BYUSA’s annual Honor Week will be virtual this year and kicks off on Monday, Jan. 25 with a theme of “Strive.”
Honor Week is a time to reflect, unite and celebrate who BYU students are and who they want to be as individuals and as a community, Executive Vice President Emilee Curtis said.
This year’s Strive theme reflects a shift from focusing centrally on the Honor Code. “We are hoping to highlight the spirit of the Honor Code by focusing on attributes the code encourages. These include honor, integrity, respect, gratitude and encouraging others,” Vice President of Honor Spencer Larsen said.
Events will be held every day of the week. Monday’s focus is “Strive for Honor,” when BYUSA will launch the week’s theme and release an introduction video. On Tuesday, there will be glowing balloons on campus showing what integrity means to students.
Wednesday’s focus is “Strive for Respect.” BYUSA members will be giving away “respect bags” with dinner and games for students to share with a roommate they don’t know very well.
On Thursday, BYUSA is filling social media with gratitude posts. The week caps off on Friday with members handing out more than a thousand blue light glasses to students.
The official list of events will be posted to the BYUSA website. Students can also follow BYUSA on Instagram and Facebook.
Although this year’s events will be held online, student leadership is not in despair, and the team has kept up high spirits in preparation for the week.
“This semester is already off to a great start. Now that BYU has officially declared a pure-virtual semester (event-wise) it makes it much easier to plan and execute,” Student Body President Spring Buford said.
With everything that happened last year, Curtis said this year is a time for healing. “Our theme is STRIVE. The definition of strive is to struggle and fight courageously. We are all fighting our own battles; this week is a quiet yet official way to celebrate that and support one another for who we truly are, as we are,” she said.
The BYUSA presidency members said they hope students come out of this year’s Honor Week with a sense of belief in themselves and a self reflection for their own personal integrity, respect and gratitude. They want students to remember to be kind and loving and to strive to be their best selves.
“I hope students stop and think about what each of those things mean. And then commit to themselves to live a life of Honor,” Buford said.
