Interesting development with BYU

[rongo]

54 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I know of cases in which non-LDS scholars were faculty members for a time, but know of no case in which they achieved "continuing status" (the BYU equivalent of "tenure," which isn't really tenure).  

My professor for the organic evolution part of Biology 130 (entrance-level class for pre-med, pre-pharmacy, etc. It served its purpose and convinced me that I didn't really want to go into those fields.  ) was Catholic. I felt bad for him, because the class got really upset at him over evolution, the Church, etc. This was one of those large auditorium classes, and even though I shared some of their concerns, it's not something to browbeat someone or make a scene over. Just learn what you're supposed to know so you can do well on the tests.  Especially some poor non-member facing the peasants with pitchforks and torches. 

I've since taught science in school, and when there are upset students about evolution, I've told them that there is absolutely no reason to be afraid or upset or threatened by learning about the why behind certain theories (the reasons for the theories). If nothing else, it's the history of ideas. And for those really dug in on it, I've told them that if they want to be really persuasive, then they have to know the other side really well, and that's never going to happen if they refuse to learn about it. 

Reed Benson told us in Book of Mormon class that the way to answer certain things that would be asked of us in school, when we don't believe in the answers, but to remain honest, is to say, "In this course, we were taught . . ." That way, you're giving the exact information you need to know, but now saying that you believe it. 

Different times.  

[SeekingUnderstanding]

3 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I thought this was always the case.  I always thought the ecclesiastical endorsement for members meant a TR

I believe the change is that it applies to all staff, not just facility. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, strappinglad said:

How many of the so called " agitators " would hesitate to lie in order to get a TR ? The end justifies the means. 

This would have more oomph if we didn’t learn about how certain “carefully worded denials” i.e. lies were necessary in early church history. 

[rongo]

7 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I believe the change is that it applies to all staff, not just facility. 

But not student workers. It does appear to apply to staff leadership, though. 

My wife and I were graveyard shift janitors and then janitor supervisors for a couple of years. We had non-members work for us (students) and even had a non-member boss at one point. 

[2BizE]

Perhaps the church needs to get out of the higher learning arena.  Our students need to be taught and be prepared for life and the job market which requires critical thinking skills and various world views, which the church education system is unwilling to teach.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

10 minutes ago, rongo said:

But not student workers.

Student workers have their own enrollment ecclesiastical endorsement so …

[Calm]

27 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I believe the change is that it applies to all staff, not just facility. 

All new CES employees who are members according to the Newsroom
 

Quote

The Church Educational System (CES) announces that all new employees who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be required to hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend. Church members already working at CES institutions will be invited to adopt this standard voluntarily. This aligns with the historical temple recommend standard applicable to Church employment. This adjustment is effective immediately and applies to all faculty, staff and administrative employees at each of the CES institutions.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-educational-system-employment-standards-refinements

Edited January 27, 2022 by Calm

[bluebell]

12 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

Perhaps the church needs to get out of the higher learning arena.  Our students need to be taught and be prepared for life and the job market which requires critical thinking skills and various world views, which the church education system is unwilling to teach.

Judging by some of the people that I know who have graduated from BYU, the school seems to have prepared them just fine to be successful in the job market and the real world.  Do you have any evidence that shows that BYU is failing its students academically or in their ability to function after graduation?

The the students, being adults and all, are old enough to decide what they need, and any who don't believe they need what BYU has to offer can choose a different school.  Why should BYU stop offering what it believes is needed?

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, rongo said:

But not student workers. It does appear to apply to staff leadership, though. 

My wife and I were graveyard shift janitors and then janitor supervisors for a couple of years. We had non-members work for us (students) and even had a non-member boss at one point. 

Is there anything in the announcement that suggests nonmembers won’t be hired?

The only thing about nonmembers I see is continue as is:

Quote

Any continuing employees who choose not to opt in to the standard, as well as employees who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ, must continue to meet existing employment and ecclesiastical standards.

 

[smac97]

8 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Sounds like a wonderful place to work.

Your new bishop disagrees with you on GLBT issues and just like that you are out of a job and probably a career.

Sign me up.

First, I think the problem would arise more when A) the faculty member B) disagrees with the Church's doctrines and policies pertaining to the Law of Chastity and marriage and C) chooses to speak out against the Church on those issues while D) drawing a paycheck from the religious university that was founded is heavily subsidized by the Church and its members (who, I think, will reasonably expect the faculty members at BYU to not be seeking to subvert the Church while drawing a paycheck from it's flagship school).

Second, none of this is new.  The Honor Code has been around forever.  No bait and switch.  Every single faculty member knows what he/she is signing up for from the very outset.

Third, I think the Church has demonstrated significant willingness to accommodate divergent perspectives about gay marriage and such, even to the point of letting members actively promote gay marriage and keep their temple recommends (do you think advocates of polygamous unions would receive such lenient accommodations?).  

Fourth, the faculty's member's employment status is entirely within his/her hands.  TR interviews are pretty darn constrained.

Fifth, the employer/employee relationship is bilaterally voluntary.  So there's no coercion involved.  

Sixth, working at BYU is a privilege, not a right.  

Seventh, if your skills sets are such that the loss of a job means you are "probably {out of} a career," then that's hardly BYU's fault.  If your career path is so narrow and fragile that you can only work at BYU, then that's on you.

Eighth, I suspect that an activist/agitator type of person who works against the Church while also getting paid by it would likely throw a big hissy fit on the way out.  News coverage.  Comparisons to Galileo (natch).  I suspect there would be little difficulty in finding another job is some other corner of the toxic mess that is today's academia.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Buckeye]

Going on a tangent here. The article caption is “BYU, other Latter-day Saint schools will require temple recommends for new Latter-day Saint hires.”  Are we allowed to refer to ourselves as LDS now? 

[kimpearson]

I really doubt this "new" policy will make any difference.  Do you all think every temple recommend holder has only the "correct" conservative viewpoint?  Take gay marriage for example.  Elder Christofferson has made it clear one can believe in and support legal gay marriage and be a temple recommend holder.  The problem comes if the member publicly teaches that Church leadership is wrong and should accept gay marriage.  A temple recommend holder can advocate for the legal right for abortion as long as they don't participate in an abortion or teach in Church that the Church has the wrong stance on abortion.  A temple recommend holder can be a liberal democrat.  A temple recommend holder can be a communist.  These liberal temple recommend holders will teach classes at BYU with their liberal viewpoint such as evolution or gay rights in American.  They will teach critical race theory and racism.  They will teach the uncomfortable truths of Church history.  They will teach about the Church having $150 billion in a reserve fund.  Then guess what, many of the students of these temple recommend holders will have faith crisis's over some of these issues and leave the Church.  The temple recommend will be kept by these teachers because they will only be teaching actual facts and scientifically supported theories. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Going on a tangent here. The article caption is “BYU, other Latter-day Saint schools will require temple recommends for new Latter-day Saint hires.”  Are we allowed to refer to ourselves as LDS now? 

LDS is discouraged. Latter-day Saint is and always has been fine. That’s what I call myself. 

[smac97]

2 hours ago, why me said:

People usually go through various phases of development. I can see a new hire being active but then begin to waiver a year or two later. What then? What happens to the faculty member. Fired? Of course one can lie for the recommendation. Still the ability to be free is limited. And I think that there would be a period of suffocation where one could not figuratively breathe. Not to mention the pressure to keep on the straight and narrow.

I had a friend in Army.  I'll call him Jim.  Jim could have been a great soldier.  He was very physically fit and very smart (we were studying Russian in a fairly difficult and intense one-year course at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA).  He had no apparent problem with keeping up in classes, and physical fitness was a cinch.  

Then, one day, we watched as he was escorted away by two MPs (nicely).  It turns out that he had been caught smoking marijuana.  The rumor was that he was even given an opportunity to stay in the course (and in the Army) if promised to stop (there were some other punishments involved as well, like a reduction in rank and pay).  He declined.  On his way out he made a comment like "Eh, I wasn't liking the Army anyway."

Plenty of good and smart people do things like smoke marijuana.  But serving the Armed Forces is something of a unique gig.  You are held to a different and higher standard as compared to John Q. Public.  Those standards include restrictions on behavior (no smoking MJ, for example), as well as other constraints (hairstyles and other grooming requirements, socialization rules, constraints on speech, etc.).  Jim knew about all of these things when he signed up.  After a time, I guess he felt like he did not want to live with these constraints, so he left.  

Now, imagine if Jim joined the Army, disobeyed the rules he had agreed to follow, and then objected to any disciplinary measure arising from his misconduct.  Would that make sense?  I think . . . not.

So it is, I think, with students and faculty at BYU.  BYU is not everyone's cuppa, I get that.  But if you want to attend as a student or work there as faculty, there are expectations on behavior that are very clear prior to and during the association between the individual and the school.  I think it's fairly disingenuous to apply to BYU, voluntarily agree to abide by its rules, and then object when you later break those rules or work against BYU's sponsoring institution.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

51 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

Perhaps the church needs to get out of the higher learning arena.  

Well, that would certainly make our critics happy.

51 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

Our students need to be taught and be prepared for life and the job market which requires critical thinking skills and various world views, which the church education system is unwilling to teach.

That is simply not so.  BYU has a variety of very well-regarded programs.  Accounting.  Law.  Business.  Nursing.  "Critical thinking skills" are taught quite well.

As for "various world views," BYU is in some ways one of the most cosmopolitan campuses in the entire world.  The Church has missions in more than 160 countries.  How many BYU students have lived for extended periods overseas?  Learned a foreign language?  Rubbed shoulders with the hoi polloi from these various cultures?

When I was attending BYU I worked on the order lines at Nu Skin (online ordering was not yet a thing).  Virtually the entire third floor of that ugly blue building on Center Street was occupied by a couple of hundred BYU and UVU students taking orders from people.  I took orders in Russian and Mandarin.  Others on my team took orders in Cantonese, Spanish, French, German, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Hmong, and so on.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

26 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Going on a tangent here. The article caption is “BYU, other Latter-day Saint schools will require temple recommends for new Latter-day Saint hires.”  Are we allowed to refer to ourselves as LDS now? 

Pres. Nelson's instruction seems to remain intact.  Why would you think otherwise?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, rongo said:

BYU is requiring all faculty and staff (excluding student employees) to hold and be worthy of a temple recommend (which precludes nominally having one, but acting in a manner contrary to that).

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/1/27/22901919/byu-other-latter-day-saint-schools-will-require-temple-recommends-for-new-hires

I find this very interesting because it further supports the recent retrenchment in other things. It appears to me that Elder Holland really got attention when he expressed anger at wayward faculty who overtly and covertly undermine the Church and testimonies. 

I wonder how this will affect the much ballyhooed 26 point action plan for diversity announced last year --- with respect to faculty. It sounds like only active, TR-worthy members will be allowed to be faculty. I didn't see any exception to that. 

More knuckling down and entrenchment.  Good luck with all of that.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

My professor for the organic evolution part of Biology 130 (entrance-level class for pre-med, pre-pharmacy, etc. It served its purpose and convinced me that I didn't really want to go into those fields.  ) was Catholic. I felt bad for him, because the class got really upset at him over evolution, the Church, etc. This was one of those large auditorium classes, and even though I shared some of their concerns, it's not something to browbeat someone or make a scene over. Just learn what you're supposed to know so you can do well on the tests.  Especially some poor non-member facing the peasants with pitchforks and torches. 

I've since taught science in school, and when there are upset students about evolution, I've told them that there is absolutely no reason to be afraid or upset or threatened by learning about the why behind certain theories (the reasons for the theories). If nothing else, it's the history of ideas. And for those really dug in on it, I've told them that if they want to be really persuasive, then they have to know the other side really well, and that's never going to happen if they refuse to learn about it. 

Reed Benson told us in Book of Mormon class that the way to answer certain things that would be asked of us in school, when we don't believe in the answers, but to remain honest, is to say, "In this course, we were taught . . ." That way, you're giving the exact information you need to know, but now saying that you believe it. 

Different times.  

How does that all fit the fact that the entire BYU biology faculty has been evolutionist for decades?  The Board of Trustees has no problem with that.

An LDS anthropologist friend of mine even sees evolution as the means by which God developed all life on Earth, all with the same DNA blueprint.

Faith need not be at loggerheads with science.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Sounds like a wonderful place to work.

Your new bishop disagrees with you on GLBT issues and just like that you are out of a job and probably a career.

Sign me up.

I doubt that it works like that.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, 2BizE said:

Perhaps the church needs to get out of the higher learning arena.

Easier said than done. Back in the 1970s, Pres Hinckley told the regional representative who would become my mission president that the Church had tried to find buyers for its universities. No luck. 

In the same conversation, he also mentioned the trouble that they caused, especially the campus in Provo, attracting staff and some students whose goal it was to harm/destroy the Church. 

The dominant ‘flavours’ of rebellion have probably shifted somewhat, but it appears that little has changed. 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

Different times. The ones now that I am aware of are far to the left (and proselyting for that) and actively and passively undercutting the Church. These are social justice-related, but are resulting in young men and young women going completely inactive, formally leaving the Church, or picking up the torch and agitating to bring about policy and doctrinal change in the Church. In many cases, this is causing rifts in families --- when parents and siblings are trying to be loving, understanding, and even empathetic, it is met with rage when they don't join in in bashing and agitation. I have heard from many couples in the stake who have lost/are losing their children because of specific BYU professors, and this was before Elder Holland's talk. 

I had mentioned before in another thread a couple (my wife's best friend's daughter and her husband) who are seriously talking about having their names removed. Their downward spiral started at BYU. 

I am sure that there are real people behind the anecdotes, but am also sure that the word "many" is hyperbolic.  I can recall the BYU student social justice warriors from the 70s and 80s, and I knew several of them personally, but they were far outnumbered by the right-wing ideologues who developed personality cults -- and who got fired.

[Hamba Tuhan]

46 minutes ago, Teancum said:

More knuckling down and entrenchment.  Good luck with all of that.

Many thanks for the kind words of support! 

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Now, imagine if Jim joined the Army, disobeyed the rules he had agreed to follow, and then objected to any disciplinary measure arising from his misconduct.  Would that make sense?  I think . . . not.

Yet many people thrown out of the military complain they were unfairly treated or the rules were unfair. You seem to want BYU to have the power to enforce their rules in as draconian a manner as they wish at all times and for no one to criticize them for it.

Good luck with that crusade.

[Scott Lloyd]

6 hours ago, rongo said:

BYU is requiring all faculty and staff (excluding student employees) to hold and be worthy of a temple recommend (which precludes nominally having one, but acting in a manner contrary to that).

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/1/27/22901919/byu-other-latter-day-saint-schools-will-require-temple-recommends-for-new-hires

I find this very interesting because it further supports the recent retrenchment in other things. It appears to me that Elder Holland really got attention when he expressed anger at wayward faculty who overtly and covertly undermine the Church and testimonies. 

I wonder how this will affect the much ballyhooed 26 point action plan for diversity announced last year --- with respect to faculty. It sounds like only active, TR-worthy members will be allowed to be faculty. I didn't see any exception to that. 

The last part isn’t true. BYU can still hire non-member faculty who agree to abide by the Honor Code. 

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Many thanks for the kind words of support! 

Oh sorry. Do you want a big hug?  Is it tough for you when your church is criticized?