BYU Aims of Education Explained

Brigham Young University (BYU), an institution founded, supported, and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holds a unique position in the landscape of higher education. Its mission extends beyond the traditional academic pursuits, aiming to assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life. This article delves into the distinctive qualities of BYU, exploring its mission, educational goals, and the principles that underpin its approach to education.

The Unique Role of BYU

BYU's uniqueness 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.” While 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 the knowledge of men and the revealed truths sent from heaven.

While all universities seek to push back the frontiers of knowledge further and further, this faculty must do that and also keep new knowledge in perspective so that the avalanche of facts does not carry away saving, exalting truths from the value systems of our youth.

In addition, this faculty must aid the youth of the kingdom in establishing yet another educational expectation-that there are yet “many great and important things” to be revealed which require an intellectual and spiritual posture of readiness and openness. Where other institutions of higher education aim, in part, at educating and training students for various careers, this faculty must do that vital job and do it superbly well, but it must do far more. It must train a cadre of committed, educated youth who can serve effectively, not only in the world of work but in the growing kingdom of God in which skilled leadership is such a vital commodity.

The Mission of BYU

The mission of Brigham Young University is to assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life. That assistance should provide a period of intensive learning in a stimulating setting where a commitment to excellence is expected and the full realization of human potential is pursued. All instruction, programs, and services at BYU, including a wide variety of extracurricular experiences, should make their own contribution toward the balanced development of the total person. Such a broadly prepared individual will not only be capable of meeting personal challenge and change but will also bring strength to others in the tasks of home and family life, social relationships, civic duty, and service to mankind. To succeed in this mission the university must provide an environment enlightened by living prophets and sustained by those moral virtues which characterize the life and teachings of the Son of God.

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Four Major Educational Goals

Within this unique environment, four major educational goals prevail:

1. Spiritual Strengthening

All students at BYU should be taught the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any education is inadequate which does not emphasize that His is the only name given under heaven whereby mankind can be saved. Certainly all relationships within the BYU community should reflect devout love of God and a loving, genuine concern for the welfare of our neighbor.

The spirit giveth life is so true in so many ways. When there is an inner emptiness in the life of man, his surroundings, however affluent, cannot compensate. When there is a crisis of purpose, nothing will really seem worthwhile or meaningful. When man’s relationship with God has been breached, we will be, as Isaiah said, restless as the sea, [which] cannot rest. A university or an individual can have all the surface signs of security and yet still be empty inside. You must fill the classrooms and halls of this campus with facts, but fill them also with the Spirit of the Master Teacher, who said to the Nephites of the things He had done, “Even so shall ye do unto the world.”

2. Intellectual Enlargement

Because the gospel encourages the pursuit of all truth, students at BYU should receive a broad university education. The arts, letters, and sciences provide the core of such an education, which will help students think clearly, communicate effectively, understand important ideas in their own cultural tradition as well as that of others, and establish clear standards of intellectual integrity.

Learn everything that the children of men know, and be prepared for the most refined society upon the face of the earth, then improve upon this until we are prepared and permitted to enter the society of the blessed-the holy angels that dwell in the presence of God.

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3. Character Building

In addition to a strong general education, students should also receive instruction in the special fields of their choice. The university cannot provide programs in all possible areas of professional or vocational work, but in those it does provide the preparation must be excellent. Students who graduate from BYU should be capable of competing with the best in their fields.

4. Lifelong Learning and Service

Scholarly research and creative endeavor among both faculty and students, including those in selected graduate programs of real consequence, are essential and will be encouraged.

In meeting these objectives BYU's faculty, staff, students, and administrators should also be anxious to make their service and scholarship available to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in furthering its work worldwide. In an era of limited enrollments, BYU can continue to expand its influence both by encouraging programs that are central to the Church's purposes and by making its resources available to the Church when called upon to do so. We believe the earnest pursuit of this institutional mission can have a strong effect on the course of higher education and will greatly enlarge Brigham Young University's influence in a world we wish to improve.

The Aims of a BYU Education: A Comprehensive Whole

The Aims of a BYU Education are: (1) spiritually strengthening, (2) intellectually enlarging, and (3) character building, leading to (4) lifelong learning and service. The elements of the Aims of a BYU Education should not be seen as discrete objectives but as a comprehensive whole, a single overarching aim. And this aim should be seen more as a means than an end. A BYU education is not privilege enhancement but as service enhancement.

Service as the Fiber of an Exalted Life

We lose our life by serving and lifting others. By so doing, we experience the only true and lasting happiness. Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made.

Knowing that service is what gives our Father in Heaven fulfillment, and knowing that we want to be where He is and as He is, why must we be commanded to serve one another? Oh, for the glorious day when these things all come naturally because of the purity of our hearts. In that day there will be no need for a commandment because we will have experienced for ourselves that we are truly happy only when we are engaged in unselfish service. Let us use the freedom which comes from self-reliance in giving and serving.

Can we see how critical self-reliance becomes when looked upon as the prerequisite to service, when we also know service is what Godhood is all about? Without self-reliance one cannot exercise these innate desires to serve. How can we give if there is nothing there? Food for the hungry cannot come from empty shelves. Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse. Support and understanding cannot come from the emotionally starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. And most important of all, spiritual guidance cannot come from the spiritually weak.

Our efforts with respect to spiritual strengthening, intellectual enlargement, character development, and lifelong learning, while worthy ends, are more importantly means and resources enabling us to lose our lives in the service of God and our fellow men and women.

Learning is not an end unto itself but a means to bless God’s children. This is well and simply expressed in the university motto: “Enter to learn; go forth to serve.”

Our time at BYU should enhance our capacity to advance the kingdom of God on the earth, to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees,” and to extend charity, the pure love of Christ, throughout civil society as well as the Church. It is a season to figuratively fill our purses and stock our shelves with resources we can draw upon to help meet future needs-our own and others’-and to store up emotional and spiritual strength and resilience that will sustain us and others in time to come.

Requisites for a BYU Education to Serve as a Means to the Higher End of Life

For a BYU education to serve as the means to the higher end of life in the service of God and His children, three things are needed:

1. Cultivate a Love of God and of Fellow Men and Women

The first is the most basic: to cultivate a love of God and of fellow men and women.

Beginning from our primal state as intelligences, our Heavenly Father has centered Himself and His work in us-in our immortality and eternal life. He sees it as His work and glory to do so. I don’t believe He had to do any of it, so why has He done this for us? What is His motivation? Can it be anything but love? Clear evidence of this is the gift of His Son: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.

Is it too much to ask that in return we center our lives in God and love Him as He has loved us, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? How can we resist His love for us and withhold our own love from Him knowing that our love of God is the key to our own happiness? . . .

The bottom line is that God commands us to love Him because of what He knows it will do for us. He commands us to love one another for the same reason. Love of God transforms us. Love of God transforms our love for each other. This love is requisite for our coming to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent . It is the key to our becoming like Him.

Putting the first commandment first does not diminish or limit our ability to keep the second commandment. To the contrary, it amplifies and strengthens it. It means that we enhance our love by anchoring it in divine purpose and power. It means that we have the Holy Ghost to inspire us in ways to reach out that we would never have seen on our own. Our love of God elevates our ability to love others more fully and perfectly because we in essence partner with God in the care of His children.

We grow to love what and who we serve. As we serve and sacrifice for God, our love for Him grows; as we serve and sacrifice for others, our love for them grows. This is the pure love of Christ-charity-and it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift we can ask for. Mormon counsels, “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ.”

We often focus our love of fellow men and women within the Church-what the scriptures call “the household of faith.” I urge that we consider an added focus on civic charity-that is, cultivating a greater measure of this Christlike love for those outside the household of faith. I believe we can be more intentional in making this the primary motivation for all we do in the community and in the world as well as in the Church.

2. Stay Focused on Our Priority Identities

The second requisite in realizing the higher end for which a BYU education provides the crucial means is to stay focused on our priority identities.

President Nelson asked, “Who are you?” and then taught:

First and foremost, you are a child of God.

Second, as a member of the Church, you are a child of the covenant.

And third, you are a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Tonight, I plead with you not to replace these three paramount and unchanging identifiers with any others, because doing so could stymie your progress or pigeonhole you in a stereotype that could potentially thwart your eternal progression.

Labels can be fun and indicate your support for any number of positive things. Many labels will change for you with the passage of time. And not all labels are of equal value. But if any label replaces your most important identifiers, the results can be spiritually suffocating. . . .

Labels can lead to judging and animosity. Any abuse or prejudice toward another because of nationality, race, sexual orientation, gender, educational degrees, culture, or other significant identifiers is offensive to our Maker! Such mistreatment causes us to live beneath our stature as His covenant sons and daughters!

There are various labels that may be very important to you, of course. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that other designations and identifiers are not significant. I am simply saying that no identifier should displace, replace, or take priority over these three enduring designations: “child of God,” “child of the covenant,” and “disciple of Jesus Christ.”

Any identifier that is not compatible with these three basic designations will ultimately let you down.

Enthroning the paramount identities expressed by President Nelson above all lesser ones allows us to maintain a true perspective regarding ourselves and others. We see more clearly what helps and what does not help as we strive to make positive contributions. It helps us cultivate the motivating love I mentioned a moment ago.

In society today, we often share a common vision or understanding of needs and objectives. Not always but quite often we see eye to eye on desirable societal outcomes. It is not uncommon, however, for there to be sharp disagreement on the means and methods to achieve these goals. On cable and online, we may demonize people, opinions, and approaches we see as making the problem worse rather than better or as creating more problems. The temptation to apply hateful labels is almost overwhelming. If our eye is fixed on our paramount identities, however, we can resist that temptation. We can even learn to love our enemies (who all share the first and highest of these identities-child of God) even as we oppose them. When and if we must contend, it will be without anger.

Our service for the betterment of individuals and societies can obtain truly significant results only as we remember first and foremost who and what we are.

3. Possess and Promote the Virtue of Forgiveness

Third and finally, to apply successfully the means represented by the Aims of a BYU Education to the greater end, we need to possess and promote the virtue of forgiveness.

We must acknowledge that in this mortal sphere there is injustice, there is oppression. It is deep and widespread. Some offenses are minor, even unintended, while others are monumental. Some are incomprehensible to most and understood fully only by those who suffer them. The Holocaust of World War II is one of an unfortunately long series we find throughout history. Racism is another that has been widely experienced in countless ways and places. These must be resisted and overcome, sometimes repeatedly.

On the other hand, we are seeing today in academia and in society a growing practice of perpetual grievance, victimization, and division. It is characterized by a philosophy that no wrong can ever be fully redeemed and no aggression, indignity, or injury can ever be totally forgiven. Once victimized, a person, a group, or a people never cease to be victims. It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, future discrimination for past discrimination. It breeds what has come to be known as the cancel culture.

If God operated like today’s cancel culture, we could expect no mercy and only the harshest form of justice. Even with the most groveling apologies and mea culpas, there would be no forgiveness. Redemption would be impossible. There would be no Savior and no Atonement.

If we are to be able to serve-and to join with others in service-there must at least be the possibility of progress, the possibility of moving beyond the past, the possibility of collaboration, and the possibility of forgiving one another and moving on. I am not suggesting that wrongs be ignored, but I am suggesting that as they are addressed, they should not be allowed to separate and stymie us in perpetuity. Somehow we must be liberated from this prison.

BYU: A Beacon of Light

BYU stands as a beacon of light, a refuge in a world that often seems to have abandoned attempts to influence the moral lives of its students. While great universities and colleges seem to have abandoned all attempts to influence the moral lives of their students, this university must hold the line. The university carries the torch and lights the way, and this faculty and staff must stand like a concrete wall to prevent these strange, worldly ideologies and concepts from invading this, one of the last bastions of resisting strength.

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