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BYU President's Report

How Giving is Helping                      BYU News & Features

 Brigham Young University's Direction and Progress 

 By President Cecil O. Samuelson

First, thank you for all that you do for Brigham Young University and its students. 

You will remember the promise of the Lord given in the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants that power would be given to His servants “to bring [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] forth out of obscurity and out of darkness” (D&C 1:30). I believe Brigham Young University has had and will have a significant role in the fulfillment of this promise.  

BYU has never been stronger or enjoyed such positive recognition for its quality, its students, and its faculty. This institution has and will continue to have a key role in providing solid, credible, data-based information to the earnest seeker, as well as to the unfair critics. 

BYU Broadcasting—Taking BYU to the World

As I hope you know, BYU Broadcasting—and particularly BYU-TV—has become increasingly important to our academic mission and to the Church. Our operations are growing rapidly, and via our broadcasts we now reach audiences in the entire United States, Latin America, and much of the rest of the world. Recently, for example, BYU-TV came on air in Tonga and has a tremendous following of BYU alumni, Church members, many friends, and also the curious who are looking for wholesome and educational offerings. 

Construction will shortly begin on our new BYU Broadcasting building to be located east of the Marriott Center and north of the Monte L. Bean Museum. The construction costs will be covered by generous donors, and the Church has signaled its commitment to increased quality and quantity in our broadcast programming.  

Campus Infrastructure

New buildings are not our primary goal or focus, but they are the accompaniment of the continued progress that will be necessary to meet our prophetic destiny.  

We expect, again thanks to the generosity of supportive donors, to have an expansion of the Monte L. Bean Museum in the near future. 

The southeast quadrant of campus will be receiving great attention in the not-too-distant future because we have tremendous needs to become more current in our facilities for life sciences and engineering and technology. 

Guided by Prophets

The mission and goals of the university are set by the BYU Board of Trustees. The board is chaired by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: President Thomas S. Monson, chair; President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, vice chairs.

We respect and sustain our BYU Board of Trustees, including the policy guidelines they set and the important principles they teach by which we are entrusted to govern much of what takes place here on a daily basis ourselves. Our leaders are generous, and they wish us to completely and fully understand and support the university’s mission. 

As we all know, we have been defined by our board as a primarily undergraduate teaching university with some graduate programs of distinction and high quality. Accordingly, we do research, serious inquiry, or creative work because it enhances the learning and teaching environment for our students. We see these efforts as supportive of, rather than competing with, our involvements with students. 

At BYU we strive to reach the heights and stature we have been challenged to achieve as we fulfill the prophecies of our prophet leaders regarding BYU.  

President Spencer W. Kimball, who spoke at BYU often and had obvious love and high expectations for this university, said:  

The uniqueness of Brigham Young University lies in its special role—education for eternity—which it must carry in addition to the usual tasks of a university. This means concern—curricular and behavioral—for not only the “whole man” but for the “eternal man.” Where all universities seek to preserve the heritage of knowledge that history has washed to their feet, this faculty has a double heritage—the preserving of knowledge of men and the revealed truths sent from heaven. [Spencer W. Kimball, “Education for Eternity,” pre-school address to BYU faculty and staff, 12 September 1967, 1–2] 

We value teaching. We value scholarship. We value citizenship. We consider each and all to be essential for BYU to achieve the lofty goals established for this special place. 

We at BYU do not seek to keep the linkage between learning and moral character as merely a matter of tradition. We believe the best learning and teaching are linked causally, not casually, with the foundational principles that infuse inquiry, creativity, and research in the most open and free learning and inquiring environments.  

Being the Best We Can Be

In fact, one of the great missions of this university is for each of us to model the truth that we must do all we can to inquire, create, research, learn, teach, manage, and serve knowing our best efforts may be rewarded with inspiration and knowledge from God. 

It is in the processes and activities of thinking, deliberating, discussing, testing, trying, changing, working, praying, and listening to each other and the Spirit that we make the heaven-intended progress that we must make. Learning “line upon line, precept upon precept” (D&C 98:12) is more than a catchy scriptural phrase. It is the process that each of us, and certainly this institution, must go through to reach our eternal goals.

I end where I began, by thanking you for being part of the great venture and adventure we call Brigham Young University and by looking forward in taking the next steps together as we make ourselves and Brigham Young University the very best we can be.