Every Tuesday at 11:05 a.m., students, faculty and staff head to the Marriott Center for the weekly Devotional or Forum address. BYU President Kevin J Worthen and his wife Peggy kick off the semester and are followed by BYU professors, members of the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a range of industry leaders and political figures. Entertainment assemblies celebrating the talent of BYU Arts round out the semester schedule.
Devotional and Forums are open to the public and most are broadcast live on BYUtv, BYUtv.org (and archived for on-demand streaming), KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM, BYU Radio and will be archived on speeches.byu.edu.
Winter 2016 Devotional and Forum Schedule
January
- January 5: President and Sister Worthen (Devotional)
- January 12: Elder Allan F. Packer, Quorum of the Seventy, LDS Church (Devotional)
- January 19: Scott Esplin, BYU Church History and Doctrine (Devotional)
- January 26: Liz Wiseman, president/founder of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm (Forum)
February
- February 2: Elder Marcus B. Nash, Quorum of the Seventy, LDS Church (Devotional)
- February 9: Rickelle Richards, BYU Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science (Devotional)
- February 23: Christian Smith, professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame (Forum)
March
- March 1: Performance Assembly (Cougarettes, Noteworthy, Vocal Point and Young Ambassadors)
- March 8: Elder Larry R. Lawrence, Quorum of the Seventy, LDS Church (Devotional)
- March 15: Jennifer Rockwood, BYU Athletics (Devotional)
- March 22: Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archdiocese of Philadelphia (Forum)
- March 29: David Dollahite, BYU School of Family Life (Devotional)
April
- April 5: Jeffrey Bunker, Student Academic Advisement Services
- April 12: BYUSA's Unforum
About the Winter 2016 Devotional and Forum Speakers
BYU President Kevin J Worthen
January 5, 2016 Devotional
Kevin J Worthen began serving as the 13th president of Brigham Young University on May 1, 2014. He previously served as BYU's advancement vice president and as dean of its J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he is the Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law.
President Worthen was born in Dragerton (now East Carbon-Sunnyside), Utah, and grew up in nearby Price. After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Monterrey, Mexico, he earned an associate degree at the College of Eastern Utah (now USU Eastern). He then received his bachelor of arts in political science and his juris doctorate from BYU.
Following his graduation from the BYU Law School, President Worthen served as a law clerk to Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court. After three years of private practice with the law firm of Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix, Arizona, President Worthen joined the BYU Law School faculty in 1987. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Chile Law School in Santiago. He has published extensively on a number of legal topics, with particular emphasis on federal Indian law and the rights of indigenous peoples.
President Worthen currently serves as an area seventy in the Church of Jesus Christ. He previously served as a stake president, bishop, high councilor, and early-morning seminary instructor.
Peggy Worthen
January 5, 2016 Devotional
Peggy Sealey Worthen, born and raised in Price, Utah, is the second oldest of five children. She is married to Kevin J Worthen, current president of Brigham Young University.
While she was attending the College of Eastern Utah, she met Kevin Worthen at a Church dance and the two soon began dating. Although she grew up three blocks from Kevin and his family, their three-year age difference meant they never went to high school at the same time and didn't know each other well. In college, she began meeting with the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and when she decided to be baptized, Kevin was able to baptize her. She and Kevin were married in the Provo Utah LDS Temple.
Early in their marriage, Worthen worked in a number of jobs to support their family as Kevin finished his education and started his career, including as a receptionist for U.S. Senator Jake Garn.
She was able to return to school when Kevin began teaching and graduated with a degree in English from BYU in 2003, the same year their oldest son graduated from high school. She has taken a number of courses since then, including two years of Norwegian.
Elder Allan F. Packer
First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
January 12, 2016 Devotional
Elder Allan F. Packer was sustained a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 5, 2008. At the time of his call, he had been serving as a member of the Young Men general board. He is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Family History Department.
Elder Packer received a bachelor of science degree in electronics technology from Brigham Young University in 1973. After graduation, he worked for such companies as Boeing, Eaton-Kenway, and Auto Soft Corporation. He has been vice president at O.C. Tanner, My Family.com, and iLumin. At the time of his call as a General Authority, he was an in-field representative for the Missionary Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Packer has been involved in many civic and community activities, including serving as chairman of the Little Cottonwood Creek Community Council. He has also served at district and council levels for the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts of America and is a recipient of the Silver Beaver award.
Elder Packer has served in a number of Church callings, including full-time missionary in the Andes Mission, high councilor, bishop, scoutmaster, stake president's counselor, mission president (Spain Málaga Mission), and Young Men general board member.
Scott Esplin
BYU Church History and Doctrine
January 19, 2016 Devotional
Scott Esplin is an associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. His current research continues to examine the history of Latter-day Saint education as well as the development of Church historic sites.
Prior to joining Religious Education at BYU, Esplin taught for the Church Educational System for nine years.
After serving in the Italy Catania mission, Esplin earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Southern Utah University. Esplin later received an M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Foundations from Brigham Young University, focusing his studies on the history of LDS Church academies.
Esplin was born in Richfield, Utah and raised in Washington and Ohio before finally finding home in southern Utah.
Liz Wiseman
President/founder of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm
January 26, 2016 Forum
Liz Wiseman teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. She is the President of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, Disney, eBay/PayPal, Facebook, GAP, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Roche, Salesforce.com, and Twitter. Wiseman has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named as one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.
She is the author of three best-selling books: Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools. She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review and Fortune and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc. and Time magazines. She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU, the Naval Postgraduate Academy, and Stanford University.
A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development. During her tenure at Oracle, she led several major global initiatives and has worked and traveled in over 40 countries.
Wiseman holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management and a Masters of Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University.
Elder Marcus B. Nash
First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
February 2, 2016 Devotional
Elder Marcus B. Nash was called to serve as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 1, 2006. He was an Area Seventy in the North America Northwest Area when he was called to be a General Authority. He has previously served as president of the South America West Area and as president of the South America Northwest Area. He is currently serving as the assistant of the North America Southeast Area, as well as an assistant Executive Director of the Church History Department.
Elder Nash graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in international relations and earned a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. He was a partner in a major Seattle law firm at the time of his call as a Seventy.
Elder Nash has served in many Church callings, including full-time missionary in the El Salvador San Salvador Mission, stake president, bishop, ward Young Men president, elders quorum president and Gospel Doctrine teacher.
Rickelle Richards
BYU Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science
February 9, 2016 Devotional
Rickelle Richards joined the faculty at BYU in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science in 2007. She currently teaches undergraduate courses in introductory nutrition, community nutrition and life cycle nutrition. Her current research focuses on community nutrition, with special emphasis in domestic food insecurity issues.
Richards earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition Science at Utah State University, a Master of Public Health degree from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Human Nutrition from the University of Minnesota.
During the middle of her undergraduate education, she served a mission for the LDS Church in Munich, Germany.
Richards was born in Seattle, WA, and by the age of one moved to Pittsburgh, PA, and then eight years later, moved to Utah.
Christian Smith
Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame
February 23, 2016 Forum
Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society, Director of the Notre Dame Center for Social Research, Principal Investigator of the National Study of Youth and Religion, and Principal Investigator of the Science of Generosity Initiative.
Smith worked at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1994 to 2006, where he served as Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology from 2000 to 2005.
Smith holds an MA (1987) and PhD (1990) in Sociology from Harvard University and has studied Christian historical theology at Harvard Divinity School and other Boston Theological Institute schools. Smith's BA is in sociology (1983), from Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts.
Before moving to UNC Chapel Hill in 1994, Smith taught for six years at Gordon College. Since 2006, Smith has brought in more than $7.5 million in research grant money to Notre Dame. During his years at UNC Chapel Hill, Smith brought in about $8 million of research grant money. Smith is the author, co-author, or editor of numerous books, including Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Emerging Adults. He is also author or co-author of many journal articles.
Smith's scholarly interests focus on American religion, sociological theory, cultural sociology, adolescents and emerging adults, generosity, the philosophy of social science, and personalism.
Elder Larry R. Lawrence
Second Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
March 8, 2016 Devotional
Elder Larry R. Lawrence was sustained a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 3, 2010, at the age of 62. At the time of his call, he had been serving as a member of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy in the North America West Area.
Elder Lawrence earned a bachelor of science degree in agricultural biochemistry from the University of Arizona in 1969. Then in 1973, he received a doctorate of medicine, also from the University of Arizona. He completed an ophthalmology residency at Valley Medical Center, Fresno, in 1977. He has been an ophthalmologist at Lawrence Eye Associates since 1977.
Since joining the Church in 1970, Elder Lawrence has served in numerous callings, including elders quorum president, bishop, high councilor, stake president's counselor, stake president, stake mission president, and president of the Russia Novosibirsk Mission (2001-2004).
Jennifer Rockwood
BYU Women's Soccer Head Coach
March 15, 2016 Devotional
After completing her 20th season in 2014, head coach Jennifer Rockwood has taken the BYU women's soccer team to national prominence and established herself as one of the premier coaches in Division I soccer today. Rockwood has an impressive 321-94-35 overall record for her career. Over the last 20 seasons at the helm of the BYU women's soccer program, Rockwood has accumulated a .752 winning percentage.
Rockwood has guided the Cougars to nine regular season conference championships and eight conference tournament championships during her tenure including three straight West Coast Conference titles. On the national scene, her teams have made 16 appearances in the NCAA Tournament in the last 20 years and reached the Sweet Sixteen in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2012. In 2005, BYU was ranked as high as No. 6 in the country during the regular season and received its first-ever No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.
In possibly one of BYU's most successful seasons, 2012, the Cougars were ranked as high as No. 2 and received a No. 1 seed in the NCAA College Cup, the first women's program at BYU to ever be awarded a 1-seed. The team went 20-2-2 with four wins over teams ranked in the Top 25 throughout the season.
BYU regularly maintains a consistent Top 25 ranking. Under Rockwood's tutelage, the team finished in the Top 10 in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2012, and have finished in the Top 25 10 times in 20 years including each of the past three seasons.
Among the many achievements and awards she has received over her career, Rockwood has been honored with five conference Coach of the Year awards, one by the Western Athletic Conference in 1996, two by the MWC in 2000 and 2008, and two from the WCC in 2012 and 2014. In 1996 and 2012, Rockwood was also nominated for Region Coach of the Year honors.
Prior to becoming the head coach, Rockwood led BYU's highly successful club soccer team for seven years. In that time she amassed an overall record of 128-25-9. The final two years she took her teams to the Western National Collegiate Club soccer Association (NCCSA) title and placed second in the NCCSA National Championships.
The Lake Oswego, Ore., native was a four-sport athlete in high school playing soccer, softball, basketball and track. After one year at Rick's College on a basketball scholarship, she transferred to BYU where she became a four-year starter at center midfield on the Cougars' club soccer team and graduated in finance, business management. Rockwood has also coached youth club programs, high school teams and the Utah Olympic Development Program.
Archbishop Charles Chaput
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
March 22, 2016 Forum
After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania, in 1967, Archbishop Chaput completed Studies in Psychology at Catholic University in Washington D.C., in 1969. He earned a Master of Arts in Religious Education from Capuchin College in Washington D.C., in 1970 and was ordained to the priesthood on August 29, 1970.
Archbishop Chaput received a Master of Arts in Theology from the University of San Francisco in 1971. He served as an instructor in theology and spiritual director at St. Fidelis from 1971-1974 and as executive secretary and director of communications for the Capuchin Province of St. Augustine in Pittsburgh from 1974-1977.
Archbishop Chaput was ordained Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 26, 1988. Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Denver on February 18, 1997, and he was installed on April 7 the same year. As a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput was the second Native American to be ordained a bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop. He chose as his episcopal motto: "As Christ Loved the Church" (Ephesians 5:25).
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Philadelphia on July 19, 2011. He was installed as the 13th bishop and ninth archbishop of Philadelphia on September 8, 2011.
He is author of two books: Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics (Servant, 2001) and Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (Doubleday, 2008); and numerous talks, articles and pastoral letters.
David Dollahite
BYU School of Family Life
March 29, 2016 Devotional
David Dollahite is Professor of Family Life at BYU where he teaches classes and conducts research on the links between religion and family life.
He has twice been an Eliza R. Snow University Fellow and has served as an associate director of the School of Family Life. His scholarship focuses on religion and family life in the Abrahamic faiths, Latter-day Saint family life, and faith and fathering.
He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Dominican University of California, and was the Jawaharlal Nehru Visiting Scholar at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.
Dollahite obtained a bachelor's degree in family life and a master's degree in marriage and family therapy from BYU and a doctorate in family studies from the University of Minnesota.
He has published over 90 scholarly articles and chapters and has edited or co-edited four books including Generative Fathering (Sage, 1998) and three volumes on LDS family life: Successful Marriages and Families (BYU Studies, 2011), Helping and Healing Our Families (Deseret Book, 2005), and Strengthening Our Families (Bookcraft, 2000).
He was raised in the Episcopal Church and served for three years as an acolyte (altar boy). When he was 19 years old he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then served a two-year LDS mission in New England.
Jeffrey Bunker
Student Academic Advisement Services
April 5, 2016 Devotional
