Summiting BYU’s Everest

For the past few years, I have centered my advancement summit remarks on President Spencer W. Kimball’s second-century address,¹ and this year will be no exception. In prior years I have discussed how being a part of this university—a modern-day manifestation of the School of the Prophets²—provides us an opportunity to receive an endowment of knowledge and power to help each one of us share with the world the unique light of Jesus Christ’s restored gospel. I have also discussed how our relationships with each other and, in particular, with our students need to be infused with an integrated, “bilingual”³ culture and how our level of conviction to embracing that approach will govern the level of revelation and guidance we receive to move our areas forward—both individually and as groups.

This year I would like to build on those themes, but I first want to share how inspired I have been by so many in our advancement organization who have leaned into this counsel. I have seen examples and heard anecdotes of many of you trying hard to raise the level of inspiration in your interactions with others, especially with our students. I have spent time myself working to increase my student interactions, trying to develop mentoring relationships and then trying to infuse those relationships with an integrated, bilingual culture. This is hard work. It pushes me as much as any other aspect of my work, and so I have come to more deeply appreciate the energy and effort it takes and the energy and effort you are putting into this. Thank you for being who you are and for responding to invitations that have been extended by our leadership to offer inspiring learning and mentoring to our students.

I also want to express my strongest endorsement of the instruction we have received from multiple prophets on this campus—starting with President Kimball in 1975 and continuing to the present, even in the past few years with the counsel of Elder David A. Bednar, President Jeffrey R. Holland, and President Dallin H. Oaks.⁴ May we never tire of thinking about, praying about, and working to accomplish what God intends for us to accomplish at His university in the second half of BYU’s second century. We should, as counseled by President Kimball and Elder Bednar, always be thinking of “what may be coming next.”⁵ My hope is that as a result of our summit today, each of us gleans some insight—some impression—to help us to see our pathway forward.

To help us find that pathway, I will share a statement President Kevin J Worthen offered in his inaugural address: “The question for us is how we can best move this important work forward at this time. My answer is simple: by going to the mountains.”⁶ Today, like President Worthen back in 2014, I would like to go to the hills and the mountains in my remarks.⁷ What do I mean by this? Let me start by tying in a well-known quote from the second-century address in which President Kimball used a metaphor to describe our pathway forward. He stated:

It ought to be obvious to you, as it is to me, that some of the things the Lord would have occur in the second century of BYU are hidden from our immediate view. Until we have climbed the hill just before us, we are not apt to be given a glimpse of what lies beyond. The hills ahead are higher than we think.⁸

Becoming an Educational Everest

For many years when I have read this passage, I have introspectively felt a charge. I have thought, “Am I up for this demanding challenge?” And I have sensed that climbing the hills and mountains before us may allude to significant opportunities—maybe even obstacles or growing pains for this university—that we must experience to move us to the next stage, the next level. Mountains and hills can be very challenging to climb, and President Kimball indicated that they “are higher than we think.” In response to this interpretation, I have tried to put myself in a position in which I can answer that I am prepared for the hike, that I am committed to the climb, and that when I do not see the hills ahead, I can trust that prophets, seers, and revelators do.

It doesn’t end there, though. President Kimball also used a mountain or hill metaphor by prophesying that we at BYU are in the process of “becoming an ‘educational Everest.’ There are many ways in which BYU can tower above other universities . . . because of the unique light BYU can send forth into the educational world.”⁹

In thinking of how we advance BYU’s unique light, I have generally interpreted this mountain reference as signaling that among all the universities in the world, Brigham Young University should aim to become a grand example to the world of an inspired university; that our academics, arts, athletics, and extracurricular pursuits should be conducted in a distinctive manner, built on the gospel of Jesus Christ; and that accomplishing this would take the climbing work of summiting one hill after another as we are moving toward Everest-like peaks, as described by President Kimball.

Now I think these interpretations are correct, appropriate, and intended, and I wouldn’t suggest otherwise, but I have also come to see hills and mountains in a new light—one that I believe grounds or frames these other interpretations. What characteristic of Mount Everest represents the essence of President Kimball’s charge to become an educational version of that mountain? The obvious answer might be that it is the tallest mountain in the world.

Well, in fact, the tallest mountain in the world is debated, depending on which definition of “tallest” you use. Mount Everest reaches a greater height than any other mountain. But Mount McKinley, in my home state of Alaska, is argued by some to be the tallest aboveground mountain with the largest relief—distance from the base of the mountain to its top—of any mountain, with that distance being greater than twenty thousand feet. Even still, Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, is the tallest mountain in the world if you account for its underwater base, which makes a total relief of more than thirty-three thousand feet.

I invite you to consider that the most relevant distinguishing characteristic of Mount Everest in the context of President Kimball’s charge may be less about its summit’s distance from sea level and more about its summit’s symbolic proximity to the heavens, to deity, to our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ. President Kimball’s charge for BYU to become an educational Mount Everest starts with us ensuring that no other university’s experiences lead their students to be closer to our Father in Heaven than our university’s.

This perspective offers a number of powerful implications. Today I am going to consider a few, but I invite you to study and ponder other ways that this metaphor can help guide your work here at BYU.

Implication 1: Priority

This metaphor ensures that our primary objective is, not surprisingly, our students, even for all of us in the BYU advancement organization. Our primary objective is not to be an example to the world; it is to assist students along the difficult, challenging paths of hill climbing, aiding them to Everest heights prior to their leaving this campus. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior commanded, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven,”¹⁰ but this was only after He had first given the teaching to pursue and obtain characteristics such as meekness, purity of heart, being a peacemaker, and enduring persecution “for righteousness’ sake.”¹¹ That order matters—the intended priority matters—and when student development is not priority one and two and maybe three, we risk leading our students down paths that end far from Everest’s summit.

Another lesson in prioritization comes from the fact that President Kimball’s metaphor referenced an object that was constructed by deity and not by man. He could have used the CN Tower, which in 1975 had become the tallest man-made structure at the time, reaching 1,815 feet tall. Our lesson again is one of priority: we cannot fall prey to pride—like those after the Flood and like so many universities in recent decades, particularly private Christian universities that have come to believe that they know the best path to gain God’s wisdom. With a lack of faith and an excess of pride, both in ancient times and in our day, some set out to construct their own educational Tower of Babel, substituting it for the Lord’s mountain. Perhaps myopically, perhaps arrogantly, they believe they will reach the highest summit through their own means better than—or, at least, instead of—through the Lord’s means for reaching His summit.

It is a question of both means and destination. The means employed by those unfamiliar with the summits designed by the Lord will lead to a hilltop, to be sure. But that is not the summit we seek. That will not bring us to the closest proximity to Him, nor will our educational Everest be attained by anything other than “gospel methodology.”¹²

We must not follow that pattern and misalign our priorities. Even if those efforts are well intended, that is not our path because it is not directed by God. That path will never have the power to lead our students to close proximity to their Father in Heaven and His direction and wisdom. Along these lines I offer the following counsel: For those who think they or the voices of the educational experts of today can do a better job than our board—better than prophets, seers, and revelators—in architecting a BYU student experience of climbing the spiritual, academic, character, and service hills that culminate in an Everest-like summit, I would suggest they consider the fate of those who constructed the Tower of Babel and how successful those efforts were.

Elder Holland offered this counsel:

It seems clear to me in my seventy-three years of loving [this university] that BYU will become an “educational Mt. Everest” only to the degree it embraces its uniqueness, its singularity. We could mimic every other university in the world until we got a bloody nose in the effort, and the world would still say, “BYU who?” No, we must have the will to be different and to stand alone, if necessary, being a university second to none in its role primarily as an undergraduate teaching institution that is unequivocally true to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.¹³

Focusing on our students and the hill-climbing paths that prophets have outlined to lead them to their BYU Everest summits will best enable us to fulfill our mission. If instead our core focus is to be an example to the world or to lead students along paths architected by anyone other than God through His living prophets, we will not succeed in our mission. I invite each of us to do the work needed to ensure that our priorities are aligned.

Implication 2: Perspective

Beginning in the earliest dispensations, the Lord established a pattern of calling His chosen up to the tops of mountains. More than once Moses was called up to Mount Sinai, where he was taught, physically changed through an interaction with the Lord, and given the Lord’s covenant to share with the children of Israel. On multiple occasions as well, Nephi was summoned to the mountains. Elijah, the brother of Jared, even the Savior Himself—these men all had powerful and, in many ways, similar mountain experiences.

In his earliest recorded mountain experience, Nephi “was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain” and during that experience was given the vision of the tree of life, taught about the role of the Savior Jesus Christ, and shown the promised land, where his family would eventually settle.¹⁴ Other mountain experiences recorded in the scriptures demonstrate similar common elements that can act as guideposts to both direct and discipline our efforts to implement prophetically directed paths, aiding our students to reach these Everest-like spiritual summits.

The story of Moses as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price provides an example of these powerful common messages taught during mountain experiences. These messages include the following lessons:

1. Who God and Jesus Christ are and how They feel about us: “And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years.”¹⁵

2. Who we are and our divine potential: “And, behold, thou art my son. . . . And thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth.”¹⁶

3. How we are directed to contribute to God’s work and how God will enable us to accomplish this work: “And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son.”¹⁷

These three powerful lessons, delivered consistently throughout scriptural mountain experiences, offer compelling guidance as we think about our responsibilities associated with our student interactions. My interactions with students should lead them toward a spiritual confirmation that God is real, that His plan is real and is a plan of happiness, and that because of Jesus Christ’s role in that plan, we can all return to God. My interactions with students should lead them toward a spiritual confirmation that they are children of God, that those who are members of the Church are children of the covenant and disciples of Jesus Christ.¹⁸ My interactions with students should guide them toward their own spiritual experiences in which they will be taught the roles they have been prepared to play in the gathering of Israel—that God has a work for them to do and the power to enable them to accomplish any task. If we can help students along that path to those experiences so that God can confirm those truths in their minds and hearts, BYU will have become for them the educational Everest prophesied by President Kimball.

To put our students in the best position to be powerful instruments in the Lord’s work, we cannot forget our key aims: “A BYU education should be (1) spiritually strengthening, (2) intellectually enlarging, and (3) character building, leading to (4) lifelong learning and service.”¹⁹ Those are each essential mile markers along the path. President Kimball’s mountain metaphor helps us to frame these aims in the context of God’s overarching goal as we “assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life.”²⁰ This doesn’t make our work easier, but it does give us direction and perspective. It gives us an objective to move toward. I hope we can all come to appreciate how helpful that mountain perspective is and make any needed adjustments in our approaches to interacting with students.

I love the phrase “inspiring learning”²¹ introduced to our campus in 2016 by President Worthen and discussed in numerous talks that have followed. In my mind, for our students who are being guided along a difficult path to the summit of an exceedingly high mountain to be taught who God is, who they are, and what work He has for them, this may be the culminating inspiring learning experience for them.

I think of Nephi coming down the mountain after being shown that his next role was to build a ship that would carry his family across oceans to the promised land.²² If Nephi didn’t have conviction in his heart about the first two messages—knowing who God and Jesus Christ are as well as knowing his own primary identities—that task, that work to be done, would have been impossible. Without the promise from the Lord that He would “prepare the way before”²³ him, Nephi may not have summoned the courage to complete this assignment.²⁴

I am confident that throughout his life Nephi had developed a wide range of skills and abilities, perhaps analogous to the knowledge and skills obtained on our campus and on many other campuses today. But for Nephi, it was those skills and abilities paired with divinely delivered messages and lessons that led him to walk down the mountain after that experience inspired and with confidence that would enable him to bless countless lives. God enabled him to think big and gave him the confidence and direction to accomplish the task. The perspectives given to Nephi on the mountain made that the ultimate inspiring learning experience.

The combination of those three simple messages also informs us why, symbolically, our students benefit from reaching Everest-like heights. Getting our students to the summit of BYU Everest, the spot closest to the heavens, is about the perspective that height offers. It is all about getting them to a place where God can show them the inhabitants of their world. It is not about getting them to the highest spot for world to see them. They are being called up to serve—not to be carried up to be seen.

In the BYU 2022 university conference, Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught us how service is the overarching objective of BYU:

I now see the elements of the Aims of a BYU Education not as discrete objectives but as a comprehensive whole, a single overarching aim. And I now see this aim more as a means than an end. I see more clearly a BYU education not as privilege enhancement but as service enhancement.²⁵

This implies that while they are critical and necessary elements to our students’ success, the development of the spiritual, intellectual, and character aims of a BYU education may best be thought of as preparatory hills and critical guideposts along our way to a service-empowering Everest summit. President Kimball’s image of becoming an educational Everest provides prophetic perspective on how we accomplish our mission.

Implication 3: Connection to Temples

Brigham Young University has been described by prophets as a “temple of learning,”²⁶ drawing an analogy to mountain temples used throughout time by the Lord. In fact, President Harold B. Lee stated at President Dallin H. Oaks’s inauguration:

Brigham Young University, led by its president, must never forget its role in bringing to reality the ancient prophecy—to build the mountain of the Lord’s house in the tops of the mountains, so great and so glorious that all nations may come to this place and be constrained to say, “Show us your way that we may walk therein.”²⁷

Let me share two connections between mountains and temples and BYU. I invite you to further ponder and consider these connections and how these comparisons might increase your alignment to our work and how they might help you to be more effective in your work.

Commitment to Holiness

First, temples are holy places, so it is not surprising that we are asked by our board of trustees to create a holy atmosphere here at BYU. When Moses first went up to Sinai, the Lord instructed him, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”²⁸ For any of our students and for any of us climbing the steep slopes toward our BYU Everest summit, we need a modern-day analog to Moses’s shoe removal as our sign to God of our commitment to holiness.

For us, this begins with our employment standard associated with holding a current temple recommend. It also includes the Church Educational System Honor Code and Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations. As you know, many of these standards were recently updated to adopt a more principle-based approach. I want to take just a moment for us to consider the principles governing the dress and grooming standards. They include:

1. Represent the Savior Jesus Christ, the Church, and the Church Educational System

2. Preserve an inspiring environment, without distraction or disruption, where covenants are kept in a spirit of unity so the Holy Ghost can teach truth

3. Promote modesty, cleanliness, neatness, and restraint in dress and grooming

4. Maintain an elevated standard distinctive to educational institutions of the Church of Jesus Christ²⁹

We might think of this list of principles as elements of an essential packing list to take on our hike up BYU Everest, and as with all needed climbing items, it is our responsibility to obtain a deep understanding of what they are and how they can help us. As we do this, our personal commitment to these principles will be strong, and we will also be in a better position to help others understand how a commitment to these principles is essential to their climbing.

The act of working together as a campus community to build a commitment to these standards can bring power, as described by the Prophet Joseph Smith in a statement he made to the early Relief Society sisters: “By union of feeling we obtain pow’r with God.”³⁰ A union, or a unity in these standards, will bring us power and strength—something we might compare to a climbing group’s commitment to each other by all connecting to a common rope, tying each other’s summiting fate to every other member of the climbing party. This is a regular practice for climbing parties that summit most high peaks, including Mount Everest.

Now, we are sure that some member or members of the climbing party at some times will likely feel unduly constrained by that common bond, by what those principles mean for them. In those moments, I hope and expect that we will embrace President C. Shane Reese’s charge that we take the opportunity to counsel and discuss these principles with that wavering member of our climbing party, be it a student or an employee.³¹ I hope that we make every effort to help them to see and embrace the vision of what a BYU experience will be for them when we each embrace a commitment to holiness.

Guides to the Peak

Second, temples teach about the roles of helpers. Recently I had a daughter attend the temple to make temple covenants and receive temple ordinances. This was her first time attending the temple in that capacity, and, as you can imagine, she had some anxiety about what that experience would be like. Much of her anxiety, though, was reduced when she learned that her mother—my wife, Marcie—would be her escort throughout the whole process.

This experience led me to consider the roles of temple escorts and those serving in the temple relative to the role of those who are attending the temple to make covenants and to receive ordinances—those who are new to ascending these temple hills and mountains. Merriam-Webster’s thesaurus definition of escort is “one that accompanies another for protection, guidance, or as a courtesy.”³² In fact, this concept connects with the role of Sherpas in the world of mountain climbing. Sherpas have been described as

highly regarded . . . elite mountaineers and experts . . . , serving as guides at the extreme altitudes of the peaks and passes . . . , particularly for expeditions to climb Mount Everest. . . . Sherpas are renowned in the international climbing and mountaineering community for their hardiness, expertise, and experience at very high altitudes.³³

Our students need us to be the best BYU Everest escorts and sherpas.

An instructive observation of temple escorts and Mount Everest sherpas is that they walk along with those they are helping. They don’t ride a tram or a helicopter to the top of the mountain and then, with a megaphone from a comfortable spot above, shout instructions down to those hiking. They don’t check in every so often to make sure the hike is progressing well. They walk stride for stride with those they are guiding. What does that mean for the students we each have a stewardship to mentor? We might ask ourselves, “Am I developing a relationship with my students so that they know and feel that I am there walking with them?”

For both sherpas and escorts, the trip is all about those they are assisting and not about themselves; they don’t place themselves above those they are guiding. This concept is taught in Doctrine and Covenants 88:122 and 133, in which the counsel is to give everyone an equal seat at the table, including our students.³⁴ How are we doing in our efforts to make equal seats at the table for our students and to treat them as we do all others around the table? Are our table interactions, particularly those including students, governed by humility and meekness? Is their growth and development as important to us as completing the task at hand?

I want to share an experience from my time as an undergraduate student at BYU when one of my professors acted as a sherpa or escort to me. I share this with his permission.

I had the opposite reaction to the course Economics 110 than that of most other BYU students, who can’t wait for it to be over. After taking that class, I changed my major to economics, which was great, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I spent about a year taking classes but felt lost about what to do with economics. And even after many conversations and much study and prayer, I felt stuck in respect to where to go with the degree.

A year into the major, I did well in an econometrics course, and its instructor, James B. McDonald, asked if I would like to work for him. This began a nearly two-year period in which I met with Jim multiple times each week, working on a number of projects. We always talked econometrics, but in nearly every meeting he would also ask about my personal life and sometimes about my spiritual life.

In one of our meetings later in my time working for him, out of the blue he stopped our conversation and said there was something he needed to share. He then told me a story of how one night he had had a dream. In that dream he was shown the solution to an econometrics problem he had been working on. That dream led to a scholarly paper that was published in the then leading econometrics journal and that helped to cement Jim’s reputation in the field. Hearing the story was a spiritual experience for me, and my initial takeaway was a feeling that Jim cared for me and that this was a way for him to show me that care.

Over time I began to sense that, like Jim, I could become both a respected economist and a person of deep faith. This interaction led to actions on my part and confirmations from the Spirit that raised my sights of who I could be and what role I could play. An interesting postscript to this story is that Jim’s paper never really took off in the field of econometrics, but I have come to see that his paper had more important contributions. It allowed Jim to bear witness to many students of the fact that God is real, that He loves Jim, that He had a work for Jim to do, and that Jim’s work was largely to develop faith-filled BYU economists. Jim McDonald was an inspired escort and sherpa to a BYU undergraduate trying to find his own path.

Pointing Students to Spiritual Summits

Let’s return to President Kimball’s metaphor. I invite you to reconsider his charge to become an educational Everest and ask, “What does that mean for me and for us?” My hope is that we keep our focus on student development. I hope that we use our interactions with students to point them toward key important truths and messages that need to sink into their hearts and that they can receive only by climbing the spiritual hills that lie ahead in the order God has organized. There, at those spiritual summits, students can have burned into their hearts and minds the truths that God and Jesus Christ are real and have infinite love for each person; that everyone is literally the offspring of God; that through covenants each can develop a special relationship with God and Jesus Christ that will bring power and knowledge into their life; and that God has a work for each to do and will enable them to accomplish that work. For us to help our students, it is essential that each of us has those same truths and messages burned into our heart and mind.

It is the Lord’s finger touching the hearts of our students that will light them up as the Lord did for the brother of Jared as well as Nephi and other faithful Saints throughout time. Our students will then become beacons of His light all throughout the world in such a unique way that the world will not be able to ignore them and that those with prepared hearts will embrace that light. Our students can go with confidence and purpose to serve a world that desperately needs that kind of BYU graduate and disciple of Jesus Christ. Then the stories will flow, and our advancing the unique light of BYU will come from these bright students—stars making a difference in their families, in their communities, and all throughout the world.

We will need to continue to find additional inspiring and effective ways to help that light to be shared, but we cannot put that effort first. I extended an invitation to our leadership team a few months ago and now extend that same invitation to each and every member of our advancement organization. This year, commit to become an even more consecrated escort, a more expert sherpa, to at least one student. Let those interactions guide our students up challenging climbs to spiritual summits where God will bless them.

To do so means we must become experts in summiting ourselves. Let’s make this coming year that year in which our mountaineering skills are sharper than ever. We need them to be: the crevasses are as treacherous as ever, the ice floes continue to shift, and the slopes are very steep. But the Lord will not leave us alone in this effort. I cannot think of a better climbing party than those in this hall today. I will tie my rope to yours without hesitation or reservation. And then let us all tie our ropes to Jesus Christ, the Master Climber, the Master Escort, and the Master Sherpa. Because of Him, we can all be prepared for the hike and committed to the climb. Because of Him, BYU not only can but will become an educational Everest for our students. And we can help to make that happen. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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