In recognition of Brigham Young University’s 150th anniversary and its sesquicentennial theme of “Celebrating Gifts of Light” (see Doctrine and Covenants 50:24), students, faculty and alumni are invited to perform 150 hours of service each.
Throughout the yearlong celebration, BYU continues its mission to nurture divine light in its students, who then share the Light of Jesus Christ with the world by honoring the past and envisioning the future.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, BYU President C. Shane Reese and BYU Advancement Vice President Keith Vorkink join reporter Mary Richards. They underscore the university’s commitment in maintaining its faith-based mission, providing an excellent education and experiences to its students, and preparing its graduates for a lifetime of commitment to “go forth to serve.”
Transcript:
President C. Shane Reese: We’ve talked on this campus: How can we become more Christ-centered? How can we lean into what makes us unique as an institution? And the reality is, while we think that the students who attend this university, that they emanate a light, we believe deeply that that’s the Light of Jesus Christ shining through them. And I guess more than anything, what I know now, as deeply as I’ve ever known, is that God knows His children, and He sees how we can be instruments to share His light and the light of His Son, Jesus Christ. We hope that every student that comes through the doors of Brigham Young University will be able to see how they can be a conduit for the Light of Jesus Christ, through their actions, through their words, through all that they engage in, because we see it in them every single day.
1:24
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at 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.
October 2025 marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of Brigham Young University. The anniversary celebration began in August and lasts till next June, with the theme “Celebrating Gifts of Light.”
Throughout this time, the campus is honoring the past and envisioning the future as BYU continues to nurture divine light in its students, who then share the Light of Jesus Christ with the world.
I’m joined by President C. Shane Reese, the president of BYU, and Vice President Keith Vorkink, BYU advancement vice president, in a broadcast studio here on campus in Provo, Utah.
Welcome, both, to the Church News podcast.
2:27
President C. Shane Reese: Well, thanks for having us. We’re just thrilled to have you here on campus. I know that you often have this broadcast originate from Salt Lake, so welcome down to Utah County and the BYU campus.
2:38
Mary Richards: What a beautiful place to be on this beautiful fall morning and to see campus in all its glory celebrating this wonderful anniversary. And I wanted to start by saying: Happy anniversary. Both of you have been students here, and then, if I had this right, assistant professors, professors, deans and now your current roles.
So, can you talk about your own BYU experience, and then what you love about the university? Should we start with President Reese?
3:04
President C. Shane Reese: Sure, yeah. Boy, where to start is really what I would say. I was a student here, and candidly, I was a somewhat lost student here when I first started. I really was kind of a fish out of water. I’m a first-generation college graduate, and I was kind of wending my way through this big institution full of members of the Church. I grew up in a community where there weren’t lots of members of the Church. But boy, from the time I stepped foot on campus and met my first mentor — who, by the way, was Kevin J Worthen, my predecessor as president of Brigham Young University — I knew that BYU was a special place.
I have to say that the single-most important event that happened in my time at BYU, the most memorable thing that ever happened to me while being here at BYU, was meeting my wife, Wendy. We met here on this campus. I fell in love with her on this campus. And each day that we’ve spent here on this campus together, I’ve only grown more in love with her every day. So that’s the most memorable thing I can think of, but I will tell you it’s just been such a place of personal growth, both as a student — I got my bachelor’s and my master’s degree here, all in statistics. I’m a little geeky about statistics.
Keith Vorkink: I can confirm that.
4:23
President C. Shane Reese: But then having the opportunity to come here and be employed here as an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics has been a dream come true. And most of that is driven by the students. You come on this campus, and as you described, it’s a beautiful campus. We’re nestled in this beautiful mountainous region. I have people come all the time to the office, and they see the mountains that surround this campus, and they are in awe of the physical surroundings.
But that pales in comparison to the experience that we have with students. They’re energized, they’re faithful, they want to make a difference in the world. And being around those students really is the magic of this campus.
5:10
Mary Richards: And you both still do some teaching, the University 101 class.
President C. Shane Reese: We do, yeah. This is an amazing — and we answer together because we actually co-teach the course. It’s a remarkable course. This is a course that we designed to really help our students. This is a generation of students facing an epidemic of loneliness. They’re also facing, in ways that no other generation of students has faced, a lack of purpose in their lives.
And so this class is designed to give them a sense of the mission of the university, something that we think is so pivotal, especially as we do celebrate this, our 150th year, the halfway point of the second century of our existence as a university. So we want to give them a healthy sense of the mission, what makes this place unique.
We want to give them a sense of the resources available for their success. And that is something that we tried to help them understand, not from a 54-year-old man who’s got gray hair, but from a peer mentor, someone who looks like them. So each course has a peer mentor, and they talk to them about where the financial aid office is, where can they go if they’re struggling with mental health, or where do they go if they have food insecurity, or just any number of things. So we want them to have a sense of the resources available for their success, because they’re all over the place, but most students don’t know about it.
And then lastly, we want them to have a clear sense of connection. We teach this in small sections — they’re sections of size 24 — and they have assignments to go to a basketball game together, to go to a performing arts event together. Some of our students talked about going to a square-dancing, a swing-dancing event, and they both said, or three or four of them all said, “I had to force myself to go. And now I love that I’ve met so many people at this swing-dancing event.” They are assigned to go to hike the Y together.
So when you walk out of the class, you not only have a sense of mission, you not only have a sense of the resources available for your success, but you also have 24 other students who know you by name and face, you have a faculty member or two who know you by name and face, and you have a peer mentor who know you by name and face.
It’s been a remarkable course that we get the opportunity to teach, and I say “get to” because it is an absolute privilege and blessing to be able to be involved with it, not only from an administrative level, but to teach the course. Now, I’m not sure the students in our class feel that way, but I feel that way as one of the instructors. Keith, I don’t know, maybe you have a little bit to share about that.
7:43
Keith Vorkink: Yeah. When we made the decision to roll this out, we thought we need to be the examples at the leadership of the university and invest in teaching this course. And we have busy schedules, but we’ve made it a priority, and it’s been the most rewarding activity I’ve done in leadership at BYU, is spending time with students in their first semester on campus and getting to know them individually. I myself grew up not knowing about BYU. I was one of these kids who, when they came to campus, didn’t know much about it. In fact, I grew up not really liking BYU.
Mary Richards: What?
President C. Shane Reese: I know, the horror of it.
8:21
Keith Vorkink: I grew up in Alaska and never had a familial connection with the university really. And people would gather at the church on Saturdays to watch basketball games from BYU, and I thought they were just weird.
Mary Richards: I did that in Missouri growing up.
Keith Vorkink: OK. No, people do it all over the world. I was going to say the country, but they do it all over. It’s easier to now than it was then. And for me, I had a mission president while I was on my mission. I attended a junior college before my mission and then went on a mission to New York City, and he encouraged me, invited me, to consider transferring to BYU.
And then, similar to what President said, it’s just changed my life. It’s been transformational as a student. I, too, met my wife as a student, Marcie, and fell in love with her. And then we went actually back east, thinking we were going to have our career back there, and got invited to interview for a position. And it was actually in an interview with then-Elder [Dieter F.] Uchtdorf, a Seventy, who — we have general authorities interview every faculty candidate — who asked me, “Why do you want to go to BYU?” And in that moment, I felt, “I should consider coming to BYU.” And I’m so grateful that I was responsive, because it’s changed my life.
9:35
Mary Richards: Wow. And now you’re the chair of the sesquicentennial committee.
What do you think of BYU turning 150 years old? What comes to mind first?
Keith Vorkink: Well, the answer to that is actually pretty simple. And this is something that really, since my time in administration, has settled on in my mind and in my heart. And it goes back to 50 years ago, when President Spencer W. Kimball, as the standing Prophet, was on this campus as the university turned 100 and gave a landmark address about the university over the next 100 years; hence, “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.”
And when President Worthen — who invited me to chair that committee when he was president — gave me that assignment, it was one of the many times I was given assignments that I went and read “The Second Century of Brigham Young University” talk. And all that we do for this celebration, and there’s a lot of fun, but there’s also a lot of reflection and going back to the prophetic direction that he gave to ensure that we’re on the path.
I’ve joked, saying, “Because we’re at the midway point, this is our midterm at the university associated with the second-century address.” And midterms aren’t always only fun, right? They come with a check to see where we are, and we’re doing that check, but we’re doing it in a way that also is fun and joyful and reflective. And that’s where my mind went when I was first given the assignment.
11:06
Mary Richards: This whole idea, “Celebrating Gifts of Light,” there’s so much planned, so many different events, for this coming year, and they’ve begun already.
What has you most excited? What are you most looking forward to? And then, how do you hope these celebrations will impact students and alumni?
11:22
President C. Shane Reese: Yeah, that’s a great question, and there’s a couple of different answers. One is I just reinforce what Keith just said, this idea of focusing on President Kimball’s second-century address. This is our midway point.
And by the way, we’ve had on this campus, leading up to this year, we had President [Dallin H.] Oaks on two separate occasions come and talk extensively about President Kimball’s address. We had Elder [David A.] Bednar come and talk exclusively from President Kimball’s second-century address. We had President [Jeffrey R.] Holland come and give a landmark address about President Kimball’s second-century address. Elder [Quentin L.] Cook has given talks about President Kimball’s second-century address. Elder [D. Todd] Christofferson has been on this campus giving talks about President Kimball’s second-century address. Elder [Ronald A.] Rasband has been on this campus giving talks about President Kimball’s second-century address.
Now, I’m a little slow, but I’m starting to sense a pattern here. We know that while we have all of these amazing celebrations — and we do have some exciting celebrations — that it is imperative that we also focus on our progress that we’ve made thus far and also look to the work that lies ahead of us, because there’s a lot of work that lies ahead of us. In fact, President Kimball himself said in the second-century address that the mountains that we’re summiting today are only going to reveal mountains that are taller yet ahead for us. And we certainly feel that as we’ve evaluated our progress today.
Some of the things that we are really excited about that are kind of the celebratory moments in the process of looking to the work left to be done, one of the things that we’ve really focused on — and it really does come from President Nelson’s reminder — that the reason we obtain an education is so that we can be of service to somebody else. He said having an education and getting knowledge is the difference between merely wanting or wishing to help someone else and actually having the ability to do so.
And so we’re anchored on this idea of service. And so we’ve invited everyone associated with BYU, the whole campus community, both on campus and the nearly 470,000 living alumni — yes, that’s a big number — we’ve invited them all to spend 150 hours serving. Lift where you stand. We’re not dictating how or where or why you do that, but we do want you to lean into what makes this institution unique. And we’ve invited everybody to serve.
We’ve asked them to come back and share with us stories about what those service opportunities have looked like and the difference that it’s made in the communities where they live. So, to me, that’s one of the most exciting things, because candidly, most institutions, when they have a big anniversary or birthday like this, they’re going to do something like a big capital campaign — “One hundred fifty years, we’re going to raise $150 million.”
I’m just so happy to stand in front of a group of alumni — and we’ve tried to do it all over the country, when we’ve had our tailgates, or we’ve had alumni gatherings — we’ve had celebrations on campus to invite everybody to serve. That’s a big, significant difference in message, and we hope that it underscores part of what President Kimball emphasized in his second-century address, and that’s the uniqueness of BYU.
14:45
Keith Vorkink: And I love what President Reese just said. And one of the indications that this moment has been impactful for us is all of our normal university engagements, we’ve seen even deeper, broader than in the past. We had more students at our kickoff. We had more employees at our annual university conference. Our devotional attendance is up 40%.
And people are rallying around this celebration to the end that President Reese is talking about. We track attendance at our tailgates when we go and play away games. We’ve been doing this for a handful of years already, where we partner with a local charity, oftentimes connected to the university we’re playing. Our attendance for those is up significantly from years past.
And so what gets me most excited is both students and alumni understanding what role they can play in aligning to the vision laid out by President Kimball, reinforced by President Nelson and President Oaks, to go out and make a difference because of the education they get, both spiritually and academically, to be a force for good in the world. That’s exciting.
15:52
Mary Richards: Yes, this idea of service. I just had in my brain these tailgates have been so beautiful to see, and I love hearing that more are coming. The Cougs Care and alumni tailgates. I also thought of JustServe, the JustServe platform, an app where folks can look, if they’re listening right now and thinking, “I should be a part of this. I should serve where I am.” That’s an opportunity to look there, too.
Keith Vorkink: One hundred percent. We’d say, “Go do that, and then” — like President Reese said — “then tell us the story,” because we want everyone to understand it isn’t just those. It’s any place, any way you can bring the Light of Jesus Christ to those you’re around.
16:27
Mary Richards: I love that you bring up the Light of Jesus Christ, because I want to talk about this. President Reese, in your first address of the 2025 fall semester, you said that BYU students can become “beacons of light” in this world that “desperately needs it.”
So, how is turning to Jesus Christ and sharing His light the answer for the world today?
16:48
President C. Shane Reese: Yeah, it’s a great concept that we believe in deeply. We’ve talked on this campus: How can we become more Christ-centered? How can we lean into what makes us unique as an institution? And the reality is, while we think that the students who attend this university, that they emanate a light, we believe deeply that that’s the Light of Jesus Christ shining through them.
And so we don’t do that for the benefit of themselves, so that they can prop themselves up. In fact, one of the things we talk about often is we have to be careful not to enter the pride cycle, that in all of our efforts to let our light shine and to shine the unique light of Brigham Young University, that it has to be done with both a humility and an acknowledgement of the source, the ultimate source of that light, and that is Jesus Christ.
So, while we might not be perfect, and we still have work to do, and we still have progress to make on becoming a Christ-centered university, we’re absolutely resolute about doing so. And that is manifest perhaps most distinctly and most brightly in our students. President Kimball talked about the brilliant stars, and therefore the light shining from those brilliant stars that would be produced, “in all the scholarly graces,” to use his language. And he said that would happen as we leaned into what made us unique as an institution.
And I’m telling you: We’ve seen stories, we’ve seen alumni, we honored a host of alumni from each of the colleges on campus who have gone out and done that very thing as part of our homecoming activities. So we see it happening in meaningful ways, but we are also very aware that we have to be cautious and we have to remind ourselves that humility has to be at the core of how we approach our second half of our second century.
18:53
Keith Vorkink: The only piece I would add to that is I’ve also been excited to see we invited every unit on campus — we’re calling this our Beacons of Light project; everything’s around light with the sesquicentennial — to think about what are the ways that they uniquely contribute to BYU’s unique light. And that includes a unit such as our grounds crew. That includes our Statistics Department. That includes athletics. That includes performing arts.
And so we have almost 150 videos. These projects became videos that reflect: How does the nursing school contribute to the unique light, and how are they helping the students inside of that program to go out and fulfill this mission that President Reese just was talking about?
It’s been really neat to see the units themselves reflect on how are they doing that, and then paint a story that helps us and the world to understand, “Why is our nursing program different than any other nursing program in the world? Why is our accounting program different than any other accounting program in the world?” And those Beacons of Light projects are beautiful to see.
20:02
Mary Richards: We did a story at the Church News about the 150 tiny, tiny temples that were 3D printed.
President C. Shane Reese: That’s a perfect example. It’s not just an exercise in 3D printing. That has applications in a whole bunch of different engineering spaces. But the “Beacons of Light” shows how they can use this technology, use this innovation, to do something that reinforces pointing their hearts and their minds to the house of the Lord. And I think that is just a beautiful illustration.
But it’s one of 150. There’s groups in biology who talk about zebrafish. I’m still waiting to watch the zebrafish video, because I can’t imagine how a zebrafish is a beacon of light, but it is. It is what President Kimball talked about, having a dual heritage or being “bilingual.” That is, being able to integrate things of our academic disciplines. We don’t shy away from, and we don’t use as an excuse towards achieving academic excellence, but we also are unwilling to sacrifice on building faith in Jesus Christ and in His restored gospel.
And we think that those two things are not only not mutually exclusive, but they’re actually mutually reinforcing. So it is an amazing thing to see colleagues all across campus — in our academic departments, in our support units — doing these things to illustrate, “Here’s the ways that we see that bilingualism playing out in our own disciplines.” It’s amazing.
Keith Vorkink: It’s great.
21:35
Mary Richards: This is making me think of the temple, and the house of the Lord, because to me, this conversation also signifies the covenants we make there and that covenant to use our time and talents to build the kingdom. And this idea of drawing closer to Jesus Christ, those students who have received their endowment or are still that is coming for them, this idea of becoming like Jesus Christ and drawing closer to Him makes us want to make covenants with Him and then go out into the world and be a disciple of Jesus Christ too.
President C. Shane Reese: Yeah.
22:10
Keith Vorkink: That’s a beautiful point. And it reminds me that so much of the framework of the temple was revealed in section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And President Oaks, as president of the university, titled that section “The basic constitution for Church education.” So these things spring from, in many ways, the same source. And it is that same path that leads us to make covenants with the Savior that then enables us to become a part of His work. There’s strong parallels to what we try to do in Church education, certainly here at BYU, and what we’re trying to emphasize as part of our sesquicentennial celebration.
22:53
Mary Richards: Oh, that’s beautiful. Let’s go back to the second-century address, because there was something that stuck out to me.
In that address, President Kimball spoke of the mounting pressures faced by the university to follow, and I’m quoting here, “follow the false ways of the world.” Then President Holland in 2021 spoke of the need for the university to embrace its uniqueness. He said, “We must have the will to be different and to stand alone, if necessary, being a university second to none in its role primarily as an undergraduate teaching institution that is unequivocally true to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And then more recently — and you spoke about this, President Reese — Elder Clark G. Gilbert, the Church commissioner of education, urged the university to, quote, “dare to be different.”
So, can you talk about the pressures from the world, or sometimes from within, that urge the university to conform to worldly ideologies or standards? And how can BYU continue to embrace its uniqueness in the next 50 years?
23:52
President C. Shane Reese: You’ve touched on what are two of my favorite quotes, both from the second-century address and from President Holland’s second half of the second-century address, two landmark addresses given on this campus.
One of the things that is truly remarkable and demonstrates how prophetic President Kimball’s second-century address really is is that he talked in such specific detail about the pressures that we would face today, at a time when those pressures weren’t apparent. So he foresaw exactly what we were going to be up against, about the ideologies that would come and would give pressure to the academic endeavor, the pressures that our students would face. President Kimball saw so much of what we’re facing today and then followed it up with a recipe for how we could be successful in spite of those mounting pressures.
And it really was the, as you mentioned, it was centered on us being willing, having the courage, the fortitude to be different, to not merely “ape the world,” to use his language, that we had to be willing to go out and to be a unique university, not only in the world but for the world. And so we love what President Kimball talked about and challenged us to do, and maybe even invited us to do, is to be willing to have that courage to be unique and to be different. And we’ve tried to do that.
And again, we’re far from perfect. We have work left to do in that effort, but we love that charge. And we love what President Holland reemphasized in his 2021 address, when he talked about being willing to focus on undergraduate teaching. By the way, higher education has by and large abandoned that as a primary effort. It has become a faculty-centric endeavor that is so heavily focused on research. And by the way, we have a strong emphasis on research at BYU, but it will never, never supplant our primary objective, which is our undergraduate education. And we’re committed to that. That is one way in which we will be unique as an institution.
He adds to that that it is unequivocally true and faithful to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And for that, we also maintain a strong resolve. Again, work to do, but we love that emphasis and that prophetic direction that we’ve received from both President Kimball 50 years ago and then again reemphasized by President Holland only several years ago.
26:34
Keith Vorkink: And all I would add, President, you touched on this briefly: When President Kimball gave that talk, there were a number of private institutions that were faith-based, and the number of those large institutions who maintain a strong tie to their faith have dwindled ever since.
So one of the ways that we have to — as President just said — to be different is to not weaken that tie but to strengthen it, because the pressures in higher education, like being faculty-centered, is to move away from faith. It’s not part of the sciences, it’s not part of the methodology that you’re trained about in graduate school to become a faculty member. And so we’ll have to be deliberate in our hiring, in our development, in all that we do to ensure that we do not weaken but we maintain and even strengthen our relationship with our faith.
27:30
Mary Richards: Because you mentioned so many who have come to speak very recently on this campus. These are all members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. These are prophets, seers and revelators.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is very invested in BYU, right? Is that fair to say?
27:45
President C. Shane Reese: Yeah, that’s fair to say. In fact, so often I talk to other presidents of other universities, and when they find out that about 70% of the operating budget of the university comes as an annual appropriation from the Church, that is a clear indication that there is significant investment. And I will say, across CES, Elder Bednar at the National Press Club talked about the Church’s investment in education across CES exceeds a billion dollars annually. I would call that a fairly significant investment.
And I think it requires two things. First of all, it shows the commitment to education of our people. Second of all, it places on us as an institution a very strong commitment to be true and faithful to the mission of the university. And we love that we have so often opportunity to hear from those we sustain as prophets, seers and revelators, to give us direction. We love that that provides such an anchor, both spiritually and academically, and it has become such an amazing strength to us as an institution. Over the course of our history, and it certainly feels so much stronger even today as we’ve led into this second half, it is clear that there is an investment in what happens at this institution.
29:13
Mary Richards: And then the university’s founding, we had Karl G. Maeser, President Brigham Young. In its history, past university presidents have become prophets, seers and revelators. We’ve talked about President Oaks and President Holland.
Any impressions there with that foundation, that history?
29:29
President C. Shane Reese: Well, any president who’s had to fill the office at BYU looks to President Holland, President Oaks and says, “That is an unattainable bar.” Talk about having a very heavy, high bar to ever hope to even approach. But their leadership, their imprint on this university, is felt every single day. Among all the presidents, but those two in particular have had such a dramatic and profound impact on this institution that we will be forever grateful on this campus for their leadership.
30:13
Keith Vorkink: I would just say amen to that. And this isn’t meant to diminish that at all, but I’ve been impressed with those who’ve not had as much time as a student on campus who’ve been called to lead and direct Church education and its system. And their interest in investing to understand us and getting to know us, it’s inspiring, with the responsibilities that the senior leaders of the Church have.
And, to what President said, I think President Nelson’s teaching about the role of education in the gospel of Jesus Christ, I’ve come to realize that’s why they care so much about it, is because we are a formal part of this doctrine that’s associated with our Church, and how they want to get it right. And so any and all who’ve been involved have invested deeply to understand and support and lead us.
And as a young assistant professor teaching here, I would have thought, “Why aren’t they spending time with the Missionary Department, or something like that?” And I’ve come to understand there’s a very intentionality about it, and certainly they’re investing. And it’s not to say anything about all of the other important areas of the Church, but the Church does also care about education deeply.
31:22
Mary Richards: I was a student here when the university turned 125 years old. I graduated in 2001, and I always had “Enter to learn, go forth to serve” in my mind as a student. And then especially when I had my cap and gown on, I thought, “Now this is real. I’ve got to go do this.”
What does this concept mean to students today, and pairing that with this idea of gifts of light, celebrating gifts of light?
31:45
Keith Vorkink: I love it, and in so many ways, I think this is an element that’s missing in so many young adults’ lives. There’s a fair amount of data and research on young adults these days, and one of their biggest challenges is a lack of purpose. They don’t know what role they are to play in life. And what BYU can give them is a serious, important, essential purpose that the Church has created this environment for them to build skills and develop themselves as a total person, and then go out and serve the world.
Then-Elder Christofferson once talked about “The Aims of a BYU Education.” And the point he made is that BYU is not intended to be a privilege enhancement; it’s intended to be a service enhancement. And then you can go out with purpose, with the training that you get here, with the education that we provide, and with the character development, and then hopefully with the vision to say, “OK, now go where you feel the Lord has impressed you to go, and make a difference and gather Israel through your abilities.” How exciting is that to go forth and serve, like that sign says at the entrance of our campus, because they can do that with purpose.
33:05
President C. Shane Reese: I couldn’t agree more. And one of the things that we’ve talked about on this campus is this two-headed monster facing this generation, both this lack of purpose and this epidemic of loneliness that’s facing the student. And again, President Christofferson in a talk given in general conference on the doctrine on belonging, he said that the secret to creating a sense of belonging, and therefore combating loneliness, is actually service and sacrifice for others.
It is an audacious concept that flies in the face of all worldly teachings, but that we have, through our gaining of our education, an ability to go out and serve, and that will strengthen our sense of belonging and sense of unity for the world. So we love this chart, this unofficial motto of “Enter to learn, go forth to serve,” because we believe that a BYU education equips them to serve, just as President Nelson has taught.
The other thing I would say is that we talked earlier about the investment of the Church. Tuition at BYU, relative to most other private institutions, is ridiculously low. And I’ve often said that without having specific counsel in this regard, I have this sense that some of the reason why the Church is so invested and willing to commit those funds is so that the students, when they leave this institution, can make the choice that Keith just talked about, which is to go where they’re called to serve, and they’re not mired in college debt, so they can make those choices.
They’re liberated to make those choices, and so they might go out and serve in a rural community. Certainly, we’ll have people choose jobs for sole earning potential, but we’ll have those that go and decide to teach in a rural school district or practice public health in a Third World country, because they feel called to do so, and they’ll be able to do so because they won’t be mired in debt. So I think it’s one of the real blessings that our students face.
35:09
Mary Richards: Oh, I’m a parent of a student here, as you know, and I am grateful for that.
President C. Shane Reese: You and me both.
Mary Richards: And I am grateful for that because we often talk to our children about a very large priority for the Church is building self-reliance. If you are reliant, self-reliant — financially, spiritually, physically, temporally, all those ways — you are able to serve and give and help Heavenly Father’s children. So yes, that’s something we’ve talked to our son a lot about in his first semester, this semester here.
President C. Shane Reese: We hope he’s having a great experience.
Mary Richards: He’s having a wonderful experience. As we conclude, I’ll ask the question we end the Church News podcast with each week, and that is: What do you know now? We’ll begin with Vice President Vorkink and then President Reese, please, if you could take the last word.
When pondering BYU’s 150th anniversary, what do you know now about gifts of light? Indeed, to quote from Doctrine and Covenants, “that light groweth brighter and brighter” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24), “that all may be edified of all” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:122).
36:10
Keith Vorkink: Thank you, Mary. That’s a beautiful question and one that, in some form or other, I’ve pondered, particularly since I’ve had this assignment with the sesquicentennial.
What I’ve come to know now more than I knew before is the Lord’s interest in this university. That includes His guiding a Prophet like Spencer W. Kimball, who himself was not an experienced educator, did not live in the world of higher education, but as President articulated earlier, gave this talk that amazes us and inspires us every day today. And the source of that is our Savior, Jesus Christ.
There have been stories of those who’ve been given visions of the Savior leading and guiding this institution. And I know now more myself than ever before that that is true. I feel it. I see it in our students. I see it in our alumni, when we engage with them and their light. I love this concept associated with the sesquicentennial, because I don’t know if you can describe it in any other way than — looking in the faces of our students or seeing the same faces of our alumni — than light.
They feel, and they’re guided by our Savior, Jesus Christ, to go out and bring people to Him. And it may seem a little strange to say university does that, but that is what this university does, and I know that now more than ever because of our sesquicentennial celebration. And I’m so grateful and privileged to be a part of it.
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President C. Shane Reese: And boy, what do I know now? When I look at the 150th anniversary of BYU, it is really an opportunity for us to look at our past, say, “Where have we been? What progress have we made thus far?” It’s an opportunity to focus a little bit on the present and actually have some celebration.
Elder [Patrick] Kearon talked about this being “the church of joy.” And so this year is an opportunity for us to spend a few minutes and be joyful about our 150th year. And it gives us an opportunity to look forward and say, “Now what work have we left to do? What lack I yet?” And as an institution, we recognize that we still lack and we still have work to do. So it’s all of those things that I know.
And I guess more than anything, what I know now, as deeply as I’ve ever known, is that God knows His children, and He sees how we can be instruments to share His light and the light of His Son, Jesus Christ. And sometimes even when we don’t feel that and we don’t see that in ourselves, He puts people in our way who can see that for us for a season, until we can see it ourselves.
We hope that every student that comes through the doors of Brigham Young University will be able to see how they can be a conduit for the Light of Jesus Christ, through their actions, through their words, through all that they engage in, because we see it in them every single day.
If there’s ever a gift that I feel like I’ve been given as the president of this university, it’s to see our students not for what they see themselves as, but for what they can become. So that’s the thing I know now more than I’ve ever known it in my entire life. And we’re grateful for the opportunity you’ve given us to reflect on this a little bit leading up to our 150th year.
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Mary Richards: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m Church News reporter Mary Richards. 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.
