On September 19, 2023, C. Shane Reese was inaugurated as the 14th president of Brigham Young University. During his inaugural response, he shared seven initiatives that will help BYU become the university that prophets have foretold — to become the world’s “greatest institution of learning” and “the fully anointed university of the Lord about which so much has been spoken in the past.” Or, in other words, “becoming BYU.”
In this Q&A series with President Reese, he shares more about those initiatives and how they apply to BYU employees.
This article focuses on the fifth of the initiatives, “building a covenant community.”
How do you define covenantal belonging and why is that such an important part of the BYU experience?
Answer: For me, it really does center on the covenants we make and how they bind us to the Savior. This starts with the commitment we make to Jesus Christ when we’re baptized — that we’re going to love God, and we’re going to love His children. And we’re going to do that without any prejudice; we’re going to do that with Him in mind. That changes the nature of the conversation for us.
Covenants are such an important part of how we treat other people and how we view ourselves as well. The way in which we view ourselves influences how we approach our interactions with others. We recognize our own divine worth and the divine worth of others. Our sense of covenant of belonging ought to help us work through contention and strife in a better way, because we’re operating under a completely different set of foundational principles.
There is a difference between helping someone feel welcome versus helping them belong. Welcomeness means one side feels like they’re doing all they can do, and yet the other side may still not feel it. Belonging is this two-sided, reciprocal relationship, and I think that’s where the covenantal belonging is so important. At BYU, the power of that reciprocal relationship comes through shared covenantal bonds with Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.
How can we as employees and faculty help facilitate that sense of community and covenantal belonging among our students and among ourselves?
In his April 2023 general conference address, President Russell M. Nelson explained that the real evidence of our discipleship as followers of Christ is how we treat others. I think that happens in very small but meaningful ways in our day-to-day interactions. When we walk across campus, we ought to greet each other with a smile, and not with an eye of skepticism. We are an academic community built on inquiry so we will have disagreements but the way we disagree ought to be better on this campus. President Nelson has admonished us to be peacemakers, and even public officials have issued this admonition to disagree better. Well, if Utah ought to be good at disagreeing better, BYU ought to aspire even higher, because we understand that we start with a fundamental premise that we’re all children of heavenly parents and we’re building a campus of covenantal belonging.
How do we make sure that when we talk about covenant belonging, we’re being inclusive and not exclusive?
Fundamentally if we really understand what it means, it’s not that we’re going to treat people differently who haven’t made covenants, it’s that by making covenants with our Heavenly Father we become better. I love how Elder D. Todd Christofferson put it when he talked about the first and second great commandments. He pointed out that so many in the world will focus on that second commandment, which is loving others. But he says, and I believe that this is how we as a campus community need to frame the discussion, is that by keeping the first commandment, loving God, it makes us better and strengthens our ability to keep that second commandment. We want to bring glory and show our love for our Father in Heaven. And when we do that, it strengthens our ability to show love to our neighbors. I can’t imagine a more inclusive sentiment than to say we are all children of heavenly parents. And because of that, we’re going to treat each other with respect and dignity and kindness and love.
It’s easy to do in principle, and in concept, but the place it’s going to make the biggest difference for us is in our day-to-day interactions. It will happen when a student is sitting in a classroom next to someone who might look different than them or a when you have a workplace disagreement. How we view the other person and how we treat them really exemplifies our commitment to this covenant of love. And when we frame it in terms of the covenants we’ve made and the love we have for God, it really does change us for the better.
I think we can be prone to get caught up in the way others approach reconciliation. But then I think when we recognize Jesus Christ is the Great Mediator, and try to emulate His example, is when this campus will really be a place of unity and love.
What examples of this have you seen or heard on campus?
We have seen some unbelievable experiences happen in the University 101 class. I taught that class last semester and we had pretty good attendance (maybe the students felt a little intimidated in taking the class from the president of the university).
On day three or four, we had a student not show up to class. Partway through the lecture, I got the attention of the peer mentor and mentioned we had a missing student. The peer mentor responded by informing me that six different students had already reached out to text the student class and said, “Hey, we missed you.”
That doesn’t usually happen in a larger classroom. Certainly, not six people unprompted who would reach out. A great example of the covenant belonging is when people who understand somebody may be in need, or maybe they just didn’t show up to a class, but they knew they weren’t going to let that person just fly under the radar. Because oftentimes I think students get lost on this big campus. It’s easy to feel lost. I certainly had that experience myself as an undergraduate student. But when we’re building a community where we love God and we love all those around us, we’re becoming a truly Christ-centered campus where belonging will naturally follow.
