The BYU community reacted warmly to a handful of recent public recognitions by focusing on the university’s students and mission statement.
BYU received rankings of best college library, most financially healthy and most highly recommended by students and alumni. The BYU Kennedy Center recently celebrated its rank of No. 1 for number of students studying abroad.
Todd Hollingshead, BYU media relations and information manager, suggested that the important thing about these recognitions is what they say about the student experience.
“The ranking itself is fun to celebrate, but the story behind the ranking is what’s really incredible,” Hollingshead said. “Our focus is on the students, giving the students the best experience here.”
These rankings bring comfort to both faculty and staff that the student experience is truly a good one, Hollingshead said.
“You know when you have a good experience, you know the association with your faculty members, and you feel like you’ve got a good education that prepared you, but it’s nice when you have some outside party saying, ‘Hey, yeah, we’ve crunched the numbers, and we agree,’” Hollingshead said.
Students can draw a particular peace of mind from the ranking of No. 1 most financially healthy university.
“It’s definitely a unique ranking, but I think it’s a good one that helps students feel confident that they’ve made a good choice and that they’ll be able to be on a good foundation here,” Hollingshead said.
BYU’s mission statement plays a role in the reception of these rankings. BYU’s university librarian, Rick Anderson, said that BYU’s library captures the essence of the university mission.
“We nourish the intellect with documents and services designed to expand the mind. We put those documents and services explicitly in the context of Restoration truth and our eternal goal of becoming like our Heavenly Father, and we maintain a keen focus on supporting the work of undergraduate education in all we do,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s career as a librarian and bookseller at multiple universities gives him insight into BYU’s unique recognition for best collegiate library. To him, what makes the library so special is “the smart and kind people, the amazing collections, the culture of service and helpfulness.”
“During the school year, there is no place on campus that buzzes with excitement and joy like the BYU library does. In my 35-year career, I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Anderson said.
A faculty publication from 2007 highlights the effort the university has demonstrated to impact students. The article compiled research of student, faculty and alumni surveys and summarizes instruments BYU uses to measure the growth of the community as it pertains to the mission statement.
“BYU has in place not only clear statements of its character-and-spirituality-based mission but also its use of three national and five institutional instruments to measure character and spiritual outcomes,” the article said. “At a time when so much emphasis is being placed on cognitive outcomes in higher education, it is important for institutions that have affective outcomes, i.e., character and spirituality, not to overlook their measurement too.”
BYU accomplishes this partly through experiences outside of the classroom.
A majority of seniors at BYU in 2007 shared that “character growth was strongly enhanced through serving others and participating in organized off-campus study (e.g., Semester Abroad) programs and off-campus internships, as well as employment,” said the article.
BYU holds a unique motto “Enter to learn; go forth to serve” that it has been striving to achieve since 1966, originating with BYU president Ernest L. Wilkinson.
The Kennedy Center's No. 1 ranking was celebrated on Sept. 26 when study abroad alumni gathered in the Hinckley Center.
Hollingshead said the university is trying to provide “those experiential learning experiences that hopefully in some ways are life changing" to as many students as possible.