talked to had said that the hardest year of your mission is the fourth year, when you come home and you’re longing to be back with the missionaries and to be doing missionary work. And so, in a way — when we got home, our basement was studs and concrete. We had nothing. So we had the clothes on our back and my grand piano and a big-screen TV that our kids were using, and that is all we had. We had no furniture or anything.
So in a way, I loved Rexburg, and I loved our ward, and I loved my home, and leaving it would have been hard, but it wasn’t really mine. We did some improvements and changed some things around about rebuilding this downstairs, and so it never really quite looked like what we had left. So, as strange as that sounds, it was a gift, and I didn’t long for being in Rexburg. But it was actually a lovely thing that the Lord did for us.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Wow.
President Bruce C. Kusch: And if the Lord would have said before we left on our mission, “Hey, Kusches, you can have your house and no mission, or you can have the mission and lose half your house. You pick,” easy choice. It’d be the mission every single time.
20:31
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, you have this opportunity, then, to come to LDS Business College. And even then, you probably couldn’t have known the changes that were going to be in store once you got here.
President Bruce C. Kusch: Absolutely not.
Jon Ryan Jensen: An institution that had been around for more than 130 years, and you get to be here for one of the most extreme changes, one of the biggest changes that the school had had in its history.
20:53
President Bruce C. Kusch: You know, when I became the president in April of 2017, people would say, “Well, what’s your vision for the school?” And I said, “I don’t know.” The Lord has a vision, and it’s our job to figure out what the Lord’s vision is for this school. It’s not for me to pretend to tell the Lord what the vision is; it’s the other way around. We need to figure out what the Lord’s vision is, because that had been stated very clearly by President Henry B. Eyring at my predecessor’s inauguration. And so we just went to work, and here we are.
21:29
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, before we talk about what that big change was, I’m intrigued because I’m thinking right now about President Russell M. Nelson, and he said in general conference that there will come a time when individuals will not be able to survive spiritually without the influence of the Holy Ghost. And you’ve talked about a number of experiences where you felt the Holy Ghost preparing you, helping you be guided in the decisions that you would make.
So, in that time where you’re being asked about your vision for the school and recognizing that it needs to be you coming into alignment with what His vision is, are the two of you having similar feelings? Do you recognize that as being similar feelings to what you had had before leaving California while being in the mission in Mexico? Was it that kind of similarity for you, even though it was a different circumstance?
22:20
Sister Alynda Kusch: When you phrase it that way, I think that’s absolutely the truth. The more experience we have with the Spirit, the more we learn to recognize when the Lord is leading us. One of the things that I truly loved about the mission field and about being here, because we were there for the age change, we suddenly had 18-year-old elders who are coming. And in the case, several times, there would be an elder that we would receive who had graduated from high school on Friday, had received his endowments on Saturday and the following Wednesday went into the MTC.
And so now you have this young man who maybe the only time he’d ever been away from home was scout camp. At the MTC, it’s still a little like home because of the familiar food. But then you come to a country where you cannot speak the language, and you’re afraid. And I know what that feels like, because I didn’t speak the language very well, and I was afraid. So I totally understand where they are coming from. And then you see them in a month at a district meeting, or in two months at a zone conference, and this frightened little missionary now stands with his hand in his pocket and his scriptures open and gives a very powerful testimony of being there and a testimony of the Savior.
I see the same thing in our students. Bruce and I teach a section of the college success course. We teach it on Monday, which is the first day of the semester. This semester, in our class, there is only one student that we have that that was not their first day in college. So it is the same look that they have on their face. Some of them are from other countries, they are the only ones that are here, they have sacrificed everything to be at school. And you see that kind of same frightened look, like, “Am I going to be able to do that?”
And they learn the same thing that our missionaries learned. They come here, and with the help of the Holy Ghost, they can do things they never believed possible for them. You see them the first day, and then we see them the last day as they walk across the stage at the Tabernacle for graduation. And it is amazing to me.
24:40
President Bruce C. Kusch: You know, the things we wanted for our missionaries is the same thing we want for our students. Sure, we wanted our missionaries to be successful as teachers of the gospel, as representatives of the Savior, but at the end of the day, what we wanted them to be were capable and trusted disciples of Jesus Christ forever. That’s what we want for the students that we are blessed to serve, not only here that come to campus, but the thousands of students that we’re now serving online around the world. We want them to be committed and prepared to walk the covenant path and build the kingdom wherever they go.
25:19
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, with some of that direction and some of that vision, then, to me that sounds like that’s when you’re catching the vision of where things need to go. Tell me how the name change came about.
President Bruce C. Kusch: So, we had been LDS Business College since 1931, and I was hearing repeatedly from prospective students, “Well, I’m not interested in business. LDS Business College; I’m not interested in business, therefore I’m not going to consider the school.” But as we pondered the changes, as we contemplated a new name — and I know that even before my time, there had been talk about a name change — but as we pondered these changes, I felt that we needed to consider a new name to reintroduce the school to the Church. I wanted a name that would be recognizable by members of the Church everywhere, and I wanted a name for the school that would stand into the Millennium, that would never again have to be changed. And that was our criteria.
The suggestion for the name came in council, in an executive committee meeting as we were talking about this, and we pursued a variation of “Ensign College” initially. And then when we received approval for bachelor’s degrees, a few bachelor’s degrees in our relationship with BYU–Pathway, and the name then, Ensign College, just felt like the right name, and it’s been the perfect name.
And on the 25th of February of 2020, when I stood at the pulpit in the Assembly Hall to speak, and I said the name Ensign College, I knew the Lord was pleased with the name. It was confirmed to me in a very powerful way that Ensign College was the right name for us. And I think it’s proven to be that. It stuck from the very beginning. We never had people with slips of the tongue of wanting to say “LDS Business College” and catching themselves. Ensign College just worked from the very beginning.
One of the things that we learned is that when you’re in alignment with the Lord and His timing and His prophets, progress will be breathtaking.
27:48
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah. Well, a name change to the college isn’t really Heavenly Father’s goal. Heavenly Father’s goal revolves around the students who come through those doors and the way that Ensign College can change their lives.
So, I want to give you an open platform right now to share with us some of what you have seen happen in the five years since that name change. What is going on? What is the success story of Ensign College right now?
28:11
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah, so a few years ago, Elder Clark Gilbert defined all of the schools and their unique roles. Ours is as the applied curriculum provider. We know how to develop curriculum that prepares our graduates for jobs. We’ve been good at that since 1886. President Nelson, as a graduate of Ensign College, talks about his experience learning shorthand and how that helped him when he was working in a bank. But we believe it’s hands-on, it’s preparatory for going into the world of work. And we’ve gone about that with a topic of subject matter immersion and our learning signature, where students prepare and they act and demonstrate, and that’s been a fundamental part of what we’ve done.
Because 2019, I gave a couple of TED talks, and I began both of those, same talk, basically, which I had to memorize, and so did Alynda, because she heard it like 1,000 times. But I start out by saying, “When I became a college teacher, I wondered why college wasn’t more like work. Because you think about your first day of college and compare that with the first day of most college courses, and work doesn’t come with a textbook and a syllabus and and papers that you’ve got to write and books that you’ve got to read, and you don’t get a quiz every day when you come to work to make sure you’ve done your homework. So if work isn’t that way, why is college different?” That was my premise, and that’s continued to be our premise.
And so we’ve refined that, and we’ve made a lot of progress with that. It’s fundamental. But we have focused on innovative things. So that’s an innovative thing that we’ve done. I think you know that we announced, now a year and a half ago, 90-credit degrees, and we’re just chomping at the bit, waiting for our creditor to give us the green light on all these things. We’re doing it with a couple of degrees online through our relationship with Pathway. In May, we start with seven-week blocks, and we’re doing that because of student success.
The research, the literature, all says that students that focus on fewer classes in a shorter period of time do better. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years for BYU–Pathway, and the results are wonderful. The progress is wonderful. We retain students, and all those things. So, we believed that if it was good for our Pathway students that we serve, it would also be good for our campus students. And so we’re very excited about that.
So, it’s been a time of continual change and progress. Ensign College is the most affordable institution of higher education in the state of Utah, and I don’t know how many people know that necessarily. So affordability, high value in a time when some people may be skeptical of the value of higher education. We’re connected with employers. We have program advisory boards for all of our programs where employers come in, we ask them about the work that they want done, and we design our curriculum to meet the needs of employers.
I have said — somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think people know I’m really quite serious — if there was never another lecture given on our campus or a multiple choice exam administered, I would consider myself a successful president.
31:31
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, as a child of the Scantron era, my heart just claps, rejoices at that. I’ve never had a scantron in my professional life, so, you know.
Sister Alynda Kusch: Well, one thing that’s really interesting is because we have a lot of international students, they come some of them having attended university in their countries or even just high school, and the experience that they have with us is completely different. And it takes a little getting used to, that they are expected to participate in class and be at the board writing and working in groups and doing these projects. But they find that they learn much more, and it’s a really wonderful thing to see.
32:15
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah. And I would not be critical of others who choose to do education differently than Ensign College. But I will tell you, for me, we expect students to take responsibility for their own learning. In 2 Nephi — and Elder Bednar has taught this for years and years and years — we need to be agents. We need to act and not be acted upon. (See 2 Nephi 2:26.) And so that’s my premise, is that we need to help students become learners and to act for themselves and to learn for themselves.
My views, frankly, about demonstrating mastery come from the way God interacts with us as His children. We’re not given a multiple-choice exam to determine whether or not we’re going to make it to the celestial kingdom. It’s an iterative experience. God works with us in an iterative way, and so that’s how I think we should work with our students. So they learn, they practice, they do. They may succeed, or they may not succeed to the level that they would like. We give them opportunities to try again. And that’s what’s informed my approach as an educator.
33:26
Jon Ryan Jensen: Sister Kusch, I don’t think President Kusch is ever going to toot his own horn, so I’m going to for one second. As I listen to you and as I listened to one of the versions of that TED talk, the thing that stands out to me is that you do personally exactly the thing that you’re talking about wanting your students to do in that process that you just described. Because in one of those TED talks, you started by describing the courage that it took for you to attempt to implement this thing that had been percolating for so long in you of “Why do we teach this way if what they’re going to experience in business isn’t that way?”
And I think that your willingness to say, “I had to come to this point where I was willing to really put those thoughts on the line and these hopes and this vision on the line,” and I love that you were willing to recognize, “Heavenly Father took all of that experience that I had and was guiding me to this moment, and then I personally had to have the courage to say, ‘We have to give this a try.’”
And I think that that can be so inspiring for your students to see a president of the school that they attend who also had to go through that process of, “Well, if I believe this is true, I’ve got to go all in on it and make that happen.”
34:39
President Bruce C. Kusch: It did take some courage, and maybe I would admit there were some things that I wanted to do, and I just wasn’t quite prepared to go all in. But when we got here, I thought, “Now’s the time, and this is the place.”
34:52
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, Sister Kusch talks about the different experiences of your students and their backgrounds. What is that breakdown of the students at Ensign College? Because you said it’s one of the most economic, most affordable schools to attend in the state of Utah, but it’s not just youth from the state of Utah who are coming here.
35:10
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah. So, our student body here on campus is about 60% domestic students and 40% international students. We have students that come from 70 or more countries from around the world. A lot of our domestic students are Wasatch Front students, but we love the diversity of our campus. We absolutely love the diversity and students that come from everywhere throughout the world, members of the Church that find their way to Ensign College. And we don’t do any recruiting of international students. They just come.
Yeah, and here’s one of the things that I love the most, or that I have noticed and observed and I appreciate the most. We have this great diversity. No one in nine years has come to me and said, “The kids from this nation don’t get along with the kids from this nation,” or “The kids from here in the United States don’t like the kids from these other countries.” They’re in classes together. They work together. They do team things together. They have social activities together, and they get along. But because of these interactions, I think they’re learning some valuable lessons about being with people that are not like them, and getting along with people that are not like them, and realizing — as Alynda has often said — they’re more alike than they are different.
36:41
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, we’re in the Triad Center in downtown Salt Lake City, and Ensign College and where Church News is located is on this same block. And we used to have a little cafe restaurant downstairs, and so we would frequently have chances to sit and do lunch with some of those students as they were getting ready for classes.
And I remember a few years ago watching World Cup matches with them as well. It was so fun to see their excitement together, camaraderie that they were building with each other as well. It really is a unique environment that has been created in the school. I love that.
37:10
Sister Alynda Kusch: One of the things that we do that I think is really fun is that we have some cultural nights, and students from a particular region or country will prepare food, and we’ve had music and dance that gives our students an opportunity to see what their life is like where they live. That’s been a really fun thing.
37:30
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’ve heard about some of those and seen some of the flyers for those, and that’s exciting. And having served in Colombia, I know there was one of those a year or so ago for the students from Colombia.
One of the other parts about Ensign College that is seen by a lot of your students as being a big benefit is the student-to-teacher ratio that they have and the unique experience they have of building a relationship with those teachers.
Can you talk about that design and intent?
37:57
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah, so the majority of our teaching is done by what we call practicing professionals. We have a practitioner faculty. About 75% of all of our student credit hours are delivered by adjuncts and these practitioners. So people that are out in the real world doing real work every day come into campus to teach our students. Our full-time faculty, they also teach, but they don’t teach a full-time load.
So we depend on this core of adjuncts. And I think our average class size is around 20, and it’s a place where students get to know their teachers, and teachers get to know their students. And it’s another one of those characteristics of Ensign College, that it’s an intimate relationship between learner and teacher, and so there’s lots of attention for students, and there’s — again, not different than other other campuses, but — there’s a lot of outreach to students to help them.
One of the wonderful things that’s happened during these last few years, especially, is that we have had an army of senior missionaries come to Ensign College and serve. At any given time, we have probably 10 couples that are serving, and some single sisters come and serve and do things that we could never do, primarily because of the cost; we couldn’t afford to hire. If we turn these into full-time jobs, we couldn’t hire these people, but they come with skills and abilities and experience and love for the students that makes a huge difference in the lives of these students.
39:40
Jon Ryan Jensen: And I can tell you that I’ve seen too, it is not a temporary love of the seven-week course or love that lasts for a semester. There’s one teacher who I am friends with and have followed on different social media channels, and I love when one of his former students announces a job or career change, and he jumps right in and is with them, and they thank him back for the things that they learn in the class. It becomes a lifelong relationship that they share as fellow students in those classes.
President Bruce C. Kusch: Yeah.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Ultimately, the goal of Ensign College, while it is an educational institution, while it does provide great academic opportunities, the mission of the school is to develop capable and trusted disciples of Jesus Christ.
How do all of these unique approaches to education, all of these efforts that you’re putting in, help the individuals who come through your school’s doors become those disciples that your mission is guiding you toward?
40:35
President Bruce C. Kusch: You know, they find hope. They discover the greatness within them. They discover that they can do more than they ever thought possible. Their testimony of the Savior increases, their testimony of living prophets and apostles increases. And they leave, we hope, committed covenant-keeping Latter-day Saints forever.
You can go anywhere and learn accounting, or you can go anywhere and learn supply chain or software development or any of the disciplines that we teach. You could go anywhere. But you can’t go just anywhere and have an experience that is transformational to the extent that happens at all of the campuses of the Church Educational System and Pathway. We haven’t really talked about our work with Pathway, but we’re serving — this semester, for example — I think almost 14,000 students online around the world.
So, at my inauguration, then-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf was the presiding officer, and he, in his inaugural remarks, he said, “This remarkable school had its beginning during humble pioneer years. It is now heading into a period of limitless opportunities.” And he said, “As you embark on this exciting journey, I invoke a blessing upon this beloved college, that its influence for good will spread throughout the world and God’s purposes will be fulfilled.” So, at the end of the day, the reason that we exist is so God’s purposes can be fulfilled in the lives of every single student that we have the blessing of educating.
42:22
Jon Ryan Jensen: That’s really inspiring. I love that thought from President Uchtdorf.
President and Sister Kusch, we have a tradition at the Church News podcast that as we wrap up, we love to give our guests the opportunity to share the final word; your testimony, as it was. And we do that by inviting you to share what it is you know now that you have been through this process and now are seeing what you’re seeing in your lives.
And so, Sister Kusch, we’ll start with you, and then President Kusch, we’ll let you have the final word. But Sister Kusch, what is it that you know now having been through this experience that has brought you to serve with your husband at Ensign College?
42:57
Sister Alynda Kusch: I really appreciate that question, and I will answer that by telling you just a little story that happened in Mexico. We had been in the field for only a couple of months, and I did not speak Spanish very well. I studied really hard, and I could share my testimony, I could pray, I could greet the missionaries, I could greet the members. That’s what I wanted to do before I got there. We were invited to go to a ward conference in a little ward that was about 40 minutes from the mission home. And we went, and I did not have an assignment to speak, and I was grateful for that, which meant I could sit and really concentrate on what everybody else was saying.
So, my husband gave his talk — which, his Spanish is excellent — and then the choir sang. And then the stake president got up to speak, and he greeted the members. And then he stopped, and he turned around to my husband, and he said, “President, can Sister Kusch share her testimony?” And he said, “She can.” So he turned around and announced to the whole ward that I was going to share my testimony. Now, if I had had some time to think about it — I mean, I knew what to say, but in that moment, it was sheer panic. It was a long walk from my chair to the podium.
I do not remember what I said, but when I sat down, I thought of all the things I could have said, and I was kind of mad. After the meeting was over with, the ward mission leader came to talk to us and to greet us and to introduce himself, and he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and he said, “Sister Kusch, I felt the Spirit so strongly when you spoke.” That is what I know, that regardless of what you are asked to do, the Holy Ghost can help you accomplish anything that is worthwhile and wonderful. That’s what I want our students to know.
I think that our mission statement helps them to just have that in their mind, and they can all tell you what it is — that as they leave, looking back on their experience, that they realize that with the Lord’s help, all things are possible.
45:11
President Bruce C. Kusch: When we came to Ensign College, I knew about the school. I now know the school and its purpose and the reason the Lord has preserved the school. As small as it is, there are great things that are happening; not only here on our campus, but around the world, as we have opportunity to serve these thousands of students through BYU–Pathway Worldwide, which is a remarkable thing for us to do.
I am a first-person witness of apostolic and prophetic leadership and guidance. I realize that most members of the Church don’t have that opportunity, and so we all — independent of being in meetings with them and seeing them — have the opportunity to have our own very powerful witness of their prophetic ministries and their roles as prophets, seers and revelators. I have learned the vital importance of being in alignment with prophets, seers and revelators. And when we are in alignment with them, we are in alignment with the Lord.
I have come to know the importance of the Lord’s timing and that He does things in His time and in His way, and it’s our blessing and privilege to be instruments in His hands to work in alignment with Him. I know that when hearts are knit together in unity and love for righteous purposes, there is no end to the good that can be done.
And just recently, I have felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for what we have observed, for what we witness, for what continues to happen throughout the Church Educational System, but what we continue to see happening at the college. We have been very intentional, particularly in the last five years, about hiring for mission fit and being in alignment with our mission, which is being in alignment with heaven. And those are things that have been significant for us in our ability to make progress, in being in a position to allow the Lord to help us make progress.
Were it not for these things, I don’t think any of these things would have happened. But my witness of the reality of God and Jesus Christ has deepened more than I can adequately express. I know They live, I know it’s all true, and for that, I’m eternally grateful, and I’m grateful to share it with my eternal companion. And I leave that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
48:26
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
