Sales and Trading Analyst. Competition Winner. Woman in Business. Risk Taker.
“Education is your armor against whatever is going on around you.”
48 ONCE UPON A TIME IN PROVO
BYU’S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP FOOTBALL WIN, 40 YEARS LATER. by
ethan bauer
38 A HIGHER PURPOSE
TEN PEOPLE MAKING HIGHER EDUCATION MORE AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE AND EFFECTIVE. by ethan bauer , samuel benson , natalia galicza and mariya manzhos
LAW OF THE HARVEST
FAITH-BASED UNIVERSITIES ARE GROWING FOR A REASON. by clark g gilbert and shirley hoogstra
“Holistic education is about educating the whole person — body, mind and spirit — within the context of an interconnected world.”
Elder Gilbert is a General Authority Seventy and commissioner of the Church Educational System for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has been president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide and BYU-Idaho, president and CEO of Deseret News, and is a former business professor at Harvard. His essay on the growth of faith-based universities is on page 34.
The Rev. English serves as the director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is the past deputy director of Faith-Based Initiatives for the state of New York. Her commentary on the community impact of faith-affiliated schools is on page 15.
Hoogstra is president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. She is on the boards of the American Council on Education, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Trinity Forum. She also serves on the Evangelical Immigration Table and with the Washington Higher Education Secretariat. Her essay on the growth of faith-based universities is on page 34.
Rockefeller is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College, where he also served as dean of the college, and a former chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, an international foundation. An excerpt from his latest book, “Spiritual Democracy and Our Schools: Renewing the American Spirit with Education for the Whole Child,” is on page 58.
Pakaluk is an economist and associate professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her work has been featured or covered in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, Fox News, the Daily Wire and Epoch Times. Her essay based on her latest book, “Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth,” is on page 68.
Lee-Merrion combines a variety of personal influences from Japanese woodblocks to surrealist paintings in her work that appears regularly in The Guardian, The New Scientist and The New York Times. Her artwork has appeared as a Google Doodle on the 197th birthday of early female physician Elizabeth Blackwell. Lee-Merrion’s illustration is on our cover and page 34.
HARRIET LEE-MERRION
ELDER CLARK G. GILBERT
SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA
CATHERINE R. PAKALUK
STEVEN C. ROCKEFELLER
THE REV. QUE ENGLISH
In the mind of a child with autism, conversation can be overwhelming. But at Brigham Young University, students use an animated social skills coach to help kids, like Scout, find their strengths and have meaningful interactions that build their confidence.
Learning by study, by faith, and by experience, we strive to be among the exceptional universities in the world and an essential university for the world.
THIS IS THE PLACE FOR BUSINESS
Located 10 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City is a Utah State Park with the perfect venues to set your team up for success all year round! With eleven inspiring, tech enabled spaces, we have the ideal venue to fit your corporate needs. Rooms for breakout gatherings, spaces for over 500, free WiFi, trail rides for team building, a variety of catering options, and free and easily accessible parking. This Is The Place for your business!
HEAD OF THE CLASS
As a 20-something in the late 1950s, all Joseph Sorrentino knew were the pool halls and gang life of Brooklyn. He flunked out of school four times, lost dozens of jobs and gained a criminal record that included time in a padded jail. The Marines booted him for mess hall rioting. And so Sorrentino took to street boxing. After one particularly bad bout, he passed a Brooklyn high school with a sign advertising for night school. “My only chance for a better life is through education,” he concluded.
Determined to rise above “the down side of life,” he channeled his street fighting energy toward learning instead. He went on to graduate from night school with its highest grade-point average. He enrolled in the University of California at Santa Barbara, became student body president and graduated magna cum laude. At age 30, after reenlisting in the Marines to repair his record, he became Harvard Law School’s valedictorian.
“I made the commitment that I was going to change my life,” Sorrentino observed, reflecting on his transformation in an interview. “Ultimately the spiritual resources of the individual are the most important elements of his destiny.”
This issue of Deseret Magazine examines America’s higher education crisis, exploring the ideas and highlighting the innovators making higher learning more affordable, accessible and responsive to the marketplace. But, like Sorrentino, this issue also examines the “spiritual resources” that so often sustain and drive transformative educational experiences.
The Rev. Que English writes about religious-based universities lifting community members toward greater prosperity, meaning and joy. In an interview with Ruth Okediji, Mariya Manzhos
unpacks the Harvard Law professor’s unique embrace of both study and faith, while Elder Clark G. Gilbert and Shirley Hoostra provide the blueprint for why many religious institutions are seeing enrollment increases even amid gradual enrollment declines in higher education.
And in an interview with Deseret News executive editor Doug Wilks, the former governor of Indiana and emeritus president of Purdue University Mitch Daniels discusses what campuses can do to regain America’s trust. Stephen C. Rockefeller makes the case for building a spiritual foundation in a child’s education and Richard Vedder points out missing ingredients on college campuses. Looking at solutions, we profile 10 prominent voices in the higher education landscape seeking to make college more affordable, accessible and effective.
Finally, Lois M. Collins interviews one of America’s most prominent embodiments of publicly embracing both religious faith and science, Francis S. Collins, regarding life and his new book: “The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust.”
Changing American higher education and restoring faith in its ability to transform students’ lives is no easy road. During his valedictory speech at Harvard Law School, Sorrentino told an audience that included Henry Kissinger and a smattering of Kennedys that his “long journey to this honor” was “not what social scientists would have predicted.” He admonished the audience: “Do not look for love, tragedy or trauma” to explain his own personal metamorphosis. “It was simply resolution from within” and the reality that “in America such things are possible.” Whether this remains true today will be up to us.
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AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISM
OUR READERS RESPOND
Our annual CONSTITUTION ISSUE in July/August featured a profile of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Mariya Manzhos’ retelling of Barrett’s life story revealed an independent streak that’s emerged in recent court decisions and could make her an influential force on the nation’s highest court (“The Invention — and Reinvention — of Amy Coney Barrett”). Readers took sides on Barrett’s integrity, conservative credentials and court decisions. Others looked back on past swing-vote justices and astutely observed that in the modern era most of them have been Republican appointees. “As someone that has followed the court for over 50 years, I find it interesting that with the current makeup of the court you can predict very little. One thing that is predictable is that the Democratic appointees can be counted on to vote as a bloc on most cases,” wrote John M. Haddow. “The Democrats wailed and gnashed their teeth on Kavanaugh and he turned out to be more moderate, similar to his mentor, Anthony Kennedy. Neil Gorsuch has been with the majority and the minority on opinions. Barrett is once again proving that Republican nominees are hard to predict on a case-by-case basis.”
Wheatley Institute scholar James C. Phillips wrote about the troubling trend of the policymakers and the public “running to the court to get what we want rather than the more painstaking process of legislating” (“The Rise of Our ‘Juristocracy’”). Readers blamed the problem on a dysfunctional and divided Congress that has abandoned the art of compromise and punted its legislative responsibilities to the courts to skirt accountability to voters. “It’s especially dangerous right now when we have the most activist, overly partisan court in memory. The decision on Trump’s immunity was evidence that this court is totally disconnected from the Constitution. King George would be pleased,” wrote Roger Terry Contributing writer Megan Feldman Bettencourt shared the backstory of James Ray Epps, a die-hard Donald Trump supporter who believed the 2020 election was rigged, then unwittingly became the victim of co-conspirators, including leading media pundits and politicians, who accused Epps of being a government plant at the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building. While a few readers discussed the irony of Epps’ situation and the dangers of fomenting conspiracy theories, others relitigated Epps’ guilt or innocence of the federal charges to which he pleaded guilty. A few simply appreciated the cautionary tale that Epps’ experience offers in sorting through the avalanche of misinformation in a digital world: “Excellent and important reporting. Thank you,” wrote Zinah Burke on Instagram. Ethan Bauer brought back memories of “Jimmermania” for readers and explained how the Paris Olympics would likely be Jimmer Fredette’s last hurrah on the basketball court (“Beating the Buzzer”). Many readers took sides in assessing Fredette’s mixed professional career, but Brent Schumann took another approach in his response: “Jimmer Fredette represents all of us now. It’s fitting that his USA jersey includes both red and blue. :) Jimmermania was so much fun back in the day! Here’s to a magical run for USA and the Jimmer!” The USA 3x3 basketball team went 2-5 and exited the 2024 Games early after Fredette suffered a leg injury in their second game.
“Barrett is once again proving that Republican nominees are hard to predict on a case-by-case basis.”
ECOLOGIST REBECCA IRWIN, WORKING IN GOTHIC, COLORADO, HAS CATALOGED OVER 200 SPECIES OF NATIVE BEES AS PART OF A LARGER STUDY ON CHANGES TO SUBALPINE SEASONAL PATTERNS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON POLLINATORS.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELLIOT ROSS
REACHING OUT
RELIGIOUS-AFFILIATED SCHOOLS
CAN PLAY A VITAL ROLE IN THEIR
COMMUNITIES
BY QUE ENGLISH
In a world increasingly driven by secular values, religious-affiliated schools hold a unique position of influence. These institutions, grounded in faith and guided by principles of service, have the potential to create profound, positive change within their communities and beyond the campus boundaries.
An exemplary model of this potential is Yeshiva University in New York City, where I had the privilege to see firsthand the work they’re doing in the community. In my role at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I constantly seek out models that can be replicated nationwide, leveraging their platform, influence and resources to address some of our most critical health and mental health challenges. By examining the ways in which Yeshiva serves its community, we can explore how other faith-based institutions can follow suit to foster community growth and enrichment.
Yeshiva University, a prestigious Jewish institution of higher learning, has long demonstrated a commitment to both academic excellence and community service. One notable initiative is their Center for the Jewish Future, which coordinates a wide array of service projects ranging from local food drives and tutoring services to global humanitarian missions in education, health care and disaster relief. Through these efforts, the university not only supports the immediate community but also instills a sense of social responsibility in its students.
Another significant contribution of Yeshiva is its focus on mental health and wellness. The university’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology offers counseling and support services to the wider community, including individuals who might otherwise be unable to afford that care.
As a seminarian, I was deeply impressed by the work Yeshiva University is doing to support the mental health and well-being of students and faculty members. Given the challenges we face with
mental health conditions and the rising rates of suicide nationwide, we need more religious-affiliated schools to recognize the importance of preparing future and current faith leaders who are on the front lines of helping people and possess a unique capacity to effect positive change within their communities.
In August 2023, our center co-convened an all-day seminar with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration titled, “Strengthening the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Tomorrow’s Faith Leaders in Theological Settings,” where leaders representing seminaries and educational institutions from across the nation attended. They worked together to identify innovative ways to increase faith leaders’ skills and capacity to meet the mental health challenges of their future organizations through theological settings. It is important to note that 1 in 4 people of faith who need mental health treatment turn to their faith leaders for support in lieu of clinical support.
Additionally, faith leaders can fundamentally alter the way their congregants view mental health and professional mental health care, which can also significantly affect whether individuals receive professional care. We must also look at improving the mental health for faith leaders. Healthy faith leaders make for healthy congregants.
The contributions of Yeshiva University exemplify a broader principle: Religious-affiliated schools have a distinct and vital role in their communities. They are not just centers of learning but also beacons of hope, service and moral leadership. We all can draw inspiration from these efforts and consider how our own schools might similarly serve and uplift our communities.
Another area where religious-affiliated schools can make a substantial impact is in the realm of family support and youth programs. Many communities face challenges related to family stability and youth development. Schools can offer after-school programs, parenting workshops and family counseling services. By addressing these needs, we can strengthen the family unit, which is a core principle of our faith, and promote a more stable and nurturing environment for children to grow and thrive.
Another avenue for community contribution is through health and wellness programs. Faith-based schools can partner with local health organizations to provide screenings, health education and preventive care services. Such initiatives not only address immediate health needs but also foster a culture of wellness and proactive care, reflecting our commitment to the physical and spiritual well-being of our neighbors.
By following the example set by Yeshiva University, we can envision a future where faith-based institutions actively contribute to the social, economic and spiritual well-being of those around them. So, let us embrace this vision and work toward building stronger, more resilient and compassionate communities through our educational institutions. In doing so, we honor our commitment to service and reflect our faith in all our endeavors.
THE REV. QUE ENGLISH IS DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR FAITH-BASED AND NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNERSHIPS IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.
SCREEN TIME
HOW STREAMING TOOK OVER HOLLYWOOD
21 MILLION SCREEN YEARS
TECHNOLOGY HAS RESHAPED the world, but few innovations have changed our daily lives more than streaming. Gone are the DVD player, movie rental shops and any sense of scarcity. Now our TVs are smart and platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ feed them an endless variety of video content, from classic sitcoms to arthouse movies and new series they produce themselves, mostly covered by flat monthly fees. More than a billion people subscribe to at least one such service. That’s 1 in 6 humans — plus family members or roommates. Streaming has altered our spending habits, our free time and even our sleep. Here’s the breakdown.
NATALIA GALICZA
If a time traveler traversed the total number of hours Americans spent streaming in 2023, they would arrive in the Miocene Epoch, after the extinction of dinosaurs but during the period when saber-toothed cats roamed the Earth. It represents an increase of more than 20 percent over the year before. When Americans turn on their televisions today, they choose to stream rather than watch cable or broadcast programs about 40 percent of the time.
3:08
That’s how long the average American spends binge-watching each night — almost a fifth of their suggested waking hours. Bingeing refers to watching multiple episodes of a series in one sitting, made possible because platforms often drop entire seasons at once, unlike cable and broadcast channels, which typically release single episodes in weekly installments. Many bingers report losing sleep to the habit.
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN SPENDS
1/5
OF THEIR SUGGESTED WAKING HOURS BINGE-WATCHING
TWICE THE FUN
According to the United Talent Agency, stream-first movies started outpacing theatrical films in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and never looked back. Platforms launched more than 200 streaming-original films in 2022, almost double the 103 theatrical releases that same year. Mainstream movies can cost around $100 million to produce, including $35 million for distribution and marketing — costs streamers can largely avoid.
15% GO TO THE MOVIES
The percentage of Americans who go to the movies every month is 8 points lower now than it was five years ago, although another 42 percent do attend showings less frequently. A large part of that dwindle is due to the advent of streaming. Research by S&P Global shows that one-third of those who don’t go to theaters prefer to watch new releases at home.
99% OF AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS
That’s how many subscribe to at least one streaming service, led by Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+. They spend an average of $46 per person. More broadly, Americans spent $41 billion on digital home entertainment in 2023, up $6.5 billion from 2022, enough to buy 96,881 homes at the national median sale price.
$41 billon
AMERICANS SPENT ON DIGITAL HOME ENTERTAINMENT IN 2023
9 OUT OF 10
Women and people of color viewed the most streamed films of 2023, according to a UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report. Women constituted a majority of viewers for 9 of the top 10; households of color were overrepresented for 18 of the top 20. A 2020 Nielsen report found that streamed programming was more diverse than broadcast or cable.
“IT’S A TALL ORDER TO ENTERTAIN THE WORLD. YOU HAVE TO DO IT WITH REGULARITY AND DEPENDABLY. IT’S STILL MORE ART THAN SCIENCE.”
NETFLIX CO-CEO
TED SARANDOS TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
ONE BLOCKBUSTER
148 DAYS ON STRIKE
MORE DIVERSE 60% OF THE TIME
Nielsen, a global market research company, surveyed how 10 demographic groups are portrayed across broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. Streaming proved the most diverse, with more representation in 6 of the 10 categories. The report also found Black and Hispanic households ditched subscriptions to cable — the least diverse of the three — more than other demographics, suggesting viewers have a growing desire to see themselves portrayed on TV .
The Blockbuster video rental shop in Bend, Oregon, is the last of its kind, 10 years after the once-prominent chain shut down its corporate-owned locations globally. Redbox has shuttered thousands of its signature automated DVD rental kiosks, even before its parent company filed for bankruptcy. This sector still employs 4,355 people nationwide, but that number has dropped more than 12 percent in five years, with fewer than 600 brick-and-mortar rental businesses remaining in the U.S.
The streaming economy fueled last year’s Hollywood labor dispute as the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement with studios. Half of all TV writing jobs are now for streaming shows, which have shorter seasons — 10 episodes on average, compared to at least 22 on cable — offering less work, lower residuals and worrisome gaps in insurance coverage.
IN THE DEEP END
PARSING THE CONUNDRUM OF SMARTPHONES IN CLASSROOMS
SMARTPHONES ARE EVERYWHERE these days, even in the classroom. These technological wonders put a world of information and social interactions at our fingertips, but they can also disrupt our productivity and focus. That may have a different kind of impact on students. Twenty years ago, fewer than half of American teenagers had cellphones; today, 95 percent have smartphones. Concerned with their impact on learning, nearly 80 percent of U.S. schools had barred nonacademic phone usage by 2020, while governments from France to China have banned them from classrooms outright. Still, some see smartphones as powerful tools for education and an unavoidable part of modern life that kids need help learning to manage. What’s the healthiest approach?
ETHAN BAUER
TRAINING SAVVY USERS
THE CHALLENGES OF owning a smartphone don’t disappear when students leave campus, or even when they graduate. Like other technologies, phones have become intrinsic to our lifestyle. We teach students how to drive cars, operate woodworking machinery and use software applications on their computers. Why would we treat phones any different? Schools can help by reinforcing what many parents are already teaching at home: how to use phones in a healthy way.
Teaching kids how to manage their digital inclinations in class can also serve them in their daily lives, where they need to understand that sometimes it’s better to put their phones away. According to a research scientist at Harvard’s school of public health, “programs that develop ‘effortful control’ skills — the ability to self-regulate behavior — have been widely shown to be useful in dealing with problematic Internet and social media use.”
Schools can also help students to navigate an increasingly fraught online environment. One teacher in Oregon has argued that her school’s smartphone ban limits learning opportunities. Because many of her students get so much information on TikTok, she teaches them how to filter for fact-based news on social media platforms in real time. She told the International Society for Technology in Education that “there is value in using phones for real-life learning, particularly about media literacy.”
Like any tool, a phone can be used or misused — even for learning. A professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education told the university’s news website that teachers with distracted students should first assess their own didactic approach, then consider whether cellphones can enhance their lessons. “Design better learning activities, design learning activities where you consider how all of your students might want to engage and what their interests are,” he says.
It is the sad reality that smartphones can also be helpful in emergencies, from precautionary lockdowns to actual school shootings. They allow students to contact law enforcement, coordinate their own response with classmates, get updates on social media or simply call their parents. Further, this open line of communication can soothe the anxiety that arises from drills.
DISTRACTION-FREE ZONES
THE RESEARCH ON phones in classrooms is crystal clear: The negatives outweigh the positives to an extreme degree. The first step for students to manage their digital habits is to learn how to focus, make friends and exist without their phones. It’s in everybody’s best interest for schools to implement bans.
Smartphones are the bane of a distraction-prone demographic. According to a UNESCO study published last year, it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus on schoolwork when they look at their phones to peep a text message or send a thumbs-up emoji. Even the urge to check can throw them off track. Recent research tells us that deep focus is the foundation of learning and productivity. In experiments conducted by a Boston University researcher, when smartphones were removed from classrooms, “it was very, very clear (the students) were better able to focus.”
Phone bans can also help students to form more meaningful relationships with one another. Writing for The Atlantic last June, NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt described a phenomenon called “phubbing” — a neologism for “when a person breaks away from a conversation to look at their screen” — which weakens the quality and intimacy of conversations. He cited a study where students sat down to dinner with families or friends; half put their phones away, while the other half put them on the table. The researchers found that “when phones were present (vs. absent), participants felt more distracted, which reduced how much they enjoyed spending time with their friends/family.”
Phones also enable negative and unsupervised social interactions, which contribute to bullying and related mental health issues. Gen Z is suffering from increased anxiety, depression and suicide that seem to coincide with the growing ubiquity of smartphones. “Drama, conflict, bullying, and scandal played out continually during the school day,” Haidt writes, citing one example, “on platforms to which the staff had no access.” If a teacher’s job is to nurture an environment conducive to learning, they must be allowed to keep these issues out of school. At the same time, students need to be present in class — and nowhere else.
THE GOSPEL OF LEARNING
A HARVARD PROFESSOR ON HOW FAITH BUTTRESSES THE ACADEMY
BY MARIYA MANZHOS
Ruth Okediji grew up in a household surrounded by books, with parents who were both academics and Christians. With her father, she often debated the question: What does it mean to be a person of faith in an academic environment? Attending both public and later private schools, all faith-based, she wondered whether educational institutions can combine both faith and academic rigor.
Okediji, professor at Harvard Law School and leading intellectual property law scholar, continued to explore this relationship between faith and intellectual pursuits throughout her life. She dove into the readings of C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Søren Kierkegaard. “I began to not only prayerfully pursue my academics, but to interrogate my academics through the lens of Scripture,” Okediji told students at an event hosted by The Harvard Law Latter-day Saints chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society.
The growing separation between the private and public spheres has made it more challenging to live out your faith in public as a “fully integrated” person, Okediji told students at another event at Brigham Young University earlier this year.
But Okediji believes that exploring faith through public discourse and dialectic is essential to spiritual growth. “As we study religious truths, biblical truths, we ought to have a place where we can perform better, where we can look more like Christ, where we can engage as a leader,” Okediji concluded. “And that place is the public sphere, not the private sphere.”
“IF WE THINK FAITH HAS APPLICATION TO POVERTY, TO INJUSTICE, TO UNFAIRNESS, TO ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES … WE MUST BE BOLD ABOUT FAITH IN ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS.”
Okediji sees faith and biblical teachings as practical tools for addressing the complex challenges facing our society today. “If we are serious about faith, if we think that faith is important to cultivating virtuous citizens, if we think faith has application to poverty, to injustice, to unfairness, to environmental issues — you name the social problem … we must be bold about faith in academic institutions.”
Okediji, who is also the founder and faculty director of the Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies, is open about her faith at Harvard. She’s spoken about praying for the well-being of her students and their academic and personal growth. She’s also prayed to bring more Christians to Harvard. In her parting lecture to the graduating law class of 2020, she challenged students to examine what they believe in. “Have faith … because if you don’t have a faith, you should seek one and find one, and make it your faith,” she said, “anchor your life in some immutable truths and some unshakeable convictions.”
For Okediji, faith that is integrated in academic pursuits is a powerful motivator for excellence. “Whether I’m teaching, working on my scholarship, talking to or encouraging my students: Give your best, not because it’s your best, but because it’s an act of worship,” she told Harvard students. A faith-filled perspective can also shape a more meaningful and balanced view on work, one that moves beyond idolizing efficiency, financial rewards and status. “It needs believers to say: ‘That is not what God created you for, you are not a machine,’” she said.
In April, during her last legal ethics class
at Harvard, students discussed whether judges should be elected and if their tenure should have term limits. At the conclusion of the class, Okediji distributed a list of over a hundred values like “balance,” “grace,” “open-mindedness” and “trustworthiness” and asked students to circle 10 values that resonated most with them. She thanked them for the chance to teach the class and said she had written an individual note for each of them.
One of her former students, Nathan Bartholomew, said Okediji challenged the
prevailing narratives about the law and reckoned with difficult ethical scenarios in class. Her openness about her values has inspired him to be more confident sharing his own beliefs in public settings.
“She’s somebody who is willing to be bold and courageous in living her faith, which is rare at an institution like Harvard,” said Bartholomew. But the public expression of Okediji’s beliefs is not imposing or self-righteous, he said. It’s an “authentic” and “undeniable” part of who she is within the classroom and beyond. “She’s always
been one to deliver her faith loudly, so that other people can see,” he said.
For Okediji, bringing faith into the public realm is about acknowledging — and honoring — the whole person, no matter the context. “The dignity of our person is affected by all of the spheres of life, whether you’re at work, whether we’re having fun, whether we are in school learning, whether we’re worshiping in church, whether our worship is internal or external,” Okediji said at BYU. “We are fully integrated across all spheres.”
THEY WEREN’T BORN YESTERDAY
WE RAISE OUR KIDS TO BE RESPONSIBLE, CAPABLE ADULTS. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO TREAT THEM LIKE IT?
BY LOIS M. COLLINS
When my daughter Jenifer was 11 months old, she needed a heart valve fixed. It’s been 26 years, but the moment I handed her to the anesthesiologist is still achingly vivid: I whispered that I wanted her back safely, then practically ran away, the wail “Mama” chasing me down the hospital corridor. I feared that if I looked back, she’d be even more distressed because I was visibly fighting not to cry.
I had that same feeling a few weeks ago when I dropped her sister Alyson at the airport curb. She was on her way to Nepal, a mentor for a group of students on a service trip. To them, she would be an adult, but she’s still in many ways, to me, my baby. So I held on for an extra beat or two as I hugged her goodbye and whispered silently to myself, “I want her back safely.”
My girls are in their mid-20s and, oh, how they’ve changed over the years. I, on the other hand, have not changed much. I want them safe all the time. I’m finding it challenging to dial down my advice, lest they think I lack faith in their abilities.
This loosening is hard.
When they were little, I held their hands, physically guiding and sheltering them, feeding, comforting, coaxing belly laughs that felt like sunshine beaming just for me. I took the advice of a friend to engage with
WHO KNEW SUCCESSFULLY RAISING STRONGMINDED, CAPABLE CHILDREN COULD STING A LITTLE? I AM BOTH PROUD AND A TINY BIT DISMAYED.
their school so no one there would pick on them. I probably went overboard. When as teens they found Homer’s writing tedious, I read “The Odyssey” aloud and we discussed it. Challenge: overcome.
I knew their friends and fears — until I sometimes didn’t as they got teenage jobs
and developed new circles. I nurtured and nudged them toward independent thinking and when the goal was attained, it was a surprisingly hard transition for me. Turns out, parents have growing pains as their kids get older, too.
Marissa L. Diener, a developmental psychologist at the University of Utah, suggests distinct parenting stages, starting before the baby even arrives. First, it begins with one’s expectations of parenting — What will it be like to be in charge of how a person grows up? What kind of parent will you be? — before moving into the actual nurturing and guiding. The long walks in strollers, the cleaning up after dinner, the first taste of new foods or the first time they try to dress themselves. It becomes our job as mothers and fathers to show our kids how to interpret the world around them. Then, startlingly soon, they start making decisions, and you share them. You co-pilot conclusions on whether or not to try out for the lead in a school play, which friends to invite to a sleepover, the final answer on a
long-division problem. Finally, they don’t need a co-pilot anymore. This is what Diener calls “the departure stage.” The kids are grown up, and you are left with your thoughts on how you did as a parent. Did you succeed? Did you fail? How are you supposed to now be a parent (the noun) and not parent (the verb)? This is the stage where I find myself now.
Who knew successfully raising strong-minded, capable children could sting a little? I am both proud and a tiny bit dismayed when they demonstrate their problem-solving prowess. It’s hard to move from being in the thick of every dilemma to just getting the recap. I would have never suspected I’d miss the days when my Jeni cried because math felt defeating or my sometimes-obstinate Aly touched a burner to see if I was telling the truth when I said it would burn.
I have so much confidence in them. Where I lack confidence is in myself. At this different stage of parenting, I am a novice, trying to stay relevant and feeling pretty outdated. Jeni recently asked for advice about a job offer, which made me nervous. I value stability, safety. I fumbled to answer.
She listened patiently to my list of pros and cons and then said kindly, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll figure it out.”
When the kids were little, they didn’t have the option to drift away. Now I have a lot to lose. Parents are vulnerable when their children are grown. Adult kids can generally do OK without Mom and Dad. Many do.
The middle path between the hands-off relationship I sometimes see in other parent-child pairs and an infantilizing relationship where Mom’s still doing the laundry and arranging her kids’ appointments is becoming seemingly harder to discern, let alone walk.
Pauline Wallin, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, assures me that parents often struggle to leave behind the control they had when their children were younger. Still, there’s danger in not negotiating that particular
curve. The country is filled with adult kids who “ghost” controlling or critical parents who don’t adapt to fit the developmental stage of the relationship. She says collaborative parents are probably more adept at stepping back and letting their adult children be independent.
My girls were easy when they were younger; self-starters who could be strong-willed, but that never bothered me. They weren’t breaking laws, their grades were good and boundaries were easy to negotiate. I think that’s what I find hard now: I no longer sit at the bargaining table.
The 20s are a developmental stage for parent and child that’s fraught with misunderstanding, Wallin says. Mom forwards articles or prepares meals in a bid to be helpful. “The child is thinking, does
MY DAUGHTERS ARE IN THEIR 20S AND, OH, HOW THEY’VE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS. I, ON THE OTHER HAND, HAVE NOT CHANGED MUCH.
mom think I am an idiot, sending me all this stuff? She thinks I can’t do it.”
It’s not that at all. I’m figuring out my place, Jeni and Aly, not doubting yours.
Truth is, the young women we raised are phenomenally capable. They put themselves through college and have good careers. My husband and I assure each other we did OK. I half-joke that my folks often got things wrong and I still loved them mightily. Perhaps Jeni and Aly will give me the same grace.
Whatever my husband and I taught them of fortitude or resilience, their own experiences have broadened their view. Aly works with kids and has an almost otherworldly ability to meet them and their life experiences, helping them move forward. She didn’t learn it from me. Jenifer has a
street-smart, commonsense approach to problem-solving that I genuinely envy.
I’m looking — without a map — for the spot between friendship and adviser. Sometimes my daughters won’t welcome my input. And sometimes they need my assistance or hope I will help them figure things out. But I don’t always understand what they’re asking of me. A road map? A suggestion? A sounding board? I should probably ask. Tess Brigham, a licensed therapist and certified coach in the San Francisco Bay Area, puts it like this: You’re a consultant now. You have a lot of hard-earned wisdom to share. But it’s “kind of on a need-to-know basis.”
I think maybe she’s telling me gently that I need to know when to back off. Work in progress.
The good news is collaboration can thrive. It doesn’t end when a child turns 21, Wallin assures me. Do I need to shut up and watch them go? No. Do they need to hear my opinion on everything? Also no. If I always have suggestions and ideas, I’m background noise. Plus, what I learned and did — take work, for instance — might not be relevant to the issues my girls face today. I’ve been at my job since long before half my colleagues were born. When I struggled to offer advice to Jeni when she asked about her aforementioned job offer, it stung to hear her say patiently, “That’s just how it is now, Mom,” as she explained to me how job security does and doesn’t work in the current economy.
Oh.
Fortunately, my role as Mom is secure, as long as I can continue to grow as a parent. A recent Pew Research Center study found that “moms and daughters are especially closely connected” as each gets older, “with many relying on each other for emotional support.” Life experience and maturity are said to help, on both our parts.
I am and will for all my life be Jeni’s and Aly’s mom. My responsibilities have changed but I pray they never go away completely. And hopefully, they will always want my love and approval. As surely as I want theirs.
CAMPUS UNDER FIRE
CAN HIGHER ED BE SAVED?
In 2022, just a few months away from finishing nearly a decade at the helm of Purdue University, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was asked if his brand of conservatism — pragmatic, frugal, respectful — could survive in today’s Republican Party. At first, he dodged the question, saying that after a decade at Purdue he’d essentially been in a political quarantine.
But Daniels was mulling a run for the Senate, and one advantage he’d bring back to the political arena is that he hadn’t been “infected by the viruses that are running around on both sides.”
Daniels would bring “sanity” back to Washington, a longtime friend told The New York Times. “It would be kind of like when Cicero went back to the Roman Senate to provide wisdom.”
In the end, Daniels decided not to run, but, as the Times put it, he’s “still revered among conservative intellectuals” as a
A
CONVERSATION WITH MITCH DANIELS BY DOUG WILKS
principled thought leader, someone known for being able to disagree without being disagreeable.
Daniels entered politics in the 1970s as an aide to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and went on to work for Ronald Reagan and
THE STANDARDS AND RIGOR, THE QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT THAT’S BEING DELIVERED AT THESE HIGH PRICES, IS IN MANY CASES SUSPECT.
then George W. Bush as his budget director. He served two terms as governor of Indiana and as president of Purdue from 2013 to 2023.
Daniels writes a column for The Washington Post in which he typically writes
about higher education and government. Deseret News executive editor Doug Wilks spoke to Daniels about the challenges facing higher education.
HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS HIGHER EDUCATION TODAY?
Under the microscope and under pressure. And, frankly, both are appropriate. And I hope that we’ll see, where appropriate, some adjustments and corrections and some willingness to be self-critical, which higher ed has not really been known for.
WHAT DESERVES TO BE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE?
What doesn’t? I mean, certainly, affordability and accessibility — the cost has gotten beyond the reach of far too many American families. I’ll say that the standards and rigor, the quality of the product that’s being delivered at these high prices,
is in many cases suspect. The number of hours that students are spending on academics in any way has dropped off substantially. Employers have been reporting for quite some time, people show up with impressive diplomas, but they’re not impressive in preparation for adult life and work. A commitment to genuine free inquiry and free speech, when you have faculties that are 99 to 1 of one viewpoint, the issue isn’t solely all those big issues, it isn’t solely that students only ever hear one point of view (and) feel intimidated about questioning the prevailing orthodoxy — it’s that the academic enterprise itself is damaged, because the assignment to advance knowledge requires the collision of different ideas, and when dissident ideas are stifled, knowledge doesn’t progress as it should.
HAS THAT CHANGED? IN THE ’60S, EARLY ’70S, THE UNREST WAS CERTAINLY THERE ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES — WHAT IS DIFFERENT NOW?
Well, it’s quantifiably different, whether you’re talking about the cost or the monolithic, forced conformity of views. You can trace the charts that show the escalating cost going beyond really any other category in the economy, even health care. You can also look back over a couple generations of faculty picking their own colleagues and in the most human of ways, picking people just like them. And you do that for two decades, and you arrive where we are.
HOW DID YOU COMBAT THAT WHEN YOU WERE THE PRESIDENT OF PURDUE?
First of all, we asserted emphatically our commitment to free speech, and that means free inquiry as well as the ability to express oneself on public issues. I’ll say that as we became — and this was a central goal of ours — more and more STEM-centric, we were growing in every area, but we were growing by far the most in engineering and the sciences and things that we thought were central to our land grant assignment,
especially in this era. And as I think a fair generalization, a campus where those disciplines predominate is less prone to politicization of everything, ideological warfare and the like. The center of gravity at a school like ours is located in the world of objective reality.
DID THE PROTESTS AND ENCAMPMENTS LAST SPRING AT COLUMBIA AND OTHER UNIVERSITIES SURPRISE YOU?
I admit, I was surprised at the blatant antisemitism. But the rest of it, I’m sad to say, was less surprising — the vacillation of administrations in the face of these problems, the unwillingness to act promptly and impose sanctions, to protect order, protect the, I’m sure, majority of students in every case who are hoping to simply pursue their education and finish the school year. I suppose we’ve seen a lot of precedents for that. So the antisemitism, the sheer ignorance of many of these young people about the facts and the history about which they had formed these sometimes violent opinions, did come as some news to me.
HOW WOULD YOU HAVE HANDLED IT?
I would have given short notice and then indicated that the school would enforce its rules and would have done so promptly. I think a few prompt suspensions or expulsions would have been enlightening and effective.
DID YOU SEE A CAMPUS OR A COLLEGE PRESIDENT WHO ACTED IN A WAY THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS WISE?
I can’t remember anyone to single out right now, but it could be that the most effective approach to this would be one in which it wasn't necessary to take that sort of action, because the policy and the willingness to live by it was already very clear before this happened. There were a couple schools, I learned, that really didn’t have a clear rule against, for example, prolonged camping out on common space, or interference with campus operations, classes and so forth. If you didn’t have that
policy, you were at some disadvantage, but if you had it, people knew that you had enforced it and were willing to and you were probably less likely to have this problem on your hands.
LET ME RETURN TO AFFORDABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY. A SIMPLE QUESTION: IS A COLLEGE EDUCATION STILL WORTH IT?
Clearly it is, if it’s the right kind of education and matches the situation of the student. Clearly, it is well worth it in many cases. We haven’t always done a good job of matching or helping young people make the right choice. I think the idea that a four-year school is for everyone was probably oversold. But yes, schools that deliver high value — which Purdue, we always said, was the gold value, which means high quality, quality over price, fundamental equation of life — I always said, where that came from, there are many, many schools where it does deliver high value. So, in that sense, yes, of course, it’s never been more valuable. But it’s equally true, I think to say, that we encouraged, partially subsidized and societally, maybe even pressured a lot of young people to go to four-year schools that turned out not to be a good choice for them. One of the consequences we’re dealing with now is an enormous number, 40 million or something Americans, who started college and didn’t finish, and it’s now clear that they are, as a general rule, not better off but worse off for the time and money they spent.
IS THERE A SOLUTION TO THAT?
Yes, adult education. You’re in the backyard of Western Governors University, a really fine institution. I once served on its board, and learned about this problem and about the opportunities, especially these days, through online education or hybrid forms of education, for these people to complete a credential that is meaningful and is recognized in the market and helps them advance but that’s a patchwork on a system which didn’t serve them well the first time.
WHEN YOU HAVE FACULTIES THAT ARE 99 TO 1 OF ONE VIEWPOINT, THE ISSUE ISN’T SOLELY THAT STUDENTS ONLY EVER HEAR ONE POINT OF VIEW (AND) FEEL INTIMIDATED ABOUT QUESTIONING THE PREVAILING ORTHODOXY — IT’S THAT THE ACADEMIC ENTERPRISE ITSELF IS DAMAGED.
IF SOMEONE COMES TO YOU SEEKING ADVICE, WHAT ARE THE FACTORS THAT THEY SHOULD CONSIDER? WHAT WOULD YOU TELL A PARENT?
Well, let me just say what parents have told me. Parents clearly are looking for the value I just defined. For too long, the higher ed system got away with charging ever-rising prices, because there was no measurement of quality and nobody was paying much attention. And in many cases, people came to use the sticker price as the proxy — “If it costs more, it must be a better school.” Well, it wasn’t; it almost never was. And so, the first thing you look for is value. And there’s now more information than there used to be about how the graduates of School A do versus School B, you can look at that and the cost. Then, there are many, many parents who — and young people, by the way, I’ve met scads of them over the last few years — who consider as one factor whether a school has a reputation for indoctrination and groupthink and the censorship of nonprevailing views.
CAN A STUDENT GET CONSERVATIVE VIEWPOINTS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES TODAY?
Sure, but much more rarely than they can in the broader society, which is paying for these schools. And there are many, many examples where there was almost zero balance. There is one other thing to say here, which is that Purdue did a big study with the Gallup people about a decade ago called the Gallup-Purdue Index. It surveyed people at various intervals out of college and tried to ascertain how much they were or weren’t flourishing. It wasn’t just economics — it was health, it was civic engagement, it was general happiness, and then tried to correlate that with the kind of experience they had. The shorthand for the finding that the Gallup people and our people came to is that it’s less a matter of where you go than how you go. If a young person applies herself or himself in a certain way, they’re probably going to have a useful and valuable experience, wherever
they attained it. It was things like, of course, seriousness about study, but also forming a mentor-type relationship, or some kind of relationship with at least one or two faculty members while there. It was having some sort of a research experience, as part of the course of study, it was having a significant involvement — not a casual one or dabbling in extracurriculars, but a serious involvement in at least one or two things like this. I think that’s also important. There’s at least as much burden on the young person to make it valuable as there is on the school.
DID YOU FIND THAT VALUABLE?
I think so. You know, it obviously made the rounds on our campus. Our young people — not me, but our students — produced a little saying that I repeated to their successors in later years: 4-3-2-1, graduate in four years or less. How did this work? Maintain a three-point (grade-point) average or better, which is not easy at our school — a three should still be something a student anywhere has to work for; at least two hours of study for every hour of class; and get really actively involved in at least one extracurricular. And that little formula, I think, is supported by the data that Gallup and Purdue collected and is a pretty good tool for any student anywhere.
AND THAT CAME FROM THE STUDENTS?
Yes, that’s right. The students produced the mnemonic or whatever you would call it, the 4-3-2-1 formula.
AS YOU LOOK AT YOUR LIFE, DID YOU HAVE AN “AHA” MOMENT? DID YOU COME TO A MOMENT WHERE YOU SAID, “OH, THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN FOR EDUCATION,” OR “THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN FOR THE COUNTRY”?
Goodness, I don’t know. My life has been one long series of “ahas,” constantly surprised by how little I knew about some subject. I will say that like any attentive citizen, I was watching and paying attention to higher ed. Then I served in elected office those eight
years and I thought that supporting Indiana’s higher ed institutions was very important. I’ll give you one example. It was during that time that Utah’s former wonderful leader, (Gov.) Mike Leavitt, came to see me, said he’s part of this thing called WGU (Western Governors University), and they wanted me to get involved in it. I did, I learned and we created what is now flourishing as WGU Indiana. So I learned about this issue that we discussed of the noncompleters, who along with those who never went to college at all, do have an option now. Life won’t permit them, of course, to move back to some campus for three or four years, but we now have ways that they can learn while dealing with life. And so that was certainly part of it. And we created WGU Indiana, which then led to WGUs in other states, kind of a private label, we would have called it in my business days. Well, after I got to Purdue, I became more and more imbued with the land grant assignment to spread higher ed as widely as possible. I used to tell our people, “We don’t
want to be known by how many we turn away, we want to be known for how many we turn out,” that is, successfully graduate. And when I saw an opportunity, we bought an online university, turned it into what is
WE ENCOURAGED, PARTIALLY SUBSIDIZED AND MAYBE EVEN PRESSURED A LOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE TO GO TO FOURYEAR SCHOOLS THAT TURNED OUT NOT TO BE A GOOD CHOICE FOR THEM.
A FORMER GOVERNOR AND UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT, MITCH DANIELS IS KNOWN AMONG CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUALS AS SOMEONE ABLE TO DISAGREE WITHOUT BEING DISAGREEABLE.
called Purdue Global. And that has 36,000 or so adult learners at a time, and graduates about 12,000 people a year. Most in their 30s, 40s, single moms, veterans, all sorts of people who didn’t go a traditional route.
AS YOU ASSESS THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, WHERE DO YOU THINK WE WILL GO IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS?
I think the shakeout which has begun will continue. That’ll be for demographic reasons as well as loss of trust, overworking on the system. But you know, every day now you hear about another school shrinking, merging or going out of business. And so there will be a shrinkage. I hope that greater competition will do what competition typically has, which is cause schools to ask themselves, “How do we reform? How do we adjust? How do we respond to these legitimate concerns?” Once again, there’s too much of a tendency in higher ed for people to think that they know it all and any criticism is illegitimate. I hope that changes. There are a few schools which can stay that way. If you’re sitting on a multibillion-dollar endowment, I guess you can, but for the vast expanse of the system, there are lessons now that need to be learned and we’ll see who takes them on board.
IN RANGE
A NEW OUTBREAK IS PLAGUING THE WEST
BY NATALIA GALICZA
Richard Geary heard word of the contagion around the turn of spring, when it was still distant. News reports and murmurs among fellow veterinarians revealed livestock herds about 1,000 miles away in Kansas had fallen ill with a confusing new ailment. In the 35 years he’s been treating animals across southeast Idaho, Geary had never heard of anything like it. Nor did he think he’d soon be at the center of an outbreak that threatened national, even global, consequences.
Shortly after, highly pathogenic avian influenza — colloquially known as bird flu — was confirmed for the first time in dairy cows from New Mexico, Texas and Kansas.
“In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Well, I sure hope that they can contain it,’” Geary says. But just one week after the news broke, the first reported case reached an Idaho dairy farm and sent farmers into a panic. “Their questions to me and to the other veterinarian in my practice are: ‘What do you know about it?’” he says, “and, ‘What do we do when we get it?’”
Now, Western states like Idaho and
Colorado have more infected livestock herds than anywhere else in the country.
Scientists discovered this strain of influenza, H5N1, in waterfowl almost three decades ago. It’s killed hundreds of millions of birds, either through complications posed
“THIS VIRUS COULD BE SPREADING RIGHT NOW TO LOTS OF DAIRY WORKERS AND TO THEIR FAMILIES, BUT WE DON’T KNOW, BECAUSE WE’RE NOT DOING ENOUGH SURVEILLANCE TO FIND OUT.”
by infection or mandatory cullings to prevent its spread. It’s infected bears, seals, sea lions, cats and dogs. Somewhere along its interspecies journey, as the scariest viruses do, it learned how to infect people, too. About 900 human cases have been
recorded since 2003, and it’s estimated that more than 50 percent of those have been fatal. Yet the novel jump to cattle leaves scientists and farmers particularly worried. In the short term, there are economic lags and repercussions. An infected herd can cause tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in production losses for farmers. But in the long term, there’s the potential for another pandemic.
Like the name suggests, highly pathogenic avian influenza is almost too easy to spread. Infected cattle circulate H5N1 through entire herds in a matter of days. Sometimes the infected cattle die of the disease. Sometimes they’re slaughtered in fear of spreading it. Although personal protective equipment like gloves, goggles and masks can prevent farmers from contracting the virus, all it takes is one virion — that microscopic single viral particle — in the eye, nose or mouth to infect a human. Ten dairy workers in the United States have already gotten the disease. There’s no publicly available vaccine to prevent it yet, either. And since influenza viruses are known to mutate and adapt
IN THE SHORT TERM, THERE ARE ECONOMIC REPERCUSSIONS. INFECTED CATTLE CAUSE TENS OR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS A DAY IN LOSSES FOR FARMERS. IN THE LONG TERM, THERE’S THE POTENTIAL FOR ANOTHER PANDEMIC.
to different species after enough exposure, these mounting cases among dairy farmers could lay down the groundwork for a more widespread human threat.
This outbreak is part of a new frontier for infectious diseases. From dengue fever to cholera, monkeypox to measles, and even other strains of influenza, illnesses are intensifying around the world. More than 900 new viruses have been discovered since 2009, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 3 of every 4 emerging infectious diseases that affect humans originate in animals. Booming animal agriculture, growing human populations and changing climates create a perfect environment for viruses like bird flu to spread and adapt to new hosts. As those risks compound, pandemics grow more frequent. Experts predict the annual likelihood of extreme epidemics will increase threefold within the next few decades. How the West, the nation and the world responds to H5N1 will foreshadow how prepared the public is to live in a future with more of these viruses and their fallouts.
AS MUCH AS half of all the biological material that makes up the human body is not actually our body. We are only about 40-50 percent human. Bacteria, fungi and viruses existing on and within every living person make up the rest. Viruses most of all. At any given time, a human being is host to around 380 trillion viruses. Many cause illness and infection. Some actually ward off disease. Most just tag along for the ride.
Viruses are genetic material, RNA or DNA , wrapped in protein. They vary in shape and size but are all exceptionally small — much smaller than bacteria and about 10,000 times smaller than a single grain of salt. They can infect plant, animal, bacterial and fungal cells by attaching themselves to receptors found along a cell’s surface before forcing their way inside. Once in a host cell, they replicate. Influenza viruses are among the most common viruses to result in infectious diseases. There are four types: A, B, C and
D. Avian influenzas, including the current H5N1 strain in cattle, fall into the first category, a camp reserved for the viruses most capable of causing pandemics due to how rapidly they multiply.
When a virus jumps from one species to another, it’s usually by chance. Viruses train themselves over time to infect a particular host. But if another species has cells with similar receptor sites, and the virus comes into contact with those receptor sites, it can try to infect the unfamiliar species by swapping out parts of its genetic material with other viruses of the same type that already exist in that host. These reconfigurations are random. They’re difficult, maybe even impossible, to predict and usually don’t work. However, when they do, they can result in mass outbreaks. The swine flu pandemic of 2009 is the most recent example. A mishmash of influenzas that originated in birds, pigs and humans recombined to create a transmissible strain that killed more than 12,000 people in the United States alone.
For a pandemic to take place, a virus must be able to infect humans, spread easily from person to person, and be unfamiliar enough that the body has little or no immunity to it. So far, H5N1 checks two of the three boxes. The 10 confirmed cases in farm workers resulted in only minor symptoms. The most recent cluster of human infection took place on a dairy farm in Colorado in July — the first of its kind in the West. Each infected person so far has recovered and, although humans can contract it from cattle, the virus has not yet adapted to easily transmit from human to human. “There are lots of question marks in terms of how to prevent this from happening, and until we have proper epidemiology, we really can’t make strong recommendations to prevent it,” says John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley. “This virus could be spreading right now to lots of dairy workers and to their families, but we don’t know, because we’re not doing enough surveillance to find out.”
Nobody knows for certain how H5N1 jumped from wild birds to cows this past year. By the time health officials identified it, the virus had been spreading undetected for months. That gave it ample time to grow accustomed to this new host.
Now, since the virus can latch onto cell receptors in cows’ udders, dairy workers exposed to infected milk are left uniquely vulnerable. Worse yet, if H5N1 gets enough exposure to the human body through these dairy farm infections, it could similarly mutate to become more contagious among people. “What’s disturbing is that the receptor sites in the mammary glands of cattle are very similar to receptor sites in human beings,” Swartzberg says. “All of that increases the probability of spillover and then a pandemic.”
The risk to the general public is still low since pasteurization kills the virus in commercial dairy products. Though, to err on the side of caution, the federal government is contracting deals with pharmaceutical companies to develop H5N1 vaccines should the virus snowball into a public health emergency. Late-stage testing of these vaccines is only estimated to begin sometime next year. But to a virus — including this particular one — a year is like a hundred lifetimes. Plenty could change. Plenty already has.
WHEN A BIRD flu outbreak overtook poultry farms across the country in 2022, the disease spread so quickly that it forced farmers to cull tens of millions of birds. It cost the poultry industry hundreds of millions of dollars and more than doubled the cost of eggs for consumers. News reports at the time speculated what would happen if the virus spread to other mammals on farms, and how it could heighten the risks for humans. The present outbreak in cattle is the next step in that evolution. It’s a manifestation of the fears that first surfaced just a couple of years ago.
At least nine counties across southern Idaho have had to quarantine dairy facilities due to H5N1 infection and exposure. “As quickly
and as thoroughly as that spread through different herds of cows, I’m assuming that everybody either has got it or will get it,” Geary says. “My guess is it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when that will happen.” Farms in different states have slaughtered some dairy cows that did not recover from the H5N1 virus, much like the cullings of infected poultry that took place during the last outbreak. But where a chicken can cost less than $500 a year to raise, each dairy cow costs farmers at least a few thousand dollars annually. Between production losses, thinned herds and sick farm workers, the financial strain has already proven brutal for those in agriculture. And it’s been less than a year since cows were even able to be infected with the virus.
LIKE THE NAME SUGGESTS, HIGHLY PATHOGENIC AVIAN INFLUENZA IS ALMOST TOO EASY TO SPREAD. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE VIRION — THAT MICROSCOPIC SINGLE VIRAL PARTICLE — TO INFECT A HUMAN.
Idaho is home to the third largest population of dairy cows in the country. There are more cattle than there are people, and — much to the potato’s chagrin — dairy is the single most valuable agricultural commodity produced in the state. “We have a much larger average herd size than the rest of the country,” says Rick Naerebout, chief executive officer of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “We’re milking about 2,500 cows on our average dairy. And so, looking at production losses, losing 20 percent of your milk production on a herd that size, that equates to just shy of $10,000 a day in losses.” Much of the Mountain West similarly relies on animal agriculture, which makes the region more susceptible to infectious diseases like this one.
The Department of Agriculture mandates dairy cattle be tested for avian influenza before herds can cross state lines, but it relies almost entirely on farmers to test and track cattle themselves. That not only places the burden on vulnerable farmers, it leaves room for error. There have been far more anecdotal reports of sick farm workers across the country in states with outbreaks than there have been confirmed human cases. This leaves health experts to speculate that many infections go untested and unreported. “You can imagine, if you were a rancher, the last thing you’d want to see is epidemiologists coming from the government to try and find evidence of infected cattle,” Swartzberg says. “And if they do find evidence of infected cattle, you don’t want to know that because it’s going to have a major impact on your business.”
In May, the federal government allocated $200 million to incentivize more surveillance, biosecurity and research on dairy farms. A program to compensate farmers for production losses launched in July. Now, dairy farmers can apply to receive funding that equals up to 90 percent of revenue lost due to H5N1 infections in their herds. “I think one of the things we’d really like to see (next) would be the option for our dairy producers to vaccinate for it,” Naerebout says. Especially since the virus looks as though it’s here to stay.
Whether this virus will evolve and threaten the next pandemic will depend not only on its ability to develop specific mutations, but on the attention paid to it. The World Health Organization views surveillance as a necessary pillar of an effective public health response. It is the first line of defense against the spread of viruses and the pandemics or epidemics that follow. As H5N1 continues to evolve and infect farmers on the front lines with Idaho at its epicenter, Geary tries his best to maintain that vigilance. At times it feels like it’s all he can do. “I feel for my producers that haven’t got it yet. Because it’s a hit that’s coming,” he says. “I would like to see them avoid that. But it’s probably not going to be that way.”
L AW OF THE HARVEST
FAITH-BASED UNIVERSITIES ARE GROWING FOR A REASON
I LLUSTRATION BY H ARRIET L EE-M ERRION
B Y C LARK G. G ILBERT & S HIRLEY H OOGSTRA
At a time when colleges and universities are closing at the rate of one school per week and American higher education is concerned about college participation, the rate of enrollment in religious universities is exceeding the national average — and has been for decades.
Of course, this seems to conflict with two popular narratives: declining interest in college and weakening religiosity in young people. What’s really happening?
Let’s start with the data. Nationally, during the last decade, higher education enrollment has declined gradually. By 2021, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college was down about 2.4 million students from its 2010 peak. Yet overall enrollment at religious colleges and universities is growing and has been for some time. From 1980 through 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that enrollment growth in religious universities (+82 percent) outpaced the national average (+57 percent). Even with the recent declines coming out of the Covid pandemic, religious universities contracted at rates significantly lower than the national average — and today roughly 1.8 million students are enrolled in America’s religious universities.
Our own university networks further reflect this oft-overlooked enrollment growth. For example, from 2000 to 2023, enrollment in universities governed by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including BYU , BYU -Idaho and BYU-Pathway, grew nearly threefold, increasing from 60,000 students to nearly 150,000 students. Similarly, between 2004 to 2022, institutions within the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities grew by an average of 27 percent.
At a time of rising skepticism about religion, could religious mission be what is driving enrollment at these universities? Our colleague, Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, a Jewish institution in New York City, recently made the counterintuitive argument about the faith of today’s young people, stating, “There is a crisis in America today. It is not a crisis of faith but a crisis of meaning. Our youth are seeking purpose, and they are not finding it in the ephemeral answers offered by our consumer society.” In a world increasingly adrift, students are looking for deeper meaning, and a growing cohort is finding it in faith-based universities.
But what is attracting these students to religious schools? The first is a sense of belonging. A first-generation student from
“OUR YOUTH ARE SEEKING PURPOSE, AND THEY ARE NOT FINDING IT IN THE EPHEMERAL ANSWERS OFFERED BY OUR CONSUMER SOCIETY.”
inner-city Boston recently shared his experience. “I grew up as a religious minority. When I arrived at BYU, I felt like I fit in for the first time in my life — there were thousands of other students who shared my values and welcomed me into this community of faith.” This experience is common at faith-based universities. Students come for a season to a gathered community of faith but spend the bulk of their professional lives as religious minorities. Their experience at a faith-based university becomes foundational to their extended sense of identity.
A related benefit of faith-based universities is how they create safe spaces for religious students who often feel hostility from an increasingly secular world. According to the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory, 72 percent of students attending a CCCU school believe that their campus is safe and secure for all students as compared to 64 percent of students nationally who report feeling their campus is safe and secure.
As Eboo Patel, president of Interfaith America, observes, “I love that there is a place in our society where the experiences of Black men and women are affirmed (in historically Black colleges and universities). And of course, by that logic, it makes perfect sense that people with a particular religious identity also need a place where they can have their identity supported, especially when that religion has a history of facing bigotry, as the Latter-day Saints, Jews and Catholics certainly have.”
Third, religious mission can enable access and affordability at a time when many feel university education is beyond their reach. For many religious communities, making college affordable is part of their pastoral duty of care. Religious schools such as Berea College, BYU -Hawaii and College of the Ozarks all have innovative work-study programs — once students are admitted, their tuition costs are mostly covered. Similarly, BYU-Pathway has used religious purpose to help inspire students who never thought a college education
was possible. By teaching the dignity of work and encouraging heaven’s help in achieving human potential, tens of thousands of first-generation and low-income students are finding the confidence to succeed in college.
Fourth, religious mission can sharpen efforts on retention. The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education shows that less than half of students who start college actually complete college. Lower-income students face the most acute challenges. Students from the lowest quartile of household income are nearly six times less likely to complete college than those in the highest quartile. The same pastoral duty of care that encourages religious schools to make college affordable can also motivate faculty and guidance counselors to help students complete their education. From a religious perspective, if God is in relentless pursuit of His children, religious university leaders should do the same. Ilana Horwitz in her book, “God, Grades, and Graduation,” has shown a strong linkage between religious community and academic persistence. An example of this is Catholic University, where students who attend weekly worship services have higher rates of completion and a great sense of belonging.
While some might say that religious mission does not free faith-based institutions from finding ways to adapt and innovate, our firsthand observation is that religious mission demands it. As national leaders are rethinking important questions in higher education, we hope many will recognize how faith-based universities open access, provide a sense of belonging and increase affordability for a growing number of students who are seeking a leg-up as they enter the postcollege world.
ELDER CLARK G. GILBERT IS A GENERAL AUTHORITY SEVENTY AND THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION FOR THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS. SHIRLEY HOOGSTRA IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL FOR CHRISTIAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES. THEY CURRENTLY CO-CHAIR THE COMMISSION ON FAITH-BASED UNIVERSITIES AT THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION.
“PEOPLE WITH A PARTICULAR RELIGIOUS IDENTITY ALSO NEED A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN HAVE THEIR IDENTITY SUPPORTED, ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT RELIGION HAS A HISTORY OF FACING BIGOTRY.”
TEN PEOPLE MAKING
HIGHER EDUCATION MORE AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE AND EFFECTIVE
by Ethan Bauer, Samuel Benson, Natalia Galicza and Mariya Manzhos
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was in his 50s, decades beyond his own formal education, when he put quill to paper and delivered to us the words that have come to best define the modern idea of education. “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it from him,” Franklin inked in 1758, adding, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” This idea, the notion that education, that seemingly ephemeral thing, is not only unerodable and impervious to pilfering, but is also an investment, has for decades, centuries, even, defined how learning is regarded in the Western world. Essentially, you get out of education what you put in.
But there’s always been something unspoken in Franklin’s otherwise unimpeachable maxim, an idea unfulfilled, like a kite and metal key aloft in the storm yet to touch lightning. And it is this: No one can reap the promises of education if they can’t get an education in the first place. And since long before Franklin’s time, access to education has been limited to the very few. That’s where the 10 women and men on this list come in. Each holds a smaller part of a bigger idea: make college accessible to as many people as possible — and, once those people get to college, make what they learn there effective enough to change their lives and the lives of their families.
illustration by Ian Sullivan
BRIAN ASHTON: A WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE
THE STUDENTS COME from all over. Brazil and Mexico. Nigeria and the Philippines. But the enrollee Brian Ashton is thinking of right now came from Uganda. She enrolled in BYU-Pathway Worldwide — the global online education program Ashton has helmed since 2021 — after she escaped an abusive marriage with her four daughters. And she exemplifies the goal of Pathway, overall. “Intelligence or the ability to learn is equally distributed throughout the world, but opportunity is not,” Ashton says. “And what we want to do is to make opportunities equally distributed.” Among Pathway’s 65,000 enrollees, more than 60 percent come from outside the U.S., the majority first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds.
After a foundational yearlong Pathway Connect program, students begin earning job-ready certificates while working toward a bachelor’s degree in areas of technology, communications, health or human services. Accredited through BYU -Idaho and Ensign College, Pathway offers three-year bachelor’s degrees online. Tuition is adjusted based on financial circumstances in the student’s country. This means that U.S. students can earn a degree for as low as nearly $7,000, with scholarships available, and for international students the cost is even lower. Alongside academics, the program focuses on integrating students’ faith with learning. “Religious principles are baked into every single course,” Ashton says.
And that mother from Uganda? After completing her Pathway coursework, she’s thriving at a venture capital firm. —Mariya Manzhos
LINDA LIVINGSTONE: FAITH AND SCIENCE
WHEN LINDA LIVINGSTONE was inaugurated as Baylor’s 15th president in 2017, she declared, “The world needs Baylor.” What she meant, she told Deseret Magazine, is that the world “needs a Christian research university that is taking seriously the preparation of students to become leaders.”
The world, in turn, is recognizing Baylor for what it’s doing. In 2022, Baylor earned “Research 1” status, placing it shoulder-to-shoulder among the world’s upper echelon of research universities. Achieving “R1” status has long been Livingstone’s goal — but she did so without sacrificing the university’s faith-based mission.
Shortly after taking office, Livingstone introduced “Illuminate,” the university’s comprehensive strategic plan to transform into a world-class research institution. The first of the plan’s four pillars is creating an “unambiguously Christian educational environment.”
That Christian-informed education structure is appealing to many young people, Livingstone says, allowing the school to attract top students who crave an environment that encourages them to live their faith. “The best students in the country really want to have opportunities to do research while they’re in college,” she explained. “We have the ability to do that, while also giving them the opportunity to strengthen and grow their faith.”
Livingstone sees that mission in global terms. The university’s longtime motto — Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana — outlines the mission: “For Church, For Texas.” But in May 2024, the school’s board approved an addition to it: Pro Mundo, or “For the World.” —Samuel Benson
“EDUCATION IS STILL ONE OF THE SINGLE GREATEST CATALYSTS TO HELP SOMEONE CHANGE THEIR LIFE FOR THE BETTER.”
SCOTT PULSIPHER PRESIDENT, WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY
MILDRED GARCÍA: REPRESENTING THE UNDERREPRESENTED
MILDRED GARCÍA BEGAN her speech with a parallel. In March, she introduced herself to the California Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee as chancellor of the state’s university system.
“The (California State University) story mirrors my own,” she told the panel of state senators. “I see myself in the students we serve.”
A first-generation college student who began her academic career with an associate degree from New York City Community College, Garcia took the helm of the nation’s largest university system, the first Latina chancellor in its history, in October 2023.
About one-third of those enrolled in the California State University system are first-generation college students and nearly half are underrepresented minorities, making it the most diverse four-year
university network — a grid of more than 20 campuses strewn throughout the Golden State, with almost half a million in attendance. Some 40 percent of its undergraduate students transfer from state community colleges.
Garcia’s latest aim is to strengthen programs that lead to more successful transfers for students from state community colleges to state universities. One such program would make some university courses accessible at community colleges to grant students more exposure to the difference in study. “Taking classes at a community college or high school with a CSU faculty member opens up possibilities and gives you confidence,” she told the Public Policy Institute of California in December. “This is the lifeblood of our system.” —Natalia Galicza
TED MITCHELL:
RISE OF THE DIFFERENTIATED UNIVERSITY
TODAY’S AMERICAN COLLEGES and universities are aspiring to an ideal of what they think a college or university should be, says Ted Mitchell, instead of embracing their unique strengths.
“Not taking anything away from research universities,” he explains, “(but) it’s not clear that everybody should try to be one.” Instead, he promotes the idea that schools should lean into more specialized missions and pursue them vigorously. As president of the American Council on Education, one of his major initiatives has been developing a new tool that makes it easier for these schools to compare themselves to each other, instead of some vague archetype.
For too long, Mitchell says, higher education classifications have been much too broad to reflect the country’s unique, dynamic landscape. In February 2022, his organization partnered with the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education — a long-running classification system — to perform a much-needed update. “(We) created a way of grouping institutions that’s very
“EDUCATION IS YOUR ARMOR AGAINST WHATEVER IS GOING ON AROUND YOU.”
different than anything in the past,” he says. The update, to be released next year, will better allow users to compare institutions based on multiple specific factors, like urban/rural/suburban settings or research/liberal arts focuses, instead of catch-all classifications like “doctoral universities” or “special-focus institutions.” Such a tool lets prospective students sort by characteristics of importance to them; lets institutions better identify their most similar peers; and lets both parties compare similar schools in terms of socioeconomic mobility ratings, which will also be included in the new classifications.
Categorizing universities based on what they do well, and encouraging them to lean in deeper, would be a healthy development in a nation of substantial regional and ideological diversity. “It’s very important for universities to be diverse themselves, and to represent different ways of thinking,” Mitchell says. “There are different environments that are going to be useful to different students, that will serve their communities in different ways.” —Ethan Bauer
ELISE AWWAD: FUTURE-PROOFING SKILL SETS
ELISE AWWAD LOOKED out at an auditorium full of graduates with equal parts pride and nerves. She’d attended commencement ceremonies and spoken to students plenty of times in her career, which began as an admissions adviser two decades earlier. But in June, she spoke to the DeVry University class of 2024 for the first time as its first woman CEO and president.
“Throughout your time at DeVry University,” Awwad told the crowd in Rosemont, Illinois, “you have been at the forefront of innovation, interacting with emerging technologies and learning to problem-solve in a world whose only constant is change.” That commitment to innovation is part of what defines DeVry. It’s also what has defined her own trajectory.
In the early 2000s, when the internet was still in its infancy and virtual school was far from a mainstream option, Awwad, a university adviser, guided students interested in online learning. In her first term as president, she’s doubled
down on shepherding accessibility and “future-proofing” students. Under Awwad’s leadership, DeVry has introduced four new scholarship programs, frozen the cost of tuition for its fourth consecutive year and revamped more than 60 percent of its courses to reflect current workforce trends. She also plans to expand course offerings focused on artificial intelligence so graduates can remain competitive as the employment landscape shifts across industries. “It’s not just about looking at what’s in front of you,” she says. “It’s about trying to look far beyond that and being ready for that. Because the world doesn’t wait for you to change.”
It’s the future Awwad thinks about the more she works with students. It’s what she thought of as she congratulated graduates in June — with all their smiles, their academic caps and tassels. “I got up there and I looked out at all of our students, and I thought to myself, this is why I did what I do,” she says. “This is why I spent 20 years here.” NG
MICHAEL CROW: EDUCATION AS SERVICE
SINCE BECOMING PRESIDENT of Arizona State University in 2002, Michael Crow has established himself as one of the most innovative leaders in American higher education. Among his most ambitious projects was the 2014 establishment of an official charter — a document meant to define the school’s role and mission as the “New American University.” The charter focuses on student success, but also on the university’s responsibility to something bigger. ASU, according to the charter, assumes “fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves,” and will prioritize “research and discovery of public value.”
At a time when an overwhelming majority of Americans believe higher education is heading in the wrong direction, Crow’s insistence on serving local and national needs could help bolster support for universities in general. “We can make our universities produce master learners more dedicated to the breadth of our society, more dedicated to the betterment of our society, more dedicated to the betterment of our democracy,” he has said. “If we can do that, we will have had a major impact on the outcome of humanity.” —EB
“DIVERSITY IS NOT JUST THE DIFFERENCES YOU LIKE. DIVERSITY INCLUDES THE DISAGREEMENTS.”
EBOO PATEL FOUNDER, INTERFAITH AMERICA
ERIC HOOVER: THE STUDENTS’ WATCHDOG
EVERY WEEK, a college-aged Eric Hoover pored over the latest edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. At 20, Hoover wasn’t the publication’s typical audience; most readers, professors and other professionals within or adjacent to academia skew much older. But as editor of the University of Virginia’s student newspaper, he had a free print subscription, and the Chronicle’s pages proved rife with inspiration for a burgeoning journalist, pushing him to think outside the bounds of his own school and experience.
He was particularly drawn to stories about students’ grievances and concerns, from demands for representation of minority groups on campus to coverage that fell outside the elite institutions so obsessed over by mainstream news outlets. When he joined the Chronicle staff years later, Hoover pursued that same mission of writing with the average student in mind. “Low-income students, underrepresented minority students, undocumented students, first generation students, students who just don’t have much, if any, money,” he says. “I reoriented my beat to focus on the lived experience of students like that.”
Since 2001, he’s covered financial aid, college admissions, student judicial issues and student culture, a beat he calls “getting to and through college.”
“The conversation needs to be broader than just access to college,” he says. “Getting in — as hard as it can be for many disadvantaged students, whatever their age, to get in, to be admitted, to enroll — that’s, for many students, just the beginning of challenges.” —NG
EBOO PATEL: STRENGTH IN DIFFERENCES
ONE OF EBOO Patel’s mentors often said that “diversity is a fact.” That mentor was speaking about the country generally, but more specifically about college campuses, where most students encounter people of diverse races, ethnicities, religions and languages for the first time. Navigating those situations, therefore, is not optional. It’s something that every campus must confront. “The question is,” Patel says, “are they going to be in conflict, or are they going to be in cooperation?”
Patel’s approach to fostering this cooperation is pluralism, which he defines as “an ethos that is about respect for diverse identities, relationships between different communities and cooperation on concrete projects for the common good.”
As the leader of Interfaith America, the country’s largest such organization, as well as a University of Utah impact
scholar, Patel has spent years promoting this vision.
Lately, though, louder voices have promoted a different kind of diversity work, which he says is defined by an “oppressor-oppressed mindset.” “Where (it) is the case that diversity departments have fallen under that spell,” he says, “I think that’s a really bad thing.” But most, he adds, have not. “I would say the numerical majority are part of what I call the respect, relate, cooperate paradigm, effectively the paradigm of pluralism,” he says, “and they’re not part of what I call the demonize, demean and divide paradigm.”
In confronting the clashes on campuses in recent years, Patel has been repeating another line: “Diversity is not just the differences you like. Diversity includes the disagreements.” His pluralistic approach tries not to flatten identities into something tribal and narrow, and instead emphasizes working together. EB
“INTELLIGENCE OR THE ABILITY TO LEARN IS EQUALLY DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, BUT OPPORTUNITY IS NOT.”
BRIAN ASHTON PRESIDENT, BYU-PATHWAY WORLDWIDE
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF EDUCATION
RAISED BY A teacher and a high school guidance counselor in Birmingham, Alabama, Condoleezza Rice internalized the fundamental importance of education. “(It) was your armor against whatever was going on around you,” she once said in a speech.
Rice went on to prominent leadership roles in higher education and the U.S. government, becoming a distinguished professor and provost at Stanford University in the 1990s and, in the early 2000s, serving as the secretary of state under President George W. Bush. Under her leadership, Stanford recovered from its $20 million budget shortfall, hired more diverse faculty and enhanced its academic programs. Rice has emphasized the importance of education as a means of social mobility and advocated for policies that support disadvantaged students, ensuring they have access to resources they need to succeed. As a co-chair of the task force on education reform and national security, she’s drawn the link between the deficiencies in the American education system and the country’s future security and prosperity.
Rice now serves as the director of the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank at Stanford, which, along with economic freedom issues, examines higher education financing, the role of universities in society, academic freedom and the impact of technological advancements on education.
Amid political polarization and divisiveness, Rice sees education as a unifying force. “I believe that we can come together around a couple of principles,” Rice said at a Hoover education summit. “Most important of those principles is that everybody deserves a high-quality education.” —MM
SCOTT PULSIPHER: THE CASE FOR COMPETENCY
IN LESS THAN three decades since its formation, Western Governors University has become the country’s largest university, boasting some 175,000 current students. The secret? A “competency-based” approach that prioritizes acquiring skills over checking boxes.
That’s how Scott Pulsipher, WGU’s president, describes it. “Ultimately, becoming proficient is the thing that matters, not how much time it took you to be proficient,” he explained. Instead of tracking progress toward graduation based on credit hours, or hours spent in class, WGU gauges a student’s competency. And as soon as a student passes an exam showing her proficiency in those areas, she moves onto other subject materials.
That template has revolutionized higher education for nontraditional students, who can now achieve a bachelor’s degree through WGU in 21/2 years. Some do it even faster, if they enter their degree program with experience or knowledge in the field. “This is someone who already has a busy life,” Pulsipher said. “They have a job, they have family commitments, they have a variety of other things that they’re having to manage. And they need to figure out how to fit education into their already busy lives.” Through an online WGU program, they can enroll in as many courses as they want during the six-month term, and any previous work or educational experience offers a leg up.
“We do have to reaffirm what is still true, which is that education is still one of the single greatest catalysts to help someone change their life for the better,” he said. A lot of competing voices are arguing against the economic benefits of higher education; Pulsipher, in turn, argues against higher education’s traditional model, but pushes for a revamped version better suited to serve a diverse population of prospective students. “Most institutions,” he said, “still haven’t figured that component out.” —SB
FORTY YEARS AFTER BYU SHOCKED THE WORLD AND WON A NATIONAL TITLE, CAN UNDERDOGS STILL WIN IN TODAY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL?
BY ETHAN BAUER
ANTA CLAUS PARACHUTED onto the field before the 1984 Holiday Bowl kicked off, with more than 60,000 fans — then a record at San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium — roaring and chanting. “This game has been billed as the national championship game,” an ESPN announcer bellowed, “primarily because of this man: Robbie Bosco.” The camera panned to No. 6 in a royal blue jersey, tossing a ball back and forth with someone outside the frame. Bosco had waited his turn. He’d sat behind legends Jim McMahon and Steve Young, and now, in his first year as BYU’s starting quarterback, he’d positioned himself to become the most immortal of them all.
BYU entered the season unranked but had defeated No. 3 Pittsburgh on the road, on national TV, in its season opener. That rocketed the Cougars to No. 13 in the polls and, far from the view of national cameras, they just kept winning. Sometimes barely. They needed linebacker Kyle Morrell to dive over Hawaii’s entire offensive line for an acrobatic tackle in Week 4 to keep the Rainbow Warriors out of the end zone and claim an 18-13 victory. They sweated through a fourth-quarter homecoming comeback to beat Wyoming by 3. But they found a way. They always found a way. Entering their season finale, the Cougars stood alone as the sport’s only unbeaten team, reaching No. 1 in the polls and staying there until
their Holiday Bowl matchup against the unusually unimpressive Michigan Wolverines and their paltry 6-5 record.
Now, in December, in front of a national audience, BYU didn’t do much to quell accusations that they’d had an easy path to the nation’s only unblemished record, with five turnovers leading to a 17-10 deficit early in the fourth quarter. “People are watching this game and saying, ‘Look at what a 6-and-5 team is doing to them,’” one announcer noted. Bosco, who’d briefly left the game with an injury in the first quarter, hobbled around the field with tape swallowing his ankle. Trainers told announcers he had a sprain. And strained knee ligaments. And a cracked rib. Luckily, he was used to it. Bosco estimates he played at least three games that year with a concussion. “The knee wasn’t too bad, but my ankle is just throbbing with pain,” he’d say. “I could hardly move. But this is for the national championship, and I just had to hang in there.”
Bosco fired a completion to Davis Mills. Then another to Adam Haysbert. Star wideout Glen Kozlowski sealed the drive — and the tie — by snatching a Bosco lob from over a defender’s outstretched arm. Chants of “B-Y-U!” echoed. Bosco, still hopping around nearly one-legged, felt something close to divine energy when looking out at his teammates. “Being in that huddle, I could just see
it, and sense it in their eyes,” he remembers now. “And in their feeling that we were on the same page. And we can do this.”
That feeling took many years to develop. Norm Chow, the team’s offense play-caller and later the head coach at Hawaii, always believed that “players coach players better than coaches coach players,” and such coaching works best with years of familiarity and maturity. Look at Bosco, waiting his turn behind McMahon and Young. Look at linebacker Marv Allen, who played his first season in Provo in 1978 and was still there, seven years later. Look, most of all, at the team’s brutalizing offensive line: three seniors, one redshirt junior, and center Trevor Matich. Thanks to his church service mission halfway through his football career, he’d snapped to Bosco, Young, McMahon and fellow All-American Marc Wilson — a breathing, sweating, helmet-clashing bridge between Cougars past and present. None of them ever played college football anywhere but BYU. “That’s what made that team,”
Chow says. “That camaraderie. The willingness to sacrifice for each other. All the things,” he added, “that I think nowadays are not there.”
Call him old-fashioned. Fine. But he’s right that between 1984 and now, 40 years later, college football has changed — for players and coaches alike. Chow did, after all, stay at BYU for 27 years, and while Georgia’s Kirby Smart makes $13 million per year today, even legendary BYU head coach LaVell Edwards only made $250,000 as late as 1999 — less than $500,000 in today’s dollars. Back then, money didn’t rule yet. But in the grand scheme of college football’s evolution, 1984 is memorable not just because of BYU’s shocking title run, but because of something else that happened — a long way from the field — earlier that same year.
It marked the beginning of the moment we find ourselves in today: one where schools like Georgia and Alabama and Clemson have it all and seem poised
to extend their dominance, even in a new era of playoffs beginning this season. The new system promises opportunity for underdogs, with a guarantee that at least one smaller conference school will play in the 12-team format. But given how the college football landscape has changed in the last 40 years, it’s a hard guarantee to believe. As a result, the hope and promise of BYU’s fairy-tale 1984 season — of the upstart underdog beating the big boys — feels almost impossible. Dreamlike. Hazy — like visions of a royal blue No. 6 hobbling, stumbling his way onto the field, with 4:36 left in the game. “They said all year long when Robbie Bosco gets into situations where he has to perform, he has done that,” the announcer told hundreds of thousands of viewers watching at home. “And here it is.”
IN MARCH 1984, nine months before BYU’s Holiday Bowl, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from a group of schools that had sued over television rights. Until
BYU QUARTERBACK ROBBIE BOSCO THROWS A PASS DURING THE HOLIDAY BOWL IN SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, DECEMBER 21, 1984.
then, the NCAA regulated everything from the top down, deciding which games would be on national TV and how the revenue would be distributed. The schools argued the practice violated antitrust law, and the Supreme Court agreed. As a result, future media rights negotiations fell to conferences and independent schools not part of conferences. This decision fundamentally reshaped the direction of college football.
Before 1984, the NCAA tried to distribute TV revenue somewhat evenly among member schools. But after the Supreme Court ruling, the new landscape made it possible — inevitable, even — for conferences to compete for the best time slots and, most importantly, how much they could get for exclusive broadcasting rights. Today, TV deals are the lifeblood of major college football, and the best ones belong to the biggest conferences.
As originally conceived, college football was not supposed to be this way. The influence of commercialism was supposed to be limited by real amateurism — degree-seeking students competing against each other. The idea still had immense appeal; colleges have
very personal relationships with students and alumni, so watching your school succeed felt more meaningful than watching your local pro team. And incorporating other original elements, like mascots and student cheerleaders and marching bands and on-campus stadiums, distinguished the college game that much more. But over time, the spirit of real amateurism gave way to the allure of money.
Even before 1984, schools recognized college football could be a cash cow, and they worked to turn it into one. Walter Byers, the godfather of the NCAA, admitted as much in his 1995 memoir. The modern game, he wrote, has been constructed to benefit the institutions, coaches, administrators and other professionals — a farcical, artificial thing that was “amateur” only in that it kept players from being paid. “If their gluttony is to be curbed,” Byers wrote, “and the players justly treated, dramatic changes in the rules are required.” Around that time, we saw the rise of committees charged with combating the influence of runaway commercialism in college sports. But they failed to such a degree that nowadays, few seem to complain about the loss of the amateur ideal.
THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE MONEY FALL BEHIND, AND THOSE WHO FALL BEHIND CAN’T COMPETE FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS, AND THOSE WHO CAN’T COMPETE FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE IRRELEVANT.
ROBBIE BOSCO, TODAY EMPLOYED BY BYU’S ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT, CELEBRATES AFTER HIS TEAM’S HOLIDAY BOWL WIN.
ILLUSTRATION BY GARY NEILL
AS COLLEGE FOOTBALL WAS ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED, THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCIALISM WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIMITED BY REAL AMATEURISM — DEGREE-SEEKING STUDENTS COMPETING AGAINST DEGREESEEKING STUDENTS.
It was never easy for underdogs to succeed in the old landscape. Alabama and Ohio State always had more money to spend on football than BYU. “But the gap wasn’t, like, 100 times, an order of magnitude, that it is now,” says Matt Brown, a national college football reporter who writes the Extra Points newsletter. It started with lucrative TV deals (the SEC’s deal with Disney is worth $3 billion), and also includes a deluge of sponsorships and partnerships. Big Ten schools like Ohio State and Michigan, or Southeastern Conference programs such as Georgia and Alabama, court attention and viewers in prime-time Saturday time slots, giving TV networks and other brands a powerful, valuable advertising base, which schools and conferences have leveraged for the enrichment of their coaches, support staffs and facilities. Name, image and likeness deals, or NILs, allow boosters to pay students directly. The transfer portal allows players to move between schools with few limitations, making it harder to build the sort of camaraderie the 1984 BYU team had. And as the gap grows, it zaps the hope that fueled BYU’s run to the title.
In theory, everyone has a chance under the new playoff system. Any underdog can earn the opportunity to prove themselves on the field. But can they? In July, I visited Las Vegas to find out. With the Big 12 and Mountain West conferences both hosting meetings at the same time, I wanted to see whether they’re moving into the future with genuine hope — or fake enthusiasm. I wanted to understand how the underdogs of today are approaching the expanded playoffs and all the other money-fueled changes gripping college football. Most importantly, I wanted to understand what these changes mean for the future of teams like 1984 BYU
I wanted to know whether college football today, dominated by wealthy conferences and wealthy boosters and wealthy coaches and administrators and yes, as of recently, a few wealthy student players, is still open to that unexpected magic. Have we reached a point where the riches of college football
are good for everyone — or has something essential been lost along the way?
THE CIRCA RESORT and Casino sprouts from the heart of Fremont Street, a new icon in old Las Vegas. It includes the “largest sportsbook in the world” — three stories of betting lines and TV screens and reclining chairs. An escalator away, still within hearing distance of fans cheering their gains and cussing their losses, Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez steps to a microphone placed in front of an ad for Old Trapper Beef Jerky before a hundred or so reporters. “We’ve increased revenue and increased our national media exposure,” she says. She touts growth in viewership and attendance. But her remarks are unmistakably tinged with something she touches on only later: The Mountain West Conference, former home of BYU and these days home to Colorado State, Wyoming, Hawaii and nine other Western schools, exists at a crossroads. Nevarez’s speech, as a result, is peppered with near-apocalyptic language dressed up by optimistic spin. One of the signature achievements of the last year, she notes, was hiring an expert in “threat casting.” Basically, his job is to model potential changes in college sports to ensure the conference is prepared to endure. “He’s providing the signals and wayfinders so that we have early detection for the more dire outcomes,” she explains. “This is how we plan to survive and thrive in the myriad of potential outcomes that are coming our way.” Dire. Survive. That’s serious language. It’s also not surprising. The Mountain West (home to Utah State and Boise State) and the other four smaller conferences within Division I-FBS college football are all in the same league as the major conferences, and they compete for the same playoff spots, but financially speaking, they’re way behind. And that puts their existence at risk.
One reporter asks Nevarez whether she has looked into selling the conference’s naming rights — meaning whether the Mountain West Conference could soon be
called the “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Conference,” or the “Dr. Pepper Mountain West Conference.” The answer is almost certainly yes. “That’s a huge priority,” Nevarez says. Such a change could provide a substantial revenue boost to a league in desperate need of one — a fact that Nevarez notes hasn’t always been the case. “When I started in this business about 30 years ago, governance and championships were the tasks of the leagues,” she says during the Q&A. “Today, it’s media rights and sponsorships.” Or, put more bluntly, finding new ways to make more money. Those that don’t have money fall behind, and those that fall behind can’t compete for championships and those that can’t compete for championships are irrelevant. So unless the Mountain West Conference wishes to become irrelevant, money must be pursued relentlessly.
The conference does, however, offer one refutation to this paradigm, in the form of one particular school. Boise State is known for its thrilling, come-from-behind,
Statue-of-Liberty handoff to win the 2007 Fiesta Bowl over Oklahoma. Back then, the Broncos were part of the Western Athletic Conference — the same conference that produced 1984 BYU. That team would have been in a 12-team playoff had such a thing existed back then, and the Broncos remain a true underdog today. “I think there’s a lot of times that our football team is looked down upon,” says senior kicker Jonah Dalmas, “and we use that to motivate us.”
Senior defensive end Ahmed Hassanein explains it in a somewhat contradictory way that perfectly illustrates Boise State’s place in modern college football: The Broncos are both overlooked and have a constant target on their backs. Because of their history, every team in the Mountain West wants to beat them. But because they’re in the Mountain West, many national powers don’t take them seriously. “We’re looked on as underdogs to a certain point,” Dalmas says, “but we’re also looked at as a college football team that wins a lot of games.”
For that reason, Dalmas and Hassanein believe the Broncos could find success in the 12-team playoff. Not just making it in, but going all the way. “I think every team, arguably, could say that they’re excited,” Dalmas says. “But I think Boise State University definitely has a big opportunity. … I think we could definitely make it to that 12-team playoff — and be successful.”
The top conferences are still going to win almost every year, without question. But that “almost” is important, because now the Broncos, or others like them, are guaranteed to be in it. If they win, they’ll get their shot to prove themselves. Could they squeak through once every 20, 30, 40 years? “Why not?” Hassanein says. “Why not just make it happen and see where it goes?” Nevarez concurs in her remarks. “I think we’re positioned to do that now,” she says. Never mind that the best Mountain West team last year (UNLV) finished 9-5 and unranked. Or that the Southeastern Conference made 11 times more in revenue. Still, the new playoff, they say, means hope for underdogs.
And they’re not the only ones who think so.
ACROSS TOWN AT Allegiant Stadium, home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, the Big 12 has also partnered with Old Trapper beef jerky. But here, instead of a logo no larger than a dinner plate, Old Trapper’s mountaineer mascot stares down at the 500 reporters in attendance from a 6,000-foot video board. This isn’t so much a meeting as a production; there’s a woman in a headset pacing constantly around the stage, making tweaks to lighting and volume. Between press conferences, musical interludes blare from speakers two stories tall. BYU mascot Cosmo accompanies coach Kalani Sitake to the podium, along with a pair of cheerleaders, backed by the Cougar Song of BYU, aka “Rise and Shout.” All the coaches get similar treatment. The Big 12 obviously has more money than the Mountain West — very visibly so. But, less obviously, it also has a lot less than its peers in the Big Ten and the SEC.
TOM SMART
KELLY SMITH, BOTTOM, WAS MOBBED BY FELLOW PLAYERS IMMEDIATELY AFTER HE CAUGHT THE GAME-WINNING PASS.
Certainly the teams here are not overlooked like Boise State and other smaller programs. But the Big Ten and the SEC both made well over $800 million in revenue last year (a figure that will go up substantially this year when the SEC’s new media rights deal begins), while the Big 12 barely broke $500 million. It’s still way more than the Mountain West, which didn’t sniff $100 million — but is it enough?
Sonny Dykes brings an interesting perspective to the question. Two years ago, in his first season as head coach of Texas Christian University, he led his team to the College Football Playoff and upset Michigan in the first round. Then, in the national championship game, his team lost to Georgia — by 58 points. So what does it take to succeed not just once, but three or four times? He isn’t entirely sure. “It’s a grinder,” he says. Before, he’d scoff at schools like Georgia and Michigan, with their absurd number of assistant coaches and support staff. But after experiencing the playoffs firsthand, he understood. “In those settings,” he explains, “there’s just so much that needs to be done.” And more money means more resources to do it.
He’s still bullish on the conference’s overall chances. “I think the winner of the Big 12, year in and year out, is gonna have a chance to make a run” at a national championship, he explains. “Just look at two years ago — it happened. And I think the league is better positioned now to make it happen than it was then.” A Big 12 team had won a game against the Big Ten — then got stomped by the SEC. Why would the result be any different now?
Commissioner Brett Yormark chose his words very carefully when answering that question. The Big 12, he explained, will have the “deepest conference in America.” Meaning not the best, but the conference with the most parity. In the last two seasons, it’s added BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Houston, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State — a hefty infusion for a conference in need of one. But given that flagship programs in Texas and Oklahoma just fled the Big 12 for
the SEC, does the conference have enough contenders to unseat its top-heavy rivals? Or at least some way to create them?
Yormark, like his counterpart in the Mountain West, believes the answer is yes — if he can only find enough money to make it so. He began his yearly address by touting recent partnerships with MGM, Totino’s pizza, ESPN, Fox, EA Sports and Microsoft. Later, he added Sports Illustrated and Allstate. And he’s hoping to place sponsorship patches on Big 12 referees soon. “We are exploring all options,” he emphasized, including a naming rights deal and a new stream of funding through private equity.
THE 1984 HOLIDAY BOWL WIN CEMENTED BYU HEAD COACH LAVELL EDWARDS’ LEGACY AS A COLLEGE FOOTBALL LEGEND.
Private equity is a touchy subject in college sports given its tendency to maximize returns at any cost, but in Yormark’s view, its emergence is inevitable. “Given where we are as an industry, having a capital resource as a partner makes a ton of sense,” he explained. “That’s really how you conduct good business.” Exploring how it would work, therefore, is paramount, because eventually they’ll have no choice. “It’s going to be critically important,” he said about partnering with private equity. “So … we’re not compromising the long-term future of the conference.”
The animating tension at the Big 12 meeting was less existential than the Mountain West’s, but still plenty pressing. At stake was relevance, and how to achieve it without sacrificing everything important along the way. The Big 12 championship game, for example, had traditionally showcased school marching bands, but that wasn’t going to cut it in the new world of college football. So, the conference compromised: It hired hip-hop superstar Nelly to headline the show, but also incorporated the bands in the choreography. This is the sort of future Yormark envisions. “We can’t do away with the legacy and the heritage of where we’ve come from,” he said. “But we have to modernize. We have to contemporize.” And as long as it keeps doing that, the thinking goes, the conference should be able to compete in the 12-team playoff, at least occasionally.
Not everyone was on board. Matthew Sign, chief operating officer of the National Football Foundation, made a brief presentation focused, mainly, on subjects having little to do with any of this. But at one point, he mentioned that he wanted to promote athletes getting their college degrees, with a little barb about how that may surprise some of the folks in attendance. “We’re not anti-portal. We are not anti-NIL,” he told me later. “But we are for getting your college degree, especially if someone else is paying for it.” And in his opinion, the changes sweeping college football have obscured that mission — that singular thing that is supposed
to differentiate it from the NFL. Sign longed for simpler times. Times that, these days, feel like a bygone from a previous century.
BOSCO SCRAMBLES FOR 10 yards to open BYU’s final drive of the 1984 Holiday Bowl. He limps forward and, a few plays later, he hobbles up in the pocket and drops a looping pass to his halfback. “The guts of this young man (are) just unbelievable,” one announcer says. “One of the most courageous young men I have seen,” says the other. He needs help getting up after taking yet another hit, but with about a minute left, he steps up, evades defenders one last time, and hits Kelly Smith to claim the lead.
the road to the playoffs is pretty simple. And it’s never been simple for us.” Today’s BYU is arguably much better situated to win it all than 1984’s team, although that team was a culmination of many years’ worth of success and innovation. “I think we need to put it together a little more consistently, like they did,” says offensive lineman Connor Pay. “But I have no doubt.”
OVER TIME, THE SPIRIT OF REAL AMATEURISM GAVE WAY TO THE ALLURE OF UNTAPPED BUSINESS POTENTIAL.
An interception from Allen seals the victory, and the Cougars carry coach Edwards off the field. Twelve days later, The Associated Press, UPI Coaches Poll, and others declare BYU the 1984 national champion. Today’s BYU is a long way from recapturing that glory; a championship for the Cougars would still be a seismic upset. “Traditionally, we are kind of an underdog,” says senior defensive end Tyler Batty. “And we’re OK with that.” It gives them identity. It gives them hope. And in their view, there’s never been a more hopeful time for BYU football. “I love it,” says coach Sitake. “The map of
That’s one optimistic way to look at the new playoffs. Chow, the 1984 play-caller, offers a different view. “It’s too hard,” he says. “I don’t think the Boise States will ever happen again.” The budget discrepancies; the TV money; the transfer portal and NIL — all of it is just too much for smaller schools to overcome. “I don’t think anybody,” he says of 1984 BYU, “will ever be able to do what that team did.” Brown, the longtime college football reporter, believes it would take a very special set of circumstances: an unusually high concentration of older players with extensive experience in one system; a few NFL-caliber players on defense and at skill positions on offense; and a quarterback who is good enough to get Heisman votes.
Bosco, who works in BYU’s athletic department, still clings to that possibility. The team got lucky in 1984; BYU and today’s underdogs could still get lucky today. He knows it’s unlikely. “You’ve got to kind of find that niche that makes your team go each year,” he says. “With all these things” — the whirlwind of cash that has remade the sport since his game-winning touchdown pass — “I think it gets more and more difficult. (But) we’re just a team that’s not gonna give up.”
Bronco Mendenhall, who spent 11 years as the head coach at BYU and is now entering his first season at New Mexico, a Mountain West program, is even more hopeful. Underdogs could flourish in the era ahead. Or, at least, he believes they can — and that matters more than whether it’s true. “Is it possible? It has to be possible,” he says. “I have to believe it’s possible. I do believe it’s possible. And I think it’d be great for college football for it to be demonstrated that it is possible.”
EDUCATING THE WHOLE CHILD
THE GROWING MOVEMENT TO MAKE SPIRITUALITY PART OF EDUCATION
BY STEVEN C. ROCKEFELLER
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, the American people are deeply divided and their democratic republic is seriously troubled. If the nation is to find constructive ways to address the growing crisis, there is an urgent need to awaken a new sense of shared values and common purpose. As John Dewey, the philosopher and educator, reminded his fellow citizens in 1939 when democracy was under attack abroad, democracy is first and foremost a great ethical ideal and way of life. Faith in this ideal and wholehearted commitment to the way of being and working together it inspires, what may be called spiritual democracy, is the only sure foundation of a thriving political and social democracy.
America’s schools have a vital role to play in helping the nation respond to this moral and spiritual challenge. In this regard, a growing number of psychologists, teachers, school administrators and social activists are calling for a transformation of the schools that involves embracing education of the whole child — mind, body, heart and
spirit. There is a special concern for spiritual development, the awakening of a sense of belonging to something greater than the self, and formation of a caring, intelligent, compassionate way of being.
MOUNTING EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT WHEN SCHOOLS SUPPORT THE BLOSSOMING OF A YOUNG PERSON’S SPIRIT, THEY ALSO HELP STUDENTS SUCCEED ACADEMICALLY AND BETTER PREPARE THEM FOR A PRODUCTIVE AND REWARDING LIFE.
This movement is part of the search for strategies to address the widespread mental health crisis among children and adolescents today. The movement’s leaders also understand that spirituality in education is
essential if our schools are to prepare young people to become the engaged citizens and visionary leaders America needs. Rachael Kessler, for example, articulates concisely the interconnection between democracy, education and spirituality in “The Soul of Education”: “If we are educating for wholeness, for citizenship, and leadership in a democracy, spiritual development belongs in schools.”
Some who question promotion of spirituality in education are understandably concerned that supporting this initiative will entangle the public schools in contentious debates and legal battles over the separation of church and state and religion in the schools. However, even though spirituality is often interrelated with religion, spirituality and religion are not identical. Human beings are born with a natural capacity for spiritual development quite apart from any religion.
In addition, basic spiritual aspirations and widely shared values such as wonder, awe, the yearning to learn and grow, the search for meaning and purpose, the love
“HOLISTIC EDUCATION IS ABOUT EDUCATING THE WHOLE PERSON — BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT — WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD.”
of beauty in nature and art, reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude, self-discipline, nonviolence, empathy, tolerance, and love of neighbor can be nurtured both within and apart from religion. There are many ways secular schools can support a young person’s inborn spiritual potential and spiritual democracy, a relational spirituality involving universal human values, without promoting or opposing institutional religion.
There should be no conflict between nurturing the spiritual development of young people and maintaining high academic standards. Mounting evidence shows that when schools support the blossoming of a young person’s spirit, they also help students succeed academically and better prepare them for a productive and rewarding life. The goal is the full integration of academic learning with emotional, social, moral and spiritual development, recognizing that each young person is a unique individual with special strengths and gifts and that each school will have its distinctive way to advance the goal.
THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN dream involves the vision of a new world in which individuals are free to pursue their own diverse aspirations within a social environment that cultivates intelligent, responsible citizens who respect the freedom, equal dignity and fundamental rights of others, advancing the never-ending task of constructing “a more perfect Union.” Each generation is faced with the task of renewing faith in the dream, rectifying past injustice, and constructing a fresh, more inclusive vision of the common good for the new age. The environmental crisis has added an ecological dimension to the evolving social vision. In the 21st century, it should be central to the mission of the nation’s schools to keep the original dream and its spirit alive, and toward that end to educate the whole person, heart and spirit as well as mind and body. Regarding the urgent need in this time of crisis for both institutional reform and cultural transformation, the pre-K-12 schools are an especially critical part of American
democracy’s essential infrastructure. There is no better place to start the work of creating a culture of commitment to American constitutional democracy, to one another, to the greater community of life and future generations. Childhood and adolescence are uniquely formative periods in the human life cycle, and it is hard to imagine how the nation can hope to reinvent American democracy for this century without a transformation of schools that involves promoting education of the whole child and spiritual democracy. Moreover, achieving major change in America will take time, and preparing oncoming generations through the schools to carry this work forward is essential.
Charging schools with supporting the moral and spiritual development of the nation’s youth is not a new idea. It was widely held in the Colonial era and 19th century that a stable social order requires morality and morality requires the support of a religious faith in God. Communities looked to the schools as well as to families and institutional religion to tend the moral and spiritual foundations of society. Many children were taught to read by studying the Bible. Beginning in the 1830s, state-supported “common schools” (public schools) were established by local governments with the understanding that they would ensure young people acquire the knowledge, values and skills to be good citizens. These schools were designed to inspire commitment to a Protestant Christian vision of basic moral and spiritual values that its proponents argued was nonsectarian.
However, with the ever-growing religious pluralism of American society, the increasing secularization of society, the spread of moral relativism, and vocal demands that schools respect constitutional provisions regarding the separation of church and state, it proved ever more difficult to develop and maintain a broad consensus on how public schools should support the spiritual and moral development of young people. Fierce debates and even violent conflicts have erupted over this issue. Nevertheless,
the idea that the nation’s schools should promote ethical values and character development has persisted.
While teaching at the University of Chicago in the 1890s, John Dewey was among the first educational reformers to create a laboratory school designed to generate the scientific understanding needed to guide a transformation of the K-12 schools with the goal of educating the whole child and advancing progressive social change. He was very concerned with the formation of a young person’s basic attitudes and moral values. However, he endeavored to find ways of addressing this challenge without involving organized religion, which he believed had come to divide rather than unite Americans. He envisioned schools becoming miniature communities unified by commitment to the democratic spirit and guided by the science-based art of forming in youths “fundamental dispositions, intellectual and moral, toward nature and fellow man.”
Dewey was the most prominent leader of the progressive education movement in the early decades of the 20th century, but there were multiple innovative leaders, and the movement influenced the practices in public schools as well as independent schools. However, as the nation emerged from World War II , the movement became fractured and lost its way. The scientific studies, creative experiments and impassioned debates inspired by the movement remain an important influence in the ongoing evolution of educational reform in America, but progressive education ceased to be the banner under which reformers mobilized. Reflecting the influence of progressive education, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1947 calls for the education of the whole child with an emphasis on core democratic values. Article 26 states: “Education should be directed to the full development of the human personality and strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
By the 1960s and ’70s, the vast majority of U.S. public schools had been led to abandon a concern to nurture students’ spiritual and moral formation. In 1947, the Supreme Court made clear that the First Amendment prohibition against restricting the free exercise of religion or adopting laws that lead to an establishment of religion applies to state and local governments and to public schools, where no tax dollars may be used to support religious activities or institutions. In the early 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that any form of school-sponsored prayer and religious instruction, including devotional Bible readings, in public schools violated the First Amendment. The court’s charge to public schools is to provide a “secular education” that maintains a “strict and lofty neutrality as to religion.” Many educa-
EACH GENERATION IS FACED WITH THE TASK OF RENEWING ITS FAITH IN THE DREAM AND CONSTRUCTING A FRESH VISION OF THE COMMON GOOD FOR THE NEW AGE.
tors have understood these rulings to support the misguided notion that education of the heart, whatever form it takes, does not belong in public school education.
Over the past two decades, the most significant national efforts to reform the schools have focused largely on the curriculum, especially on reading, writing and math, and on the use of standardized tests to measure the progress of students, teachers and schools. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, the Common Core State Standards issued in 2010, and the Every Student Succeeds Act adopted in 2015 were designed to reverse the poor performance of U.S. students on national and international tests, but for the most part these initiatives have failed to achieve
their goals. In addition, an intense focus on tests and test prepping has tended to narrow the focus of teaching and learning.
THIS STATE OF affairs, however, is not the whole story regarding the schools and spiritual and moral development over the past four decades. Many independent schools, some religious and some secular, have remained committed to supporting and nurturing the moral and spiritual life of their students. In addition, concerns over the unraveling of the moral fabric of American culture and the many problems with which young people struggle today, including mental health issues, overexposure to social media and underachievement in academic work, have led to renewed efforts to find acceptable secular ways to reform public school education and nurture moral and spiritual development.
In the 1980s, John Miller and Ron Miller launched the “holistic education” movement in the U.S. and Canada. “Holistic education,” explains John Miller, “is about educating the whole person — body, mind and spirit — within the context of an interconnected world.” Spiritual development is a central concern. Even though the term “holistic education” is relatively new, asserts Miller, the theory and practice are not. He cites the educational practices of Indigenous peoples and the great spiritual teachers of the Axial Age, including Confucius, Socrates and Plato, and more recent educational reformers such as Rousseau, Tolstoy, the American Transcendentalists and Maria Montessori as educators who understood the vital importance of a holistic approach.
In the United States, almost all the major professional educational organizations have endorsed a focus on the whole child, even if the implementation of the goal remains unrealized. These organizations include the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of
“SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IS FOR OUR SPECIES A BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE AT BIRTH.”
Middle School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Among those educators and activists supportive of holistic education are the many advocates for the practice of mindfulness in schools. In recent decades, hundreds of public and charter schools across the country have adopted mindfulness-based programs for students and teachers. The central focus of these programs is a meditation practice that comes from Buddhism, but after having been the object of much scientific research, mindfulness-based programs are promoted as a science-based technique that reduces stress, supports mental health, and nurtures development of universal values like compassion and loving-kindness. The many significant benefits its supporters associate with mindfulness are suggested in the title of former Rep. Tim Ryan’s book promoting the practice: “A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit.”
Over the past 25 years, the promotion of social and emotional learning has had a wide influence. The movement has been remarkably successful arguing that in addition to academic learning, social and emotional learning instills in young people knowledge, skills and attitudes that are fundamental to their overall development, enhance their capacity for academic learning, and greatly strengthen their ability to feel and show empathy, build rewarding relationships and work cooperatively with others. Some leaders of the social and emotional learning movement have argued that the next step should be to support spirituality in education.
Beginning with the founding of iCivics by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor in 2009, a bipartisan movement has formed to renew and rebuild civic education and the teaching of American history. iCivics spearheads the movement in collaboration with Civ XNow, a coalition of over 130 organizations. The leaders of this initiative have released a statement on “Spirituality and the Common Good” that affirms that at the heart of the American experiment are “spiritual ideals,” and it calls for an education that “nurtures not only the minds but also the hearts and spirits of young people.” iCivics teaching materials are being used today by millions of students. Transmitting to them an understanding and appreciation of the way of being and working together associated with spiritual democracy should be a fundamental goal of their civic education.
LISA MILLER, A professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has for several decades been conducting pathbreaking research in the field of psychology and spirituality. In 2015, she published “The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving,” making a compelling argument in support of education for the whole child in pre-K-12 schools. A principal leader of the spirituality in education movement, she emphasizes the many protective benefits of spiritual development in young people and the vital importance of building spiritually supportive school cultures. Her research provides hard evidence that children are born as spiritual beings as well as social and moral beings. They are equipped at birth with the deep inner core that reflect their genetic makeup, but the cultural environment and socialization have a major influence on how these
inborn capacities are developed. Her research demonstrates that when the deep inner core of children and adolescents is supported and nurtured, they are more likely to do well academically and much less likely than others to be overcome by anxiety and depression and to be at risk for alcoholism, drug abuse, other harmful behaviors and suicide. In general, they are more likely to be resilient, thrive and develop rewarding relationships and meaningful careers.
Miller writes that there are now hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles that show “inborn spirituality as foundational to mental health and wellness, particularly as it develops in the first two decades. … Spiritual development is for our species a biological and psychological imperative at birth.” “The data suggests,” she also explains, “that it is much easier and more likely for adults to be spiritual if that sense is fostered during childhood and adolescence.”
These findings are a wake-up call for America regarding what the well-being of the nation’s young people requires of parents, religious institutions and schools and what schools must do to help create the spiritually aware, morally responsible citizens and leaders the nation so desperately needs in civil society, business, the military, politics and government.
STEVEN C. ROCKEFELLER IS PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF RELIGION AND A FORMER DEAN AT MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, AND WAS A TRUSTEE OF THE ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND FOR 33 YEARS.
GOVERNING BOARDS MUST REGAIN THEIR CONTROL OF AMERICA’S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
BY RICHARD VEDDER
American higher education is in trouble. College enrollments last year were lower than they were 12 years earlier in 2011, the first sustained drop in American history — and low birth rates suggest the pool of future college students may fall rather than increase. Polls show declining public support for universities — support necessary for their sustenance, since few universities are wholly dependent on their customers (students and research grantors) for financial sustainability. Given high tuition fees, many potential students today ask: Is college worth it?
Additionally, the news earlier this year was dominated by accounts of protest at elite universities interfering with academic activities, sometimes involving shocking derogatory smears of individuals based on religious preferences or nationality. University presidents at recent congressional hearings publicly favored policies highly objectionable to most Americans.
The turbulent campuses seem far removed from the desired “marketplace of ideas,” where diverse perspectives on contemporary issues are discussed with civility and respect. A “cancel culture” where speakers are shouted down or even kept off
OVER TIME, THE BALANCE OF COLLEGIATE POWER HAS SHIFTED LARGELY TO AN ARMY OF ADMINISTRATORS TYPICALLY FAR OUTNUMBERING THOSE ACTUALLY TEACHING STUDENTS AND CONDUCTING RESEARCH.
campus is the norm at some universities. Arguably even worse, the honesty and integrity of the academic research is increasingly questioned, with well-documented incidents involving faculty and administrators plagiarizing and deliberately falsifying research results. One respected publisher, Wiley, recently closed down a number of academic journals because of continuing evidence of downright fraudulent results.
Dozens of colleges are closing or on life support. Other evidence suggests college students on average are not working hard. Even the one collegiate area that the public usually enthusiastically supports,
athletics, is increasingly seen as having embarrassingly little to do with higher learning and discovery.
To be sure, assessing universities is difficult: There is no universally accepted “bottom line” measure of success. We don’t even test graduating seniors nationally on things college-trained individuals should know.
What can be done to restore public trust, and who will do it? That answer lies in determining who “owns” or controls the universities. Usually, the legal response is some governing board. But typically many groups believe that they do or should control major policies impacting schools. What about the faculty? They are essential to creating learning and discovery, core university functions. The students? They are the raison d’etre of colleges — without students, there is no “university,” and usually they provide much of the school’s revenue. In state higher-ed systems, often the governor and legislature believe they have ultimate control. At some schools, wealthy alumni and other donors think they should have a big say in major decisions. Both the University of Oregon’s Phil Knight and Johns Hopkins’ Michael Bloomberg are
multibillion-dollar donors — would those schools dare do something those donors vehemently opposed? Increasingly important: The administrative bureaucracy has grown enormously at most schools. Often, the president is viewed as the CEO who is the ultimate decision-maker aided by an army of subservient bureaucrats. At many schools, powerful DEI (“diversity, equity and inclusion”) apparatchiks appear to have the clout to alter decisions, such as by requiring mandatory statements from employees and students pledging fealty to a woke/progressive agenda. A school’s distinctive mission can determine who is in control.
The optimal leadership model for schools therefore varies, but generally ultimate control must almost always reside in the institution’s governing board. Many private schools have huge boards (often over 50 members) whose importance in decision-making is typically negligible. As one board member at a largish university told me, speaking of his board, “we are a bunch of potted plants.” On many campuses, the board needs to assert some adult supervision to negate campus foolishness that can truly harm the institution’s reputation and financial viability. Effective boards usually are between seven and 15 members in size, with varying terms of ideally between five and eight years. But no single model fits all schools. Below are five major issues all governing boards must address to restore public trust and assure their respective institutions’ future viability.
PICKING A PRESIDENT
This universal board imperative is a daunting task as the average presidential tenure shrinks amid growing challenges of the job. Presidents may be current high-level university administrators, but sometimes are leaders in the business, government, foundation or military communities with some postgraduate educational training. Although there are exceptions, many campuses suffer from a lack of sufficient intellectual diversity, with a left-progressive domination often somewhat out of sync with a majority of the public served by the school. With some exceptions
(i.e., conservative church-sponsored institutions) it is usually in the best institutional interest for the governing board to pick a leader who supports a pluralistic campus environment tolerant of alternative viewpoints on major issues, which often means a president somewhat more conservative than the prevailing campus mood. Universities with presidents who are cheerleaders for the campus “woke supremacy” have often not fared well in recent years. Other abilities and experience include: financial acumen and fundraising ability, verbal articulateness, innate intelligence, unquestioned integrity, approachability, fierce work ethic. In short, Superman or Superwoman.
THE TURBULENT CAMPUSES SEEM FAR REMOVED FROM THE DESIRED “MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS,” WHERE DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ARE DISCUSSED WITH CIVILITY AND RESPECT.
Boards sometimes excessively rely on outside search firms in presidential selection. While use of these firms to identify a small pool of promising candidates is common, the board itself should spend a lot of time interviewing and researching the finalists, and, indeed, should not be shy in suggesting individuals (perhaps prominent alums) who might be a good fit. Presidents set the pace for future change, so this board task requires serious dedication.
COMBATTING INEFFICIENCY AND RISING COSTS
Universities are inherently inefficient and costly. Internal forces within schools are constantly pressuring the president for costly changes — higher salaries, more staff, nicer facilities. With the possible exception
of medical care (which has had huge qualitative improvements), no other major form of consumer spending has increased prices as much as higher education in the four decades between 1980 and 2020. Expensive facilities (for example, classroom buildings with fancy atriums) often are constructed to meet a frenzied “edifice complex,” but heavily utilized typically only about eight months a year. Most faculty offices are used less than 20 hours weekly for fewer than 35 weeks a year. Students getting bachelor’s degrees are typically in classes about 33-36 months total, easily attainable in three calendar years but typically stretched out over four years or more. Moreover, partly a byproduct of grotesque grade inflation, time-use studies show most students actually “study” an average of under 30 hours weekly — less than middle school students. Many faculty members are occupied writing papers read by few and receiving little citation, sometimes neglecting students who ostensibly are the main reason for the university’s existence. Tenure is sometimes a very costly way to offer teachers protection of their right to free expression. The trustees need to take a skeptical eye to expensive increments to campus budgets — do we really need this? Will it raise costs and make us less competitive?
EVALUATING VOCATIONAL RELEVANCE
Most people believe the prime function of college is transitioning students from the adolescence of secondary school to adulthood centered around the world of work. College should help students get relatively skilled, remunerative and rewarding jobs. Yet, roughly 40 percent of those entering four-year schools fail to graduate even in six years, and some 40 percent of those receiving degrees face some period of what the New York Federal Reserve Bank calls “underemployment” — taking jobs traditionally filled by high school graduates. Boards should incentivize presidents and senior administrators by giving bonuses for reducing costly student attrition in legitimate ways (not illegitimate ones like
lowering grading standards). Often large numbers of students major in subjects for which there is little vocational demand but which the campus establishment love — gender studies is a good example. Boards should oppose indoctrination in political dogma that has no value in promoting either student prosperity or national economic welfare.
That said, truly educated persons need a good general education, with some knowledge of our history, civic institutions, literature, mathematics, science and perhaps foreign languages. These requirements help students become better critical thinkers and more articulate communicators. The scuttling of these requirements in order to offer trendy sounding vocationally oriented majors is generally a mistake. Finding the right balance between general knowledge and vocational relevance is important.
RETHINKING NONSCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES
Universities engage in many nonacademic activities that often can be done by others more efficiently. Often important is intercollegiate athletics, which at some schools has become big business; the notion that star players are amateurs whose primary mission is to earn a degree is clearly untrue in today’s environment. Should universities be running de facto professional sporting teams? Similarly, while medical study is a legitimate university function, should universities be running vast hospital systems? Should they be in the housing and food provision business, or running bus systems? Mitch Daniels as Purdue’s president froze tuition fees for a decade while reexamining the noncore activities of the school, a model worth emulating. Many trustees have business experience where cost reduction is critical to their success. They can be useful in assessing these nonacademic activities of universities.
CULTIVATING DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES
Universities ideally are academic marketplaces where widely ranging opinions
are expressed and debated respectfully and civilly. As the faculty have increasingly demonstrated a pronounced left-of-center perspective, tolerance of alternative viewpoints has declined. Associated with that has been a decline in providing a strong general education, including analyzing the origins and fruits of our mostly Western-based civilization. College presidents sometimes accept a “cancel culture” where those holding legitimate but different perspectives on contemporary issues are disinvited from campus or shouted down. The dominant voices on campus sometimes suppress others with alternative views deserving discussion in a vibrant community of scholars. Trustees, as involved outsiders, need to fight this.
THE OPTIMAL LEADERSHIP MODEL FOR SCHOOLS VARIES, BUT GENERALLY ULTIMATE CONTROL MUST ALMOST ALWAYS RESIDE IN THE INSTITUTION’S GOVERNING BOARD.
THERE ARE MANY issues beyond the purview of governing boards or institutions. The growing federal role into higher education threatens to enforce a bland uniformity over America’s distinctly different schools. The federal financial assistance programs, especially student loans, are the best example of the law of unintended consequences: Much research says these programs are a major cause of the tuition price inflation, especially hurting lower-income students. The inefficiency of graduate and professional education is another concern. For example, why does it take humanities doctoral students six or eight years to get a Ph.D., only to get a job typically not requiring that level of skills? And the most basic question of all: Should nearly everyone go to college? We have diluted college
standards by admitting too many with limited cognitive abilities and lowered the quality of degrees via grade inflation.
Resolving the issues confronting universities will require outside assistance, with needed “creative destruction” in the form of increased college closures already leading to some enhanced realism of the many challenges facing campus leaders. Some things governing boards could insist on are cheap and easy to implement. Two examples: First, a “campus political neutrality” policy that says the university will not itself take positions on political issues even though individual campus community members are encouraged to civilly debate them. Second, governing boards can allocate modest sums to sponsor regular campus debates on contemporary issues featuring prominent national proponents of opposing viewpoints. Additionally, boards should favor outside efforts to rein in accreditors, often thwarting good ideas that reduce costs without diluting quality, such as by introducing three-year bachelor’s degree programs. Try to prevent accreditation bodies from trying to mandate destructive and costly DEI-oriented requirements.
Over time, the balance of collegiate power has shifted largely to an army of administrators typically far outnumbering those actually teaching students and conducting research. Rather than supporting the teaching/research mission, often these administrators detract from it, diluting the emphasis on learning and discovery. I once estimated that if we reduced the administrator-student ratio to what it was a generation ago, we could reduce tuition fees 20 percent and restore emphasis on job No. 1: educating students and expanding discovery and pursuit of truth. Or as John Keats said over two centuries ago, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
IDENTITY CRISIS
HAS SELF-PURSUIT INHIBITED WOMEN FROM HAVING CHILDREN?
BY CATHERINE R. PAKALUK
The faculty office where I met Angela was dimly lit by a single window behind her desk. “I can’t exactly say that I’m a paragon of self-care,” she quipped. And “let’s be honest, I don’t have a published book. That’s not happening. I don’t care. But it’s not happening, actually.” Angela grinned and tucked an unkempt wave of crimped black hair behind her thick glasses. “For some it’s fine. I’m not that person. Would I be a better scholar if I didn’t have children? For sure. Honestly, I mean, I used to work all the time before I had my children. So, for sure, I would.”
Teaching at a small liberal arts college, Angela is one of the American women who missed the memo about the small family thing. Though she married late after trying out the convent, she still managed to have five kids over 10 years while earning tenure. Her office walls are papered with messy
artworks produced at a tiny table and chairs pushed to the side. It doesn’t surprise me she’s not doing a lot of self-care right now. Five kids in 10 years is no joke, even without a professorship.
MAYBE IT’S NOT THE PURSUIT OF SELF-IDENTITY THAT HINDERS THE PATH TO MOTHERHOOD, BUT GETTING IT WRONG ABOUT SELF-IDENTITY.
Anyhow, she’s sorry she can’t have one more. “Well, you know, I’m actually sad. Believe it or not. It’s ridiculous. I know I’m 44 and the average 44-year-old is not having another child. But nothing has wound
down yet. I love children. And (my youngest) won’t have a sibling close in age. I’d love to have one more, just so he could have a little friend. I would. I’m not going to lie, I would enjoy that immensely.”
Fewer of us are becoming mothers and we who do become mothers later in life than ever before. Most blame the economics. Some say we’re not socialist enough. Others say we’re too socialist. But birth rates are down everywhere, no matter how much we redistribute. Angela’s frank talk about demoting self-care and book-writing made me wonder about a darker possibility. Has a relentless pursuit of self-identity inhibited the transition to become selves who live for other selves?
To find out, I searched out the unicorns of mothering, women who didn’t just have one or two, but who kept going — embracing sleepless nights for more than a decade,
WHEN GEN Z AND MILLENNIALS SAY IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE TO HAVE KIDS, THEY MEAN IT — BUT THE MATERIAL PAYMENTS AREN’T THE WHOLE STORY.
trading off career milestones and personal interests for the sake of more children. In summer of 2019, I interviewed 55 American women with at least five kids, like Angela. (To protect their identities, pseudonyms are used throughout.) What I found convinced me that the mystery of motherhood hides under the branches of our selfhood. When Gen Z and millennials say it’s too expensive to have kids, they mean it — but the material payments aren’t the whole story. Mothers pay for their children with their selves. It’s not easy to opt in, especially when other choices are increasingly desirable. The mothers I met did so because they saw children as blessings, expressions of God’s goodness and the purpose of their marriages. They wanted children enough to put other things “on the back burner“ — enthusiastically even.
Angela’s opt-in was memorable. Children mattered so much to her that it almost derailed her engagement. “It was funny, it was right outside of Carnegie Hall, and he proposed to me, and I didn’t say yes right away. … I had to pause for a minute, and I was like, ‘Wait, do you want children?’ He’s like, ‘Yes.’” She laughed, “You know I didn’t want to commit without it, because we didn’t have that talk or anything.” Angela really wanted children. She credited her family background. “I had one sister, and that was not the choice of my parents. They would have loved a large family, but fertility is what it is. So, it was just the two of us. But I always wanted more siblings.”
She also credited her religious upbringing. “I’m Catholic, marriages produce children. And this is a positive thing. So, I didn’t overthink it.” But most who share her faith aren’t anything like Angela. If American Catholics used to have more kids than Protestants, that difference had vanished by the late 1970s. I probed for deeper motives. Just being Catholic didn’t explain it.
What emerged was a picture of a young Angela persuaded that her identity would be fulfilled, not canceled, by prioritizing kids. “There’s no shame in sharing yourself with people, and reliance on other people,”
she said. “The best example I can give is it (used to be) really normal to stop by somebody’s house without calling first. No one would do this now. I grew up like this, and I miss it actually. Everyone I know who is not Black would be utterly horrified if you showed up on their doorstep, because they would feel judged, because of course their house is not perfect, you know, whatever.”
“I grew up in a predominantly Catholic area,” she said. “Almost everyone I grew up with is Irish or Italian. And they were Catholic Irish and Italians. So, I don’t know what to tell you about that, there was one other Black family, and they were Protestant.” She laughed, “It just is what it is. But I think Italians are a lot like this in my view, and I don’t know if I can talk about Italians, being Black, the Italians I know are similar to Black people this way, that there’s a sense of hospitality and a sense of openness.”
Angela struggled to convey a critical idea I heard from the moms I interviewed. Identity wasn’t in them. It was in their relation to others. And as relations go, nothing could be more meaningful, more identifying, than motherhood. Hannah, a Jewish mom of seven, declared, “What a better way to form an identity, you know? No regrets. Not a one. … I have inner peace in my life that I didn’t have then. I was searching. I’m not searching now.”
Angela went on, “I would most definitely make a connection between the culture of hospitality and the children. If you have an openness to the other, you have an openness to the other. And you don’t fear the loss of yourself in the openness to the other. I think that’s my fundamental point — that I’m most myself in the openness to the other.” Angela likened an open door for a Sunday visitor to an open womb for another child. I didn’t ask her whether an openness to immigrants might be linked to welcoming children, but maybe it was implicit when she described the ethnic and cultural diversity of her neighborhood growing up. She said she “(didn’t) fear the loss” of herself, but I wasn’t convinced. What about that book she hadn’t published? What about
her passions? She’s obviously talented. Who gets tenure with five kids? But she doubled down. “Am I following all my passions? I literally hate that word.” She laughed. “No, I’m not. OK, I can live with that. My hobby right now is sitting and watching soccer.” She went on, “That’s just reality. But since autonomy is not my primary value, it doesn’t matter. People are actually my primary value. ... And I have a home rich with persons. People matter. People matter. And they also — my sense of identity is sort of co-related to all (these) other people.”
“It’s just, what do you value?” she asked. “I think that our values are more for individual self-fulfillment than they are for anything collectively. We value money and the means for making it over persons.” She seemed to walk the walk. Her clothes suggested she wasn’t shopping upscale. Of course, I know what professors make. She’s not raking it in for a family with five kids. Angela also voiced Hannah’s solution for self-searching. “I’m most myself with my family,” she said, “more than I ever even knew I could be.” Maybe it’s not the pursuit of self-identity that hinders the path to motherhood, but getting it wrong about self-identity. The mothers I met had enough children to see a pattern in themselves. Monica, a former corporate lawyer with six kids, explained.
“When I first became a mother, I was sort of lost because I had previously identified as
“I’M MOST MYSELF WITH MY FAMILY, MORE THAN I EVER EVEN KNEW I COULD BE.”
a successful high-achieving young professional. … And so, when I became a mother, I didn’t understand, I quickly realized that everything had shifted. My whole world had turned on the axis. And what did it mean? I just had no idea. It really was for so many years just about getting through the days. It was like, ‘We’ll get through this time, and I’ll go back to being that person,’ and that was sort of how I saw it. I had that person, not just that career but that person, on a hold. So, it was terrible, right? I was not allowing myself to be me. This (mom) wasn’t me and that (lawyer) was.”
Monica went on, “After my second one, I kind of came into the beginning of an awakening of myself and who I was as a daughter of God. As a person inside — a Christian, a wife, a mother. All of those things coalescing to an understanding, and when I say ‘me and who I am,’ I really mean why I’m here. So those things are so closely connected.” She figured out her identity wasn’t what she was doing. It was who she was for: God, her husband, her children. “For me, the self-discovery was in this total upheaval of everything I thought and knew and this completely different path of opening my life and my heart to all these little people who have taught me a ton about life.”
I understood the paradox they described. Years ago, as a young academic in an elite Ph.D. program, and against all normie advice, I fell in love, got married and had a
baby. That baby was born on Mother’s Day 24 years ago. This year, he graduated from college with a degree in economics. He’s getting married in December to his college sweetheart, he works a great job, has a dachshund named Queenie and a host of interests that delight me as much as when he first pointed to an ant on the sidewalk and made up a funny word for it.
To the normies in my life back then, having a baby seemed like something anyone could do. But to me, being his mom wasn’t something anyone could do. Only I could be his mom. And it was so good to be his mom that we hoped for more and were blessed with seven more kiddos. Like Angela, believe it or not, it’s ridiculous, but I’d love to have one more. I’d enjoy that immensely. But the average 48-year-old is not having another child.
Would I be a better scholar if I didn’t have children? For sure, honestly; I mean, I worked all the time before I had children, so for sure, I would. But what a better way to form an identity, you know? No regrets. Not a one. I have inner peace in my life that I didn’t have then. I was searching. I’m not searching now.
RUTH PAKALUK IS THE MOTHER OF EIGHT CHILDREN AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THIS ESSAY IS ADAPTED FROM HER BOOK “HANNAH’S CHILDREN: THE WOMEN QUIETLY DEFYING THE BIRTH DEARTH” (REGNERY, 2024).
CATHERINE
THE LION’S TALE
BRINGING AFRICAN LITERATURE TO AMERICAN READERS
BY NATALIA GALICZA
Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. Kenechi Uzor understood that African proverb long before he first saw a lion in the flesh, 7,200 miles from his Nigerian homeland. A handful of these majestic animals roamed their territory at Utah’s Hogle Zoo: a few grassy acres dotted with human-made grottos and sunlit perches backed by the Wasatch Mountains. Uzor gawked at the animals, aware that many of those around him may assume he’d be used to seeing them.
Uzor moved here from Lagos, a metropolis of 21 million residents on the Gulf of Guinea, the most populous urban area in Africa. Growing up, he moved among high-rise apartment buildings, grand theaters and churches, modern bridges and expressways. There were bookstores and libraries where he learned about American culture from authors like Mark Twain. But there were no lions. “As far as (Americans) are concerned, we in Nigeria live next door to all of these wild animals,” he says. “Instead of blaming them for ignorance, I understand it’s just because they don’t have enough to be well informed about Africa.”
When he came to the United States in
2016, Uzor was dismayed at the lack of African titles on bookshelves. He enrolled in a master’s program for creative writing at the University of Utah and found that all his assigned readings were written by Western authors. Even students driven by curiosity had trouble finding books by African writers. Now, as a professor at that school, he thinks about what his students miss by seldom reading African perspectives. And he wor-
UZOR’S PURPOSE IS LARGER: TO MAKE SURE AMERICANS CAN READ THE LITERATURE AND HEAR THE VOICES OF HIS HOME.
ries that his daughters are growing up with limited access to stories that could help them explore and embrace their own heritage.
The lions at the zoo are powerless to shape their narrative, but Uzor knew he was not. So two years ago, he launched an independent publishing house based in Salt Lake City. He named it Iskanchi Press,
inspired by the Hausa word for nonconformity. The Hausa are an ethnic group native to West Africa, and Hausa is their language. But his purpose is larger: to make sure Americans can read the literature and hear the voices of his home.
THE PROVERB THAT acts as Uzor’s guiding principle is famously articulated by Chinua Achebe, known as the father of modern African literature. In a 1994 interview with the Paris Review, the late Nigerian author spoke of stories he read as a young man that depicted Africans as savages. He found that positive representations of his culture were seldom seen in the broader literary world; instead, depictions were monolithic, stereotypical and negligent. “That was the way I was introduced to the danger of not having your own stories,” he said. “I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions.”
Achebe’s seminal 1958 novel, “Things Fall Apart,” recounts the arrival of European colonial forces to a fictitious Nigerian village in the late 19th century through the
eyes of a local leader and warrior who is eventually demoralized by his people’s utter surrender. That point of view was revolutionary. Now a classic, the book has been translated into nearly 60 languages, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide and is frequently taught in American schools. Western audiences tend to credit him with creating African literature, but that is not quite accurate.
Northern Africa played key roles in the development of Western culture. Egypt helped pioneer written language with hieroglyphics. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote “The City of God” and “Confessions” (probably the first memoir) in Latin, from his home on the coast of modern Algeria. Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote “Mishneh Torah” in Hebrew and “The Guide for the Perplexed” in Arabic, both seminal texts, while living in Egypt. And the University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in Morocco in 859, became a magnet for literature and learning while Europe struggled through its dark ages.
Go a little deeper, and most African literature simply wasn’t accessible to Western audiences. Somalia is known as a “nation of poets,” but many compose and recite their works on the spot. Sub-Saharan cultures have relied on oral storytelling since time immemorial. This egalitarian and intimate practice is still used to impart traditions and social norms. They can be told by specialized storytellers, like griots in West Africa, or shared from parent to child. Many stories are still told this way, exploring themes like identity and existence, war and migration, life and death. Some are “trickster tales,” in which anthropomorphized and mischievous animal characters play out human moral quandaries. Others are epics, following the trials and victories of fabled heroes. These are the foundations that modern writers like Achebe built upon.
It was only in the 20th century that these stories could finally be printed in European languages. Since that time, African authors have unlocked new viewpoints, lessons and imaginings for a wider audience.
Contemporary authors like Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Abdulrazak Gurnah have graced bestseller lists and garnered National Book Awards and Nobel Prizes. And Afrofuturism, which mingles science fiction with Black culture, has gifted us the first mainstream African superhero through Marvel’s “Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda” comic book series.
Still, those examples are recent and relatively few. Uzor wants to remedy that. “What we do that is different is that we are all Africans,” Uzor says, with a few minor exceptions. “We are trying to portray African perspectives as clearly and as originally as possible.” In its first two years, Iskanchi Press has published 10 books spanning genres from Afrofuturism to mystery and coming of age. An eponymous magazine publishes shorter, more experimental pieces by African writers. Uzor also plans to publish children’s and young adult books, adding to the 14 percent of titles published in the United States that are by Black or African authors. “I think every perspective should be included. Every voice should be heard as much as possible,” he says.
IN “THE EMPEROR’S Son,” by Liberian author Vamba Sherif, a boy and his father traverse the savannah. Zaiwulo, who is almost 13, carries a sapling he considers precious for the fire-colored blooms it will soon produce. But he hears hooves thundering toward him across the grasslands. In a flash, a horse races by, close enough to snatch the sapling in its teeth. The boy screams and the horse’s mysterious rider pulls back on the reins. “What does the tree mean to you, child?” he asks. Before Zaiwulo can answer, in all his pride and bravery, his father rushes over to apologize. It’s only then that Zaiwulo realizes the rider is a fearsome warrior — just as the warrior sees something in Zaiwulo, something that makes him more remarkable than either he or his father know.
Sherif’s book is a work of historical fiction that follows a 19th century African leader dubbed the “Black Napoleon” for his resistance to English and French colonizers, who is celebrated for being as much of a scholar as he is a warrior. Sherif grew up hearing legends of the character’s inspiration, Samori Touré, but never encountered Touré’s legacy
ISKANCHI PRESS HAS NO PHYSICAL OFFICE. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND PUBLISHER KENECHI UZOR WORKS FROM HIS HOME IN LEHI, UTAH.
in writing. “I wanted not only to tell the story of the African resistance to colonialism, I wanted to paint a picture of a society that was very advanced and that was very civilized, a society that appreciated scholarship,” Sherif says. “Because that’s my story.”
His novel was first published in Dutch, but Sherif struggled for years to have it translated into English for an American audience. But his agent got a different response when he pitched it to Iskanchi Press. “It felt like homecoming,” he says.
Industry consolidation and mergers have narrowed opportunities for writers to get published. About 80 percent of the trade book market is now controlled by just five publishing houses, each a for-profit business that rarely bets on outliers or underdogs. That is even more daunting for international authors. Just 3 percent of books published in the U.S. are translated into English from another language, almost half from French, Spanish or German. About 60 percent of all translated books come from presses that are affiliated with universities or simply independent — a category Uzor is proud to be a part of.
“Independent presses serve a vital role in this whole ecosystem in terms of bringing voices to light that could be passed over by mainstream publishing,” says Jill Smith, director of the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute. “And they are frequently in a position to publish books that would not be acquired by the big five.”
While Iskanchi Press may never get an office on Madison Avenue, it has the freedom to focus on authenticity, provocative retellings of history and stories that can only be told by those who experienced their impact.
Consider “Angola Is Wherever I Plant My Field,” a collection of postmodern short stories infused with humor by Angolan author João Melo. “Contemporary history is full of examples that confirm the profound and multiple irresponsibilities of Angolans,” he writes. “Firstly, when millions were taken to the Americas as slaves, not only did they resist being completely destroyed by brutal exploitation and unknown diseases such as
influenza and syphilis, but they taught their very oppressors how to forge iron, extract diamonds and gold from the ground and how to plant (and harvest) sugar cane and coffee.”
More than revisiting this piece of shared history from a perspective that is probably new to most American readers, Melo is offering them something grander: empathy. This is a significant benefit of literature that has only recently come to scientific light. It also makes projects like Iskanchi Press feel that much more essential.
MARYBETH TIMMERMANN HAS never been to Mauritania. The Islamic country in northwest Africa lies more than an ocean away from her home in Greenville, Illinois. She never had a reason to feel anything for a
SINCE THEIR STORIES WERE FIRST PRINTED IN THE 20TH CENTURY IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, AFRICAN AUTHORS HAVE UNLOCKED NEW VIEWPOINTS, LESSONS AND IMAGININGS FOR A WIDER
AUDIENCE.
land so distant or its people — until she translated “Barzakh: The Land In-Between” by Mauritanian author Moussa Ould Ebnou from French into English. The novel recounts an odyssey through time, history and philosophy as the protagonist Gara traverses the Saharan desert in a state like limbo, somewhere between living and dead, known as “Barzakh” in Arabic.
“It broadened my horizons and made me understand there’s so many different, interesting ways of looking at the world,” Timmerman says. She has translated plenty of material, from works of fiction to the scholarly writings of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, but none expanded her world like this one. She fought for the
book, pitching it to literary agents and small presses before it eventually landed at Iskanchi Press, because she believed it can break down stereotypes and help Americans to learn about a place few have even heard of.
Reading fiction can shape perceptions and alter the brain, allowing us to vicariously experience the places and events we read about. Research in neuropsychology shows that when we read, activity lights up our temporal lobe (which processes language), motor cortex (which processes movement) and olfactory bulb (which processes smell). By psychologically mimicking the experience, we not only learn from the choices of others but get to see through their eyes, boosting our empathy and emotional intelligence.
“Reading about other cultures, reading stories from other perspectives helps us develop an understanding of people who are different but also helps us find commonalities with other cultures,” Smith says. “It helps with our cultural and global awareness to read outside of ourselves and our own experience.”
When he reflects on the power of literature, Uzor thinks back to the awe he felt at the lions he saw at the zoo. But he also remembers his first winter in Utah, his first snowfall. He scooped up a handful of the white powder and inspected it. “OK, so that’s how it feels,” he thought to himself. Not as strange as he’d anticipated. Kind of like the inside of a refrigerator. Unfamiliar but easy to understand.
What had prepared him for that moment, and all the other changes that came with a new life in a new place, were the stories he’d read back home. Books like Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” taught him about snow — how it falls, crunches underfoot and captures tracks. But they also helped him to understand a culture and lived experience that was far removed from his own. “When I moved to America, it seemed like I already knew what America was about,” he says. “It wasn’t so much of a shock to me because I’ve been reading.”
BURDEN OF PROOF
AN ODE TO THE EVERYDAY BACKPACK
BY CLAY GRUBBS
The alarm rings, reminding me that it’s time to leave for campus, so I stand up and reach for my backpack. The main compartment is organized with my materials for today’s schedule. It cinches up like a tan canvas duffel, covered with a callused leather flap. You might say it looks broken in. It’s heavy like a bowling ball, but I slide my arms through the straps and it settles into place, matching the balance of my posture. It could feel like a burden, a weighted symbol of a student’s daily slog. But it’s more like a sidekick. I take it wherever I go.
My backpack was a Christmas gift from my mom freshman year, back when I still lived in the dorms and didn’t know what I’d end up majoring in. Four years later, I close the door on my studio basement apartment — dimly lit, pipes running through the ceiling, with exposed brick and one window that looks out on a koi pond in the courtyard — and march to the bus stop, past the cathedral on a leafy avenue near downtown Salt Lake City. In the morning heat, my backpack releases a sweet, earthy scent, like hiking through an oak forest. It’s comforting.
For about half an hour, I disconnect. The commute is almost meditative. I barely notice the other people on the bus, as I sink
into the piano instrumentals playing over my headphones. The bus drops me off and I make my way to class. With a couple minutes to spare, I grab a snack at the campus store and slide it into a side pocket for later. I walk past the notebooks, feeling superbly prepared. I’m still first to the classroom, where I pull out my notebook and trade it for my cellphone, to keep distractions at bay. But as other students shuffle in, I open the notebook only to realize every page is full. I have nowhere to take notes. I think of my phone but this professor has a strict policy against devices in class. I’m stumped.
I was excited for today’s lecture, and I need the notes. On the verge of panic, I dig through the compartments of my backpack. It feels suddenly empty, just books for class and a few useless utensils. I feel resignation begin to take me. But just barely, I spy a blue corner of something peeking out from my empty laptop pocket. It’s a blue book, a lined booklet used for written exams. I flip through unmarked pages, flooded with relief. Eureka! I’m saved by the one exception to my careful plans — and this onerous blessing I always carry. Because of my backpack, I’m always prepared for whatever is thrown at me, even when I’m not.
KINKEEP
BY OLIVIA DUDDING RODRIGUEZ
In the family of things, I have been wayward, shoes untied, chaos-muppet, a smear of peanut butter on the corner of everything, singing for myself mid church service, full operatic voice. In the family of things, I am both holy and terror. It goes before me. In the family of things, I remember to keep the porch light on for you. In the family of things, I am prodigal; I dream of coming home on feast days, but I linger: in door ways, inside the treeline, in my coat and smell the warm devotion waft over the distance between us.
THE GODLY GENETICIST
INSIDE THE LAB WHERE FAITH MEETS SCIENCE
BY LOIS M. COLLINS
When Francis S. Collins tries to understand a disease, there’s a face attached to it. He’s a physician, so his interest is often sparked while treating a suffering patient. But there’s also more than a little faith for the noted geneticist who has unraveled the mysteries behind some of the most terrible maladies afflicting humans, like Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, endocrine cancer and Type 2 diabetes. He has traveled a great distance from his days as a young atheist who thought science alone was truth.
Now 74, Collins sees no such tension, an idea he explores in his latest book: “The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust.” In fact, he credits faith as a driving factor in his remarkable career. He directed the 2,400 scientists in six countries who mapped the human genome, which he calls the “DNA instruction book which seems to me to be the language of God.” He led the National Institutes of Health under Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden before
retiring in 2021. He holds the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among other honors. Retirement is a relative term. Collins still plugs away in his NIH lab, working on treatments for progeria, a devastating syndrome that ages children prematurely; most die in their teens. He’s confident gene editing
I ENTERED MEDICAL SCHOOL AN ATHEIST. I LEFT AS A CHRISTIAN, TO MY GREAT SURPRISE.
could cure it. Deseret asked about this research, his book, the place where faith and science meet and the siren call of each.
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO FIND A WAY TO TREAT A DISEASE LIKE CYSTIC FIBROSIS?
It’s incredibly powerful, gratifying, uplifting and humbling to contribute to that kind
of life-saving outcome. I have cried over many stories from individuals with cystic fibrosis, many who were once planning funerals and now are thinking about retirement. And these kids with progeria, they have such a loud clock ticking on their survival. We did over the last 20 years develop a drug that allows many to live into their 20s, but we still lost some along the way. It’s not a cure, which is what one dreams of, what we’re working on. But it is such a privilege to have that intimate connection with people who are suffering with illness, and also to do the research that might help them.
YOU SAY SCIENCE AND FAITH ARE BOTH VITAL. HOW DO YOU DEFINE THEM?
Faith is the evidence of things not seen, to quote Hebrews. It is confidence without absolute proof of the existence of something transcendent that goes beyond our simple ability to measure things in the natural world. Science, on the other hand, is a reliable, highly productive way to discover
FRANCIS S. COLLINS
truth about the world and how it operates, from the tiniest particle to far-flung galaxies. Science can teach us about natural events that are part of creation.
IN YOUR BOOK, YOU DISTINGUISH BOTH FROM TRUTH. CAN YOU EXPAND?
Truth is the most complicated concept. There are truths that would have to be the way they are in any imaginable universe: Two plus two equals four. The area of a circle is pi r squared. That’s not something that might be true for you, but not for me. It just is. Then there are established facts determined through science or history. There was a man on the moon in 1969; that really happened. That is true. In some areas where things are possibly true but not confirmed, it is reasonable to disagree. Is there dark matter in the universe? A lot think so. But we’ve never measured it. Further out, you’re in the zone of pure opinion, which nobody should call truth: Dogs are better than cats. People can disagree and they should. That’s what makes our society lively. But the truth I want to talk about is in those categories of established facts, where you can’t decide you don’t believe something because you don’t like it. Truth doesn’t care how you feel.
ARE TRUST AND TRUTH THE SAME?
No. We are capable of trusting things that are false; it happens all the time. Part of our crisis at present is assigning trust to sources that don’t deserve it: the latest post on social media, for instance. The other part is refusing to trust expertise that may not be the answer you want.
IS THERE A HIERARCHY TO THESE FOUR CONCEPTS?
They’re all tied in together. They’re all essential for a stable, loving society; you have to be anchored to what truth is, to what science can teach you about the natural world, to what faith can teach you outside of things science can help you with, like is there a God? Those are not questions where science has anything to offer, but they’re important. They all feed into rational decisions
about what sources to trust so that we make societal and individual decisions that promote our flourishing.
WHY DO SO MANY SEE FAITH AND SCIENCE AS MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE?
They operate in different domains. You can see the natural world, you can measure it, you can do science on it to establish facts. The spiritual world is different. If you’re a strict atheist, you would say it’s irrelevant. I know that perspective: When I was a graduate student studying chemistry, I had no use for any discussion about things that couldn’t be measured scientifically. I ran into all sorts of problems as a medical student facing life and death situations and realizing my materialistic approach had no answers for questions about what happens after you die. Does God care about you? Is God out there? I entered medical school an atheist. I left as a Christian, to my great surprise.
HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
I’m a third-year medical student, which is when you’re interacting with patients every day, many of whom have terrible diseases you’re not doing much for. I met an elderly woman near the end of her life. Her faith was critical to her and she would share that with me whenever I came by to check on her. One afternoon, she said, “Doctor, I’ve told you about my faith, but you never say: What do you believe?” Four simple words. Probably the most important question I’d ever been asked. I had no idea. I had rejected that question because I didn’t like it. It didn’t fit my scientific mindset. I realized I’d done something narrow-minded. I rejected the possibility of God without looking at the evidence. A scientist isn’t supposed to do that.
SO YOU LOOKED AT THE EVIDENCE?
I did. I found that some of it came from the science itself, the fact that the universe had a beginning. Wait a minute, nature hasn’t been observed to create itself. That seems to call out for a creator who must be outside of nature and outside of time.
The universe is so finely tuned that mathematics accurately describes how matter and energy behave, these beautiful equations. Seems like an intelligence must be behind all this. And then gradually coming to the sense that our sense of morality — good and evil — sometimes calls us to do things that are not compatible with our own survival. That cries out for explanation. If the natural world is the only thing that matters, why would you risk your life to save somebody you don’t know? Yet we think that is the noblest form of humanity. That seemed to be a signpost to God as a holy force, that we are supposed to be connected to someone else. So I wandered around amongst world religions, trying to sort out how they made sense of this, and to my astonishment encountered the person of Jesus Christ, who I assumed was a myth. I discovered that historical evidence for his life, death and resurrection were extremely compelling and I couldn’t turn back. I took the leap.
IF YOU HARMONIZE THE FOUR ANCHORS, WHAT HAPPENS?
I think we get back to a society that lives out our calling. Read the Sermon on the Mount. It was radical at the time, and it’s radical now. It’s about truth: You will know the truth and it will set you free. It’s about trust, who to trust, and it’s about faith and what we are called to be. We are to love not just our neighbors, but our enemies. And today we tend to think of people who disagree with us as enemies that are evil. If we could return to those four anchors, we could heal an otherwise disrupted, distressed and polarized society. It’s getting in the way.
WHAT’S YOUR LAST WORD?
It’s up to all of us to turn around this polarization and divisiveness. I don’t see that getting solved by politicians. I think people of faith, who stand on a foundation of love and grace, are in the best position to serve as a counterweight to all the animosity and need to be courageous enough to say, “I’m not going to take part in this mudslinging.”
WILDFIRE SMOKE AND CAMPERS NEAR STRAWBERRY RESERVOIR, WASATCH COUNTY, UTAH.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY REID ELEM
CHANGE IS POSSIBLE
Fact: You have options when facing a lung cancer diagnosis.
Learning all that you can about a diagnosis and what options are available can bring more than just hope. It can be the key to accessing treatments that help make long-term survival possible.
Lung cancer clinical trials may be the right option for you or a loved one. For more information on lung cancer and cancer clinical trials, visit StandUpToCancer.org/LungCancer
Fact:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
Fact:
Over 25,000 Black Americans were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019 alone.
Fact:
New treatments are being discovered every day, and they may be available to you.
Photo By Matt Sayles
NFL WIDE RECEIVER & PUNT RETURNER
“I have always looked up to anybody who is undersized or doubted, I think that’s the underdog mentality...”
Watch the short video to discover what Covey’s personal “why” is, and how it motivates him to excel on and off the field.
