Brigham Young University

Early days

The origin of BYU can be traced back to 1862, when Warren Dusenberry started a Provo school in Cluff Hall, a prominent adobe building in the northeast corner of 200 East and 200 North. After some financial difficulties, the school was recreated in the Kinsey and Lewis buildings on Center Street in Provo, and after gaining some recognition for its quality, was adopted to become the Timpanogos branch of the University of Deseret. When financial difficulty forced another closure, on October 16, 1875, Brigham Young, then president of the LDS Church, deeded the property to trustees to create Brigham Young Academy after earlier hinting a school would be built in Draper, Utah, in 1867. Hence, October 16, 1875, is commonly held as BYU's founding date. Young had been envisioning for several years the concept of a church university. Said Young about his vision: "I hope to see an Academy established in Provo... at which the children of the Latter-day Saints can receive a good education unmixed with the pernicious atheistic influences that are found in so many of the higher schools of the country."

Classes at Brigham Young Academy commenced on January 3, 1876. Dusenberry served as interim principal for several months until April 1876, when Brigham Young's choice for principal arrived—a Saxon immigrant named Karl Maeser. During this period the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland and future U.S. Senator Reed Smoot attended. The school did not become a university until the end of Benjamin Cluff's term as president in 1903. At that time, the school was still privately supported by members of the community and was not absorbed and sponsored officially by the church until July 18, 1896. A series of odd managerial decisions by Cluff led to his demotion; however, in his last official act, he proposed to the board that the academy be named "Brigham Young University". Many opposed, saying the school was not large enough to be a university, but the decision ultimately passed.

In 1903, Brigham Young Academy was dissolved and replaced by two institutions, Brigham Young High School (BY High) and BYU. The BY High class of 1907 was ultimately responsible for the giant "Y" that remains embedded on a mountain near campus. The Board elected George H. Brimhall as the new President of BYU. Under his tenure in 1904, the new BYU bought 17 acres (69,000 m2) of land from Provo called "Temple Hill". After some controversy among locals over BYU's purchase of this property, construction began in 1909 on the first building on the current campus, the Karl G. Maeser Memorial. Brimhall also presided over BYU during a brief crisis involving the theory of evolution. The religious nature of the school seemed at the time to collide with this scientific theory. Joseph F. Smith, church president at the time, settled the question for a time by asking that evolution not be taught at the school. Over time, students and faculty found a way to reconcile the factual elements of evolution with the church's teachings. Even though a few at this time described the school as little more than a "religious seminary", many of its graduates from this time would go on to great success and become well renowned in a variety of fields.

Expansion

In 1921, Franklin S. Harris was appointed as BYU's president and was the first in this role to have a doctoral degree. Harris made several significant changes to the school, reorganizing it into a true university, whereas before, its organization had remnants of the academy days. At the beginning of his tenure, the school was not officially recognized as a university by any accreditation organization. By the end of his term, the school was accredited by all major accrediting organizations at the time. He was succeeded by Howard S. McDonald, who received a doctorate from the University of California. When he first received the position, the Second World War had just ended, and thousands of students were flooding into BYU. By the end of his stay, the school had grown nearly five times to 5,440 students. BYU did not have the facilities to handle such a large influx, so he bought part of an Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, and rebuilt it to house some of the students. The next president, Ernest L. Wilkinson, also oversaw a period of intense growth as the school adopted an accelerated building program. Wilkinson was responsible for the building of over eighty structures on the campus, many of which still stand. During his tenure, the student body increased six-fold, making BYU the largest private school at the time. The quality of the students also increased, leading to higher educational standards at the school. Finally, Wilkinson reorganized LDS Church units on campus, with ten stakes and over 100 wards added during his administration.

Dallin H. Oaks replaced Wilkinson as president in 1971. Oaks continued the expansion of his predecessor, adding a law school and proposing plans for a new School of Management. During his administration, a new library was also added, doubling the library space on campus. Jeffrey R. Holland followed as president in 1980, encouraging a combination of educational excellence and religious faith. He believed one of the school's greatest strengths was its religious nature and that this should be taken advantage of, rather than hidden. During his administration, BYU added a campus in Jerusalem, now called the BYU Jerusalem Center. In 1989, Holland was replaced by Rex E. Lee, who was responsible for the construction of the Benson Science Building and the Museum of Art; shortly before his death from cancer, he resigned and was replaced in 1995 by Merrill J. Bateman. Lee is memorialized annually at BYU during a cancer fundraiser called the Rex Lee Run.

Bateman was responsible for the construction of 36 new buildings for BYU, both on and off the campus, including the expansion of the Harold B. Lee Library. He was also one of several key college leaders who brought about the creation of the Mountain West Conference, which BYU's athletics program joined — BYU previously participated in the Western Athletic Conference. A satellite TV network also opened in 2000 under his leadership. Bateman was followed by Cecil O. Samuelson in 2003. Samuelson was succeeded by Kevin J Worthen in 2014. C. Shane Reese became BYU's 14th president on May 1, 2023. On July 29, 2024, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced plans to create a medical school for the university.

In 2025, the university was declared an undesirable organization in Russia.

Notable research and awards

BYU is classified as "Research 1: Very High Research Spending And Doctorate Production," the highest Carnegie classification. According to the National Science Foundation, BYU spent $137.7 million on research and development in 2023, ranking it 162nd in the nation for research revenue and expenditures. Scientists associated with BYU have created some notable inventions. Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor and pioneer of the electronic television, began college at BYU, and later returned to do fusion research, receiving an honorary degree from the university in 1967. Alumnus Harvey Fletcher, inventor of stereophonic sound, went on to carry out the now famous oil-drop experiment with Robert Millikan, and was later Founding Dean of the BYU College of Engineering. H. Tracy Hall, inventor of the man-made diamond, left General Electric in 1955 and became a full professor of chemistry and Director of Research at BYU. While there, he invented a new type of diamond press, the tetrahedral press. In student achievements, BYU Ad Lab teams won both the 2007 and 2008 L'Oréal National Brandstorm Competition, and students developed the Magnetic Lasso algorithm found in Adobe Photoshop. In prestigious scholarships, BYU has produced 10 Rhodes Scholars, four Gates Scholars in the last six years, and in the last decade has claimed 41 Fulbright scholars and 3 Jack Kent Cooke scholars.

Businesses and entrepreneurship

BYU is one of the most highly ranked universities in entrepreneurship, with both the undergraduate and graduate programs being recognized as among the top 10 in the nation by The Princeton Review. The university is described as having a strong entrepreneurship culture in which students are encouraged to launch their own companies, attracting over $1.3 billion in venture capital funding as of 2018. Several companies founded by BYU alumni have been incredibly successful, with BYU leading the nation with it taking 6 years on average after college graduation for founders to achieve unicorn status for their startups. The area north of BYU is now known as the Silicon Slopes, a hub for tech employment and startup formation. Some notable companies founded by BYU alumni include 1-800 Contacts, Ancestry.com, Cotopaxi, Domo, Novell, Nu Skin Enterprises, Qualtrics, Pluralsight, The Trade Desk, and Vivint.