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Honors Program
Honors Tracker

Welcome Back!

Celebrating the Honors Tradition of Learning in the Light

Dear Honors Friends,

I am pleased to welcome you to campus for a new year of Honors at BYU. As the new Director of Honors, I have spent the past months learning about the program and more importantly about the students, faculty and staff who make it one of BYU’s “crown jewels,” as President Jeffrey R. Holland described it.

Honors is unique on BYU campus because while much of a university education is about the narrowing of perspective that comes with academic and professional specialization, the aim of an Honors “education for eternity” is amplitude, what Joseph Smith called enlargement, or “ambitious … godly growth.” Another core objective of the Honors program, as President Spencer W. Kimball described it, is to be a “refining host” that infuses participants with light and helps them develop into “brilliant stars” who can then reflect their light into an often shadowy world.

This is the sesquicentennial of Brigham Young University, and our Honors Program theme during this historic year is rooted in Honors’ dual mission. It comes from a 2008 talk by then academic vice president, and later President of BYU- Hawaii, John Tanner: “We are light bearers in a precious tradition of learning in the light.”

This quote captures the two chief pillars of an honors education: we learn in the light through study and faith, and then reflect our light onto others. Brother Tanner describes this with a memorable metaphor from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, when the hobbit Pippin lights the beacon in Gondor to rally the Riders of Rohan, and concludes:

“We are like those who stand upon mountain peaks, responsible for transmitting light in these last days darkening with signs of battle before the return of the King. Having seen the light from others who have scaled similar peaks, our task is to reflect light to those on the next peak—over and over, from peak to peak, across the miles and the years until the King returns. We are light bearers in a precious tradition of learning in the light.”

I look forward to an exciting year of learning in the light with you, and of finding ways to reflect and take that light across campus and into the world. We have lots of great activities and events planned, including a number of Director’s night activities. And I hope you will take the time to come and chat with me: My door (350D MSRB) is always open to you.

Welcome back!