Every Tuesday at 11:05 a.m., students, faculty, staff and the greater BYU community attend the weekly devotional or forum address in the BYU Marriott Center.
Most devotionals and forums will be broadcast live on BYUtv, BYUtv.org (and archived for on-demand streaming), KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM and BYUradio and will be archived on speeches.byu.edu.
Please plan to join students and employees each Tuesday at 11:05 a.m. in the Marriott Center for a truly unique experience as the campus gathers to receive spiritual and temporal edification.
Fall 2024 Devotional and Forum Schedule
September
- 10 - President C. Shane Reese and Sister Wendy Reese, BYU
- 17 - Elder Patrick Kearon, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 24 - David French, columnist for the "New York Times," bestselling author (Forum)
October
- 1 - Shima Baughman, BYU Law School
- 8 - Homecoming opening ceremony
- 15 - Elder Takashi Wada, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 22 - Elder Jörg Klebingat, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 29 - Dallas Jenkins, creator, producer, director, writer of "The Chosen" (Forum)
November
- 5 - Sister Amy A. Wright, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 12 - Ty Hopkins, BYU life sciences
- 19 - Melissa S. Kearney, University of Maryland (Forum)
December
- 3 - Elder Anthony D. Perkins, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 10 - Sister J. Anette Dennis, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
About the Fall 2024 Speakers
President C. Shane Reese
September 10, Devotional
President C. Shane Reese was named BYU’s 14th president on March 21, 2023. He had been serving as the academic vice president at BYU since 2019. He previously served as dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences from 2017 to 2019 and joined the BYU statistics faculty in 2001.
He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in statistics from BYU and a doctoral degree in statistics from Texas A&M. His research has focused on sports analytics, Bayesian hierarchical models and optimal experimental design. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Laboratory.
President Reese has used his work in solving problems in professional sports franchises, national security and business. At BYU, he received the BYU Young Scholar Award and the BYU Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Teaching Award. He was also the Melvin W. Carter Professor of Statistics. Prior to BYU, he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member.
He served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Taiwan Taipei Mission from 1990 to 1992. He is currently serving as the first counselor in the Mapleton Utah North Stake, where he previously served as a bishop. He and his wife, Wendy Wood Reese, are the parents of three children.
Wendy Reese
September 10, Devotional
Wendy Wood Reese was born and raised in the small town of Holden, Utah, as the fourth of five children. She received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from BYU in 1995.
Sister Reese is known for her kindness, and she can often be found delivering treats to others. She loves baking and has her own side business making wedding cakes when she can find time from her other responsibilities. Sister Reese comes from a BYU family and loves the university and all it stands for.
Elder Patrick Kearon
September 17, Devotional
Elder Patrick Kearon was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on December 7, 2023. At the time of his call, he was serving as Senior President of the Seventy.
Elder Kearon has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United States in a range of industries and ran his own communications consultancy. His civic and community involvement has included service on the boards of charities, a school, an enterprise agency, and a college.
David French
September 24, Forum
David French is a columnist for The New York Times. A graduate of Harvard Law School, David was previously a senior editor at The Dispatch and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is a former constitutional litigator and a past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his most recent book is "Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation." David is a former major in the United States Army Reserve and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.
Shima Baughman
October 1, Devotional
Shima Baradaran Baughman is the Woodruff J. Deem Professor of Law at the BYU Law School and a Distinguished Fellow at the Wheatley Institute. She is one of the top-cited faculty in her field and a nationally recognized expert on bail, prosecutors and police. In addition to teaching at BYU, Baughman spent 10 years as an associate dean and faculty member at the University of Utah Law School.
Before joining the legal academy, Baughman served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar researching pretrial detention in Malawi and lecturing in criminal law at the University of Malawi. After graduating first in her class at BYU Law School, Baughman clerked for Judge Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Elder Takashi Wada
October 15, Devotional
Elder Takashi Wada was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 31, 2018. He served as a member of the Asia North Area Presidency from 2018 to 2024. He is currently serving in the North America West Area.
Elder Wada received a Bachelor of Arts degree in linguistics in 1990 and a master’s degree in business administration in 1996, both from Brigham Young University.
Elder Jörg Klebingat
October 22, Devotional
Elder Jörg Klebingat was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 5, 2014. At the time of his call, he was serving as president of the Ukraine Kyiv Mission.
Elder Klebingat received both a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian and a master’s degree in organizational behavior from Brigham Young University, and he began his career working for several consulting companies.
Dallas Jenkins
October 29, Forum
Dallas Jenkins is the creator, producer, director, and writer of the international hit series "The Chosen." He launched his career producing the independent feature "Hometown Legend" at the age of 25 and shepherded it to distribution by Warner Brothers. In the nearly 20 years since then, he has directed and produced over a dozen feature and short films for companies such as Universal, Pure Flix, Hallmark Channel and Amazon. Most recently, he directed “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which is scheduled to release from Lionsgate nationwide in November of 2024.
Sister Amy Wright
November 5, Devotional
Sister Amy A. Wright was sustained as First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 2, 2022. At the time of her call, she was serving as Second Counselor in the Primary General Presidency.
Sister Wright graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies from the University of Utah in 1998. She worked as an office manager at Marquette University in the College of Communications.
Ty Hopkins
November 12, Devotional
Ty Hopkins is currently professor and chair of the Department of Exercise Sciences at BYU, where he has taught since 2003. His research centers on the prevention and rehabilitation of lower-extremity joint injury. Specifically, he is interested in the neuromechanics of joint stability; how joint injury affects this stability; and strategies to enhance the nervous system’s approach in providing enhanced joint stability.
Hopkins graduated from BYU with a Bachelor of Science degree in athletic training. His graduate work was completed at Indiana State University where he earned an Master of Science degree in athletic training and a Ph.D. in life sciences.
Melissa S. Kearney
November 19, Forum
Melissa S. Kearney is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group; a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kearney teaches public economics at both the undergraduate and Ph.D. level at the University of Maryland. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.
Elder Anthony D. Perkins
December 3, Devotional
Elder Anthony D. Perkins was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 1, 2006. At the time of his call, he was serving as president of the Taiwan Taipei Mission.
Elder Perkins earned a master’s degree in Asian studies and an Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania after completing undergraduate studies in finance at Brigham Young University. Prior to his call as mission president, Elder Perkins worked for 15 years for the international management consulting firm McKinsey and Company and the last eight years as a senior partner in Beijing, China.
Sister J. Anette Dennis
December 10, Devotional
Sister J. Anette Dennis was sustained as First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 2, 2022. At the time of her call, she was serving as a member of the Primary General Advisory Council and with her husband on the Davis County Church Communications Council.
She and her husband served as mission leaders in the Ecuador Guayaquil West Mission from 2013 to 2016. Sister Dennis studied elementary education and Spanish at Brigham Young University. When she began having children, she chose to be a stay-at-home mom.
