Brigham Young University Informations

Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university located in Provo, Utah and owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The university is run under the auspices of its parent-organization, the Church Educational System (CES), and is classified among "Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity" with "more selective, lower transfer-in" admissions. The university's primary emphasis is on undergraduate education in 179 majors, but it also has 62 master's and 26 doctoral degree programs. The university also administers two satellite campuses, one in Jerusalem and one in Salt Lake City.

Students attending BYU agree to follow an honor code that mandates behavior in line with LDS teachings, such as academic honesty, adherence to dress and grooming standards, abstinence from extramarital sex, and no consumption of illegal drugs, coffee, tea, alcohol, or tobacco. Approximately 99 percent of the students are members of the LDS Church. The university curriculum includes religious education, with required courses in the Bible (KJV), LDS scripture, doctrine, and history, and the university sponsors weekly devotional assemblies with most speakers addressing religious topics. Sixty-six percent of students either delay enrollment or take a hiatus from their studies to serve as LDS missionaries. An education at BYU is less expensive than at similar private universities, since "a significant portion" of the cost of operating the university is subsidized by the church's tithing funds.

According to the university’s website, BYU has received recognition and top 20 academic rankings for their undergraduate and graduate business school programs, law school, animation program, production of foreign language degrees, and value.

BYU's athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Cougars. Their college football team is an NCAA Division I Independent, while their other sports teams compete in either the West Coast Conference or Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. BYU's sports teams have won a total of nine NCAA national championships and were named National Champions in football by the Associated Press, the United Press International, Sports Illustrated, CNN-USA Today, and the Football Writers of America in 1984.

The origin of Brigham Young University can be traced back to 1862, when Warren Dusenberry started a Provo school in Cluff Hall, a prominent adobe building in the northeast corner of 200 East and 200 North. After some financial difficulties, the school was recreated in the Kinsey and Lewis buildings on Center street in Provo, and after gaining some recognition for its quality, was adopted to become the Timpanogos branch of the University of Deseret. When financial difficulty forced another closure, on October 16, 1875, Brigham Young, then president of the LDS Church, deeded the property to trustees to create Brigham Young Academy after earlier hinting a school would be built in Draper, Utah, in 1867. Hence, October 16, 1875, is commonly held as BYU's founding date. Brigham Young had been envisioning for several years the concept of a church university. Said Young about his vision: "I hope to see an Academy established in Provo... at which the children of the Latter-day Saints can receive a good education unmixed with the pernicious atheistic influences that are found in so many of the higher schools of the country."

Classes at Brigham Young Academy commenced on January 3, 1876. Warren Dusenberry served as interim principal for several months until April 1876, when Brigham Young's choice for principal arrived—a German immigrant named Karl Maeser. Under Maeser's direction, the school educated many luminaries, including future U.S. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland and future U.S. Senator Reed Smoot. The school, however, did not become a university until the end of Benjamin Cluff's term at the helm of the institution. At that time, the school was also still privately supported by members of the community and was not absorbed and sponsored officially by the LDS Church until July 18, 1896. A series of odd managerial decisions by Cluff led to his demotion; however, in his last official act, he proposed to the Board the Academy be named "Brigham Young University". The suggestion received a large amount of opposition, with many members of the Board saying the school wasn't large enough to be a university, but the decision ultimately passed. One opponent to the decision, Anthon H. Lund, later said, "I hope their head will grow big enough for their hat."

In 1903, Brigham Young Academy was dissolved and replaced by two institutions, Brigham Young High School and Brigham Young University. The BY High School class of 1907 was ultimately responsible for the famous giant "Y" that is to this day embedded on a mountain near campus. The Board elected George H. Brimhall as the new President of BYU. He had not received a high school education until he was forty. Nevertheless, he was an excellent orator and organizer. Under his tenure in 1904 the new Brigham Young University bought 17 acres (69,000 m2) of land from Provo called "Temple Hill". After some controversy among locals over BYU's purchase of this property, construction began in 1909 on the first building on the current campus, the Karl G. Maeser Memorial. Brimhall also presided over the University during a brief crisis involving the theory of evolution. The religious nature of the school seemed at the time to collide with this scientific theory. Joseph F. Smith, LDS Church president, settled the question for a time by asking that evolution not be taught at the school. A few have described the school at this time as nothing more than a "religious seminary". However, many of its graduates at this time would go on to great success and become well renowned in their fields.

In 1921, Franklin S. Harris was appointed president of the university. He was the first BYU president to have a doctoral degree. Harris made several important changes to the school, reorganizing it into a true university, whereas before, its organization had remnants of the Academy days. At the beginning of his tenure, the school was not officially recognized as a university by any accreditation organization. By the end of his term, the school was accredited under all major accrediting organizations at the time. He was replaced by Howard S. McDonald, who received his doctorate from the University of California. When he first received the position, the Second World War had just ended, and thousands of students were flooding into BYU. By the end of his stay, the school had grown nearly five times to 5,440 students. The university did not have the facilities to handle such a large influx, so he bought part of an Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah and rebuilt it to house some of the students. The next president, Ernest L. Wilkinson, also oversaw a period of intense growth, as the school adopted an accelerated building program. Wilkinson was responsible for the building of over eighty structures on the campus, many of which still stand. During his tenure, the student body increased six-fold, making BYU the largest private school at the time. The quality of the students also increased, leading to higher educational standards at the school. Finally, Wilkinson reorganized the LDS Church units on campus, with ten stakes and over 100 wards being added during his administration.

Dallin H. Oaks replaced Wilkinson as president in 1971. Oaks continued the expansion of his predecessor, adding a law school and proposing plans for a new School of Management. During his administration, a new library was also added, doubling the library space on campus.Jeffrey R. Holland followed as president in 1980, encouraging a combination of educational excellence and religious faith at the university. He believed one of the school's greatest strengths was its religious nature and this should be taken advantage of rather than hidden. During his administration, the university added a campus in Jerusalem, now called the BYU Jerusalem Center. In 1989, Holland was replaced by Rex E. Lee. Lee was responsible for the Benson Science Building and the Museum of Art on campus. A cancer victim, Lee is memorialized annually at BYU during a cancer fundraiser called the Rex Lee Run. Shortly before his death, Lee was replaced in 1995 by Merrill J. Bateman.

Bateman was responsible for the construction of 36 new buildings for the university both on and off campus, including the expansion of the Harold B. Lee Library. He was also one of several key college leaders who brought about the creation of the Mountain West Conference, which BYU's athletics program joined — BYU previously participated in the Western Athletic Conference. A BYU satellite TV network also opened in 2000 under his leadership. Bateman was followed by Cecil O. Samuelson in 2003. Samuelson was succeeded by Kevin J Worthen in 2014.

The main campus in Provo, Utah, sits on approximately 560 acres (2.3 km2) nestled at the base of the Wasatch Mountains and includes 295 buildings. The buildings feature a wide variety of architectural styles, each building being built in the style of its time. The grass, trees, and flower beds on BYU's campus are impeccably maintained. Furthermore, views of the Wasatch Mountains, (including Mount Timpanogos) can be seen from the campus. BYU's Harold B. Lee Library (also known as "HBLL"), which The Princeton Review ranked as the No. 1 "Great College Library" in 2004, has approximately 8.5 million items in its collections, contains 98 miles (158 km) of shelving, and can seat 4,600 people. The Spencer W. Kimball Tower, shortened to SWKT and pronounced Swicket by many students, is home to several of the university's departments and programs and is the tallest building in Provo, Utah. Furthermore, BYU's Marriott Center, used as a basketball arena, can seat over 19,000 and is one of the largest on-campus arenas in the nation. Absent on the campus of this church owned university is a campus chapel. Notwithstanding, each Sunday LDS Church services for students are conducted on campus, but due to the large number of students attending these services, nearly all of the buildings and possible meeting spaces on campus are utilized (in addition, many students attend services off campus in LDS chapels in the surrounding communities).

The campus is home to several museums containing exhibits from many different fields of study. BYU's Museum of Art, for example, is one of the largest and most attended art museums in the Mountain West. This museum aids in academic pursuits of students at BYU via research and study of the artworks in its collection. The museum is also open to the general public and provides educational programming. The Museum of Peoples and Cultures is a museum of archaeology and ethnology. It focuses on native cultures and artifacts of the Great Basin, American Southwest, Mesoamerica, Peru, and Polynesia. Home to more than 40,000 artifacts and 50,000 photographs, it documents BYU's archaeological research. The BYU Museum of Paleontology was built in 1976 to display the many fossils found by BYU's James A. Jensen. It holds many vertebrate fossils from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and is one of the top five vertebrate fossil collections in the world from the Jurassic. The museum receives about 25,000 visitors every year. The Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum was formed in 1978. It features several forms of plant and animal life on display and available for research by students and scholars.

The campus also houses several performing arts facilities. The de Jong Concert Hall seats 1282 people and is named for Gerrit de Jong Jr. The Pardoe Theatre is named for T. Earl and Kathryn Pardoe. Students use its stage in a variety of theatre experiments, as well as for Pardoe Series performances. It seats 500 people, and has quite a large stage with a proscenium opening of 19 by 55 feet (17 m). The Margetts Theatre was named for Philip N. Margetts, a prominent Utah theatre figure. A smaller, black box theater, it allows a variety of seating and staging formats. It seats 125, and measures 30 by 50 feet (15 m). The Nelke Theatre, named for one of BYU's first drama teachers, is used largely for instruction in experimental theater. It seats 280.

BYU has on-campus housing communities for freshmen students as well as for students 19 years and older. Single students who are freshmen have three options for on-campus housing: Heritage Halls, Helaman Halls, and the Foreign Language Student Residence (FLSR). On-campus housing for single students 19 years old and older is available at Wyview Park, Heritage Halls, and in the Foreign Language Student Residence Halls. On-campus married students live in Wymount Terrace or Wyview Park.

Heritage Halls was a twenty-four-building housing complex on campus which offers apartment-style living. It has been replaced by a newer housing complex. The halls house both male and female students, divided by gender into separate buildings. Each building consists of 5 stories with 10 to 14 rooms per level (excluding basement, which consists of laundry and bike storage). Rooms house 4 to 6 people.

Helaman Halls is a housing complex that underwent a 12-year renovation between 1991 and 2004. Helaman Halls is a nine-building (ninth opened in the summer of 2010), dormitory-style living area. Residents share a room with one other resident, but do not have their own kitchen and use shared bathrooms. Residents are required to have a meal plan, which allows them to purchase food at several locations on campus, including various BYU Creamery locations and the Commons at the Cannon Center.

Wyview Park was originally built for families in 1996, but this changed in 2006 when the complex began housing single students in order to counteract loss of singles' housing in other areas. Wyview Park has 30 buildings that offer apartment-style living for students, along with the option for shared or single rooms.

The Foreign Language Student Residence complex has twenty-five apartments where students speak exclusively in a selected foreign language. The immersion experience is available in nine languages, and students are accompanied by a native resident throughout the year to enhance the experience.

Married students can house on-campus in Wymount Terrace, which contains a total of 462 apartments in 24 buildings.

Complete article available at this page.