Don’t worry, Presidents Day is still a February holiday, but a January presidents’ day is coming up soon for BYU and its sister schools BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii.
The presidents of all three schools are scheduled to speak at winter semester-opening devotionals on Tuesday, making it a major day in the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
All three presidents lead growing faith-based universities at a time when religious colleges and universities are seeing increased student interest and enrollment.
In the fall, a record total of 117,204 students were enrolled in higher education courses offered by the colleges and universities sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also include Ensign College and BYU-Pathway Worldwide. BYU-PW helps students gain access to and earn online degrees from BYU-Idaho and Ensign College.
Here is how to watch all three devotionals and, below, what to expect from the university presidents:
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BYU President Shane Reese and Sister Wendy Reese, Marriott Center, Provo, Utah, 11:05 a.m. (Broadcasts: BYUtv, BYUtv.org, KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM, BYUradio 107.9 FM, and SiriusXM 143.)
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BYU-Hawaii President John “Keoni” Kauwe and Sister Monica Kauwe, Cannon Activities Center, Laie, Hawaii, 2 p.m. MT (Broadcast: byuh.edu/live-stream.)
The BYU presidents use devotionals to start a semester to encourage students and set a distinctly spiritual tone for their campuses, which was abundantly evident in their recent devotionals. Their spouses also speak.
All three are relatively young and new to their positions. Reese and Meredith were appointed in 2023 and Kauwe in 2020.
BYU President Shane Reese
Reese, 53, became BYU’s 14th president in March 2023. He previously worked as a statistician solving problems in professional sports, national security and business. Prior to his presidency, he served on campus as a dean and academic vice president.
He has delivered four devotionals during his tenure, including his inauguration. An overarching theme of his talks and presidency has been “becoming BYU.”
He has defined that as continuing to refine the university’s student-centric approach, its mission to produce graduates fluent in both academics and faith and its courage to stand its ground as a religion-based university while building a covenant community and focusing on mission-aligned research and hiring.
For Reese, becoming BYU includes both “individual transformation and institutional progress.”
He opened the school year in September with a devotional in which he encouraged students, faculty and staff “to embrace the process of going from here to there — the process of becoming.
Reese said the necessary components to becoming are:
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A crisp vision for what one wants to become.
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Persistent and consistent effort.
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Making and honoring covenants with God.
“Jesus Christ is our ultimate example of becoming,” he said. “He had a vision of his divine role as the Savior of the World. His vision for those to whom he ministered was majestic and inspiring. He built others. He aligned his will with his Father’s will exactly. He loved perfectly. He kept his covenants with the Father. As with all things, Jesus is the answer. His perfect life was and is the divine model for each of us.”
BYU-Idaho President Alvin Meredith
Elder Meredith, 54, became BYU-Idaho’s 18th president in August 2023. A General Authority Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ since 2021, he holds an MBA and worked in business prior to his calling to church service.
He started the school year in September with a devotional in which he called BYU-Idaho students to become the covenant-keeping disciple-leaders that church and university leaders want them to be.
President of Brigham Young University-Idaho Alvin F. Meredith III and Sister Meredith both speak during a devotional to high school age youth and their parents from throughout Utah County at the Marriott Center on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News
For Latter-day Saints, keeping covenants means to keep the promises a person makes with God at baptism and in holy temples to take Christ’s name, follow his commandments, serve others, build the kingdom of God and be pure.
“My hope is that you … will make and keep covenants with God, and that you will feel his blessings of power and confidence in your lives from doing so, that you will become the type of disciples that will emulate the Savior and his attributes, that you will become the type of leaders that will be devoted and courageous and will build and lift and encourage others,” Elder Meredith said.
BYU-Hawaii President John “Keoni” Kauwe
Elder Kauwe, 44, became BYU-Hawaii’s 11th president in July 2020. He became an Area Seventy of the church in April, serving the North America West Area, which includes Hawaii, the west coast, Alaska, British Columbia and parts of Idaho.
Kauwe is an internationally recognized researcher specializing in Alzheimer’s disease and previously served as the dean of Graduate Studies at BYU in Provo, Utah, where he was born.
Elder Kauwe’s mission as BYU-Hawaii’s president has been to develop “an absolute and unapologetic focus on our mission” to prepare students from Oceania and the Asian Rim “to be lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ and leaders in their families, communities, chosen fields and in building the kingdom of God,” he said in September at his last devotional.
BYU–Hawaii President John S.K. Kauwe III speaks at the college’s first devotional of the fall semester in Laie, Hawaii, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. | Monique Saenz, BYU–Hawaii
Over the past four years, he reported the university has increased the number of students on campus from Oceania and the Pacific Rim by hundreds. This fall, students from that region made up 70% of the 2,906 students on campus.
“Let’s talk about your purpose as a BYU-Hawaii student,” Elder Kauwe said. “You are here, first, to become a dedicated, covenant-keeping disciple of Jesus Christ, and second, to develop the capacity to be a leader throughout your life.”
January devotionals at Ensign College and BYU-Pathway Worldwide
The presidents of Ensign and BYU-PW already delivered their winter term-opening devotionals.
Ensign College President Bruce Kusch and his wife Alynda spoke Tuesday in the campus Multipurpose Room.
Kusch is the dean of CES presidents, having served in his role since 2017. He invited students to “have your very own, very personal Sacred Grove experience,” a reference to seeking personal revelation and divine connection through prayer.
BYU-PW President Brian Ashton and his wife, Sister Melinda Ashton, spoke during a live-streamed devotional Friday to students around the world.
Ashton has been BYU-PW’s leader since 2021.
The Ashtons’ message, given together in a back-and-forth delivery, was about “how gospel covenants allow us to obtain power and blessings from God, so we can return to live with him.”
They described how the Hebrew word for covenantal love is hesed (חֶסֶד), which “has no adequate English equivalent” but was rendered as lovingkindness by King James Version translators of the Bible. Sister Ashton said.
“Hesed is a unique term describing a covenant relationship in which both parties are bound to be loyal and faithful to each other,” she said. “God makes covenants with us out of love. We should, likewise, be motivated to make covenants with God because of our love for him.”
President Ashton said, “With God’s help and power, we can do things that would otherwise be impossible by relying only on our own talents and strengths.”