By Sara Richardson
Students of religious faith face a difficult challenge as they try to balance their faith with their scholastic work, especially as they enter graduate programs.
To help students combine their religious and secular educations, the Graduate Student Association is presenting the symposium “Scholarship and Faith” for the second year in a row.
“We see BYU as the leading edge for righteous principles,” said Joyce Adams, president of the Graduate Student Associations. “We want graduate students to come here and get a balance of faith and scholastics so they don”t have to subdue their faith to gain scholarly work.”
The symposium will feature three deans and one vice president of colleges on BYU campus; all have advice to assist students or any other person seeking religion and academics, Adams said.
“We chose some experts of faith and ethics who have also been successful in their careers,” she said. “They are each specialists in their own areas.”
Graduate Student Council Vice President, Keoni Kauwe, a graduate student in molecular biology from Kaunakakai, Hawaii, said the symposium gives students the opportunity to learn from people who are successful in their careers, as well as successful in maintaining their religious values.
“These are people who understand the principles of the gospel, and have been able to successfully mesh them into their careers,” he said.
Speakers will include Dean Newell Dayley of the College of Fine Arts, Dean Earl Woolley of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, former university vice president, James Gordon of the Law School and Associate Academic Vice President for Faculty Richard Williams.
Williams said the relationship between scholarship and faith has not been fully developed.
“I believe that Latter-day Saints are in a unique position to make a contribution to the discourse on this issue,” he said. “But that can only happen if we take up the issue seriously and rigorously.”
Woolley, who is also a professor of biochemistry, plans to outline a few obvious examples from the physical world that everyone has experienced but never thought much about. He will then compare those examples with revealed truths to describe how he has reconciled any apparent discrepancies.
Each speaker will offer students and faculty advice through personal experiences and work-related experiences.
All students and faculty are invited to attend the symposium from 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. on April 3 in Room 3280 in the Wilkinson Center.
