Mike Foley | University Advancement | 24 August 2006
During the August 22 'ohana [family] meeting in the McKay Auditorium, BYU–Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway and members of the President's Council welcomed over 40 new faculty and staff — a record number — as well as 17 new senior service missionaries and 12 senior volunteers to the campus before presenting the 2006 "teacher of the year" staff exceptional service awards.
In his annual address, President Shumway reviewed highlights from last school year and their "important implications for our future," including:
- The Jubilee Celebration
- The successful completion of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) capacity review document and accrediting team visit.
- Progress toward the "sale of a significant number of university homes to eligible faculty and administrative staff" and "planning money for us to construct 26 new housing units on Moana Street over the next several years."
- The design of a new halau wa'a (canoe house) and learning center in the Polynesian Cultural Center's Hawaiian village for BYU-Hawaii's sailing canoe, Iosepa, which the president described as a "powerful joint venture" between the PCC and the BYUH Hawaiian Studies program.
- The ongoing progress of career placement under Kim Austin and the international internship program under Meli Lesuma ('87).
- The Culture of Beliefs, couched in personal terms, "that give life and meaning to our commitment to create a true gospel culture at BYU-Hawaii."
Turning to the new school year, President Shumway referred to a painting in his office that shows the Savior overlooking the BYU–Hawaii campus, as well as themes from a talk he recently delivered to a select group of people who oversee financial operations for all Church campuses and the entire Church to urge the faculty and staff to strive for moral excellence:
"This campus is the Lord's campus and His purposes in a vast cosmic way for BYU–Hawaii embrace you and me, our students and the world."
"Whatever else the painting expresses, it touches our souls with the penetrating truth that on this campus we are on the Lord's errand and that this little place, this tiny village, this small multi-ethnic student body — all figure significantly in the Lord's plan to spread His kingdom until the gospel has penetrated every continent, visited every clime and sounded in every ear."
"One of the senior brethren who has been close to this campus for many years once asked a group of CES administrators what we thought it would be like to report our stewardship directly to the Lord every month in some sort of personal, celestial stewardship interview."
"How would we report? How would we explain what He already knows before we open our mouths? With all His tender and merciful feelings for us, would Christ tolerate incompetence, sloppiness, laziness, infighting, dishonesty, backbiting, deceptiveness, poor teaching, cheating? What would be His language of praise and commendation? How often would we break His heart? How gentle would be His command? How stern would He be by way of chastisement or rebuke? How much of our own conscience would convict us in His presence?"
President Shumway said he'll never forget the essence of the leader's comment: "Christ's perfection in His love for us assumes a much higher expectation in us than we think or that we have for ourselves. His perfect love cannot ignore willful neglect to strive and to improve."
"Moral excellence then breathes an attitude of striving to be our best, to do our best, and to constantly seek improvement," he said, comparing this with Nephi's exhortation to press forward with steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and all men...and enduring to the end" [2 Nephi 31:20].
President Shumway also encouraged the university 'ohana to "see with the eyes of God and Christ — what we often call the eternal perspective... What, for example, is Heavenly Father's and Christ's perspective of our students, each and every individual, the ones we encounter every day in the classroom, in our offices, on the sidewalk, in the mall, in the library, in the dorm, at church, at work, at PCC?"
"Do I see them the way Christ does?" President Shumway asked, telling of a faculty member whose insights changed after he was ordained a campus bishop: "Before I became the bishop I was an alright teacher, but I tolerated my students more than I loved them...often saw my students as nuisances, intrusions upon my research time...once class was over I thought little about them," he said. But after becoming a bishop, he said, "I feel for them with a new heart...I long for their success...I see them as God's elect and can sense more how He loves them."
Finally, President Shumway urged the 'ohana to use "integrity, honor and love in dealing with each other and our students" when it comes to cheating and dishonesty. "Obviously, there are cultural mindsets that may complicate a definition of what is cheating and what is legitimate collaboration. We must be sensitive and careful, and seek understanding without being prejudicial or judgmental," he said. "Nevertheless the gospel culture is the overarching reference point of what is right and wrong. It's a matter of the teacher teaching and the student understanding."
In the second half of the meeting with just the faculty present, BYU-Hawaii Vice President of Academics Keith J. Roberts recalled when he first came in 1991, he was frustrated with mainland attitudes that "BYU-Hawaii wasn't rated very high. This was negative 'folklore,' because no one had ever listed BYU-Hawaii in any ranking."
He explained U.S. News and World Report began "identifying the top 15 regional universities" in 1992, and listed the rest alphabetically. BYU-Hawaii was placed in the magazine's Quartile Three from 1993-94, Tier Two of western liberal arts colleges in 1995 and 1997-99 (dropping into Tier Three in '96); but "none of this was dramatic enough to change the attitude of Church members and a good portion of our mainland students."
"I knew that we were better than that, and the policies that the university initiated between '97 and 2000 improved both the quality of the student body and the conditions of the university," Dr. Roberts continued. "I cannot minimize the importance of reputation in determining these rankings. We finally made it to the top tier in 2000."
"We are currently ranked fourth in our category for the second year in a row, and we have been in the top tier for eight years," he said. "According to the policies we have initiated, we will move up to third, and eventually second by 2010, where I am convinced we will stay until U.S. News changes its categories or formulas."
Dr. Roberts stressed being highly ranked is important professionally to faculty, helps graduates get into graduate school and "move back to significant positions in their home countries," aids recruiting the best students and also helps get international internships for them.
"We have moved along," he continued. "We have continuously improved. We are better now than in the past, and we will continue to improve. That is the nature of this university and it is an expectation of living the gospel. Now it is appropriate to continue to look to the future, for I expect that we will improve as much in the next decade as we have in the last."
To do this, he continued, "we cannot prepare students for narrowly defined jobs that are secure for two to three years. Our programs must increasingly reach across curricular boundaries to prepare students for the real environments they will be in as they return home." He added these environments could include "transitioning nations" and places with the "overriding threat of terrorism," where the moral compass and understanding of BYU-Hawaii alumni can help "reach across cultures and religions."
"I believe that our graduates and this university will have an impact on the twenty-first century that will be greater than we can imagine. The kinds of things that are being talked about among world leaders in universities and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] are the kinds of things that we say we are doing," Dr. Roberts said. "As we move into the future, everything we do must be assessed within the context of the twenty-first-century world as it is evolving. A decision that was made six months ago based upon information and data of March 2005 may be responding to a version of the world that no longer exists 18 months later."
"We can no longer ignore the impact that technology is continuing to have on the world, and certainly on our students. When there is a change in our discipline that impacts us and our target area, we must share it with our colleagues. We all impact each other."