BYU, Pepperdine presidents meet to discuss future of Christian colleges

Posted by admin on Mar 02, 2022

Jim Gash, president of Pepperdine University, and Kevin J Worthen, president of Brigham Young University, pose for a photo together at BYU’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

High bookshelves frame a window-lit reading room peppered with tomes of past Brigham Young University luminaries. Along a far wall is a made-to-scale diorama of BYU’s “Maeser Hill.” Sitting on perpendicularly positioned couches are two men in blue blazers and slacks who, it turns out, have a lot more in common than just a shared sartorial sensibility.

As Pepperdine and BYU basketball are preparing to face off at the Marriott Center on this Saturday afternoon in Provo, Utah, a different sort of meeting is taking place here inside the warm sandstone walls of the Gordon B. Hinckley Center.

Kevin J Worthen, the 13th president of BYU, and James A. Gash, the eighth president of Pepperdine, are talking shop.

In a freewheeling discussion, these attorneys-turned-law professors converse about everything from their favorite sports moments to the urgent post-COVID-19 need to build communities of belonging on Christian campuses.

They even dish on the books they can’t put down. Worthen recommends “The Upswing” by Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett while Gash says he just finished rereading Jordan Peterson’s much-discussed “12 Rules for Life.”

What surfaces from the exchange is an acknowledgment that in order to flourish in 21st-century America, devout religious campuses like theirs need to stay doggedly committed to their faith traditions and Christian missions while also building mutually supportive relationships with like-minded institutions that respect theological differences. In other words, they need a lot more relationships like the one Worthen and Gash are forging.

Jim Gash, president of Pepperdine University, poses for a photo at Brigham Young University’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Both presidents inherited a love for their respective alma maters at home.

Worthen’s parents were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his father — an educator — earned a masters from BYU during summers. “That’s when I first came on campus, and for whatever reason I was enamored with the experience.” Gash’s mom and dad met at Pepperdine, and their courtship grew within the embrace of Pepperdine’s religiously affiliated Churches of Christ.

Gash ended up playing football for Abilene Christian University as an undergraduate, but when it came time to apply for law school he sent only one application to one school — Pepperdine. His wife Joline is an alumna as well.

Although Worthen played basketball at College of Eastern Utah (now Utah State University-Eastern) he eventually received both his bachelor’s and Juris Doctor degrees from BYU. His wife Peggy went back to school to finish her degree in English from BYU in 2003.

After landing highly competitive judicial clerkships — Gash on the 5th Circuit and Worthen on the D.C. Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court — both men took posts at well-respected law firms before transitioning into teaching at their alma maters.

This personal acquaintance with nearly every aspect of university life — being students, alumni, faculty members and administrators — lends credibility to their personal testimonials. While not everyone succeeds, or even makes it past the first semester, on campus schools like Pepperdine and BYU still aspire to transform students into dedicated, lifelong disciple-scholars and contributing members of society.

“This personal acquaintance with nearly every aspect of university life — being students, alumni, faculty members and administrators — lends credibility to their personal testimonials.”

“I think I understand the mission, the history of the place, not just in an intellectual way, but also in the way it’s formed my whole life,” Worthen says.

Gash tells me that he sees why some might argue that it’s “parochial” for a president to come from within the ranks of the school, but there are obvious advantages to having “Pepperdine DNA” and knowing the school “from almost every angle.” For him the pros outweigh any perceived cons: “I think it really helped me hit the ground running.”

BYU President Kevin J Worthen celebrates the win against Utah with students after an NCAA volleyball game at Smith Fieldhouse in Provo on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021.

Communities, and especially college campuses, have a way of molding those within them. And, on a faith-based campus, religion plays a major role in that formative function. But so too, the presidents explain, do sports.

As former college athletes, both presidents appreciate this more than most.

Gash says that when students come on campus their identities are first, “you’re a child of God” but “you’re also a Pepperdine Wave.” Sports, he continues, “give students something to do side-by-side that is fun, engaging and builds a unified community which is especially important in this moment for mental health.”

Worthen points to a recent Gallup report that surveyed college students over time and found that in various areas of well-being — including relationships, job satisfaction and health — former collegiate athletes were more likely than their peers to report that they were “thriving.”

When I ask the presidents to point to their favorite sports “moment,” they struggle to settle on just one.

Gash recalls performing an impromptu graduation ceremony in full regalia for a women’s tennis player who missed commencement while competing for a national championship. Then there was the time he walked the full golf course all seven rounds when Pepperdine won the national championship in men’s golf last year.

“When I ask the presidents to point to their favorite sports “moment,” they struggle to settle on just one.”

But, he says, it’s hard to top the time he stormed the court to celebrate a buzzer-beater victory over San Diego in basketball. “That night my aunt in Seattle calls me and says ‘I saw you on TV during the postgame celebration.’” It was great, he confesses, but also a reminder “I ought to be a little more presidential in those moments.”

Worthen admits that he’s gotten better during games since his wife — Peggy — used to tug his suit jacket when he’d get too animated.

One of Worthen’s favorite BYU sports moments was watching the Cougars’ 1990 football home-opener win over No. 1-ranked Miami, which helped launch Ty Detmer’s successful Heisman Trophy campaign.

“That game is what it feels like when you have an atmosphere of everyone rooting together. It was electric from the very beginning to the very end.” He contrasts that with going out to the cross-country national championship last fall and watching BYU’s top runners finish first in the men’s and women’s divisions.

“A lot less fanfare. Very low-key. But what was really interesting was seeing these competitors intermingling and supporting each other. I thought ‘This is what college athletics should look like.’”

Kevin J Worthen, president of Brigham Young University, poses for a photo at the school’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

This isn’t the first time the two have met or the schools have sat down together.

Pepperdine has hosted gatherings of the J. Rueben Clark Law Society — a group for Latter-day Saint lawyers — and Brigham Young University scholars have participated in various conferences at Pepperdine and vice versa. And from sports to faith, building a Christian campus in which students belong has been a priority for both institutions.

Worthen, who coincidentally just finished serving as the chair of Pepperdine’s Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation committee, was struck by the fact that BYU and Pepperdine independently settled on the word “belonging” to define the kinds of communities they’re seeking to cultivate.

In the first week of each new semester, Worthen and Peggy deliver campuswide addresses called “devotionals.” This year, looking out on the gathering of masked students seated in the Marriott Center, Worthen emphasized the need for belonging.

“It is, in my view, more important than ever that we be with one another during this educational process — that we be part of a community,” he said. “There is now a need to focus more specifically on creating … a community of belonging in which all members realize the full blessings that come from gathering together in ‘a vibrant and determined community of learners and lifters.’”

A year earlier, Gash had urged his own campus community to “reject the hopeless idea that pandemic isolation and disconnectedness is unavoidable,” during his Founder’s Day address. “I challenge each and every one of us to muster the courage it takes to create a community of belonging.”

Belonging, he explains, isn’t just getting invited to the dance, “it’s being asked what music should be played. You’re not a guest — this is your campus. You belong here.”

The basis of a Christian community, Gash continues, is that “everyone is made in the image of God with infinite dignity, and we are called to love them.” Almost finishing Gash’s sentence Worthen begins to paraphrase BYU’s statement on belonging: “We are united by our common, primary identity as children of god. That’s what binds us together.”

“Belonging isn’t just getting invited to the dance, ‘it’s being asked what music should be played. You’re not a guest — this is your campus. You belong here.’ ”

“Amen,” Gash nods.

In his 2021 speech, Worthen cites the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s idea of a “beloved community,” and quotes King’s famous 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

The presidents of BYU and Pepperdine realize that both of their campuses are part of that inescapable network of mutuality—that single garment of destiny. Their focus now is on making sure the garment doesn’t fray but alway remains, in the words of scripture, tightly knit together in love.

Jim Gash, president of Pepperdine University, and Kevin J Worthen, president of Brigham Young University, pose for a photo together at BYU’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

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Jim Gash, president of Pepperdine University, poses for a photo at Brigham Young University’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

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Jim Gash, president of Pepperdine University, poses for a photo at Brigham Young University’s campus in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

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BYU Cougars guard Shaylee Gonzales (2) drives between Pepperdine Waves forward Skye Lindsay (24) and Pepperdine Waves guard Deezha Battle (22) as BYU and Pepperdine play in WCC tournament action at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Monday, March 11, 2019.

Scott G Winterton, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

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Pepperdine Waves center Megan House (5) and Pepperdine Waves guard Rose Pflug (2) wrestle with BYU Cougars guard Brenna Chase (1) for the ball as BYU and Pepperdine play in WCC tournament action at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Monday, March 11, 2019. BYU won 68-63.

Scott G Winterton, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

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Pepperdine Waves guard Houston Mallette (0) defends against Brigham Young Cougars guard Trevin Knell (21) during the game at the Marriott Center in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

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Pepperdine Waves guard Majok Deng (22) goes to the hoop around Brigham Young Cougars forward Fousseyni Traore (45) during the game at the Marriott Center in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.

Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

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BYU president Kevin Worthen, right, speaks about athletic director Tom Holmoe, left, during a press conference announcing that BYU has accepted an invitation to the Big 12 Conference at BYU in Provo on Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. BYU will play all sports provided by the Big 12 except for equestrian, rowing and wrestling. Men’s volleyball will continue to play in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, as the Big 12 does not offer the sport.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

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