My BYU

My alma mater, BYU, has been in the news this week—lots of furor over the fact that Dick Cheney is going to speak at commencement this month. I am very, very happy that BYU suspended its strict no demonstration policy to allow students to voice their opinions about his upcoming visit.

My personal opinion? I wish BYU would invite more high profile speakers with a wide range of political views. And I wish they hadn't invited such an ethically challenged person to speak at graduation. Commencement should be about the students who worked hard to earn their degrees and who are going out into the world, not about the speaker.

When I think about my time at BYU in the 80s, it didn’t seem so partisan. Or maybe as a native of predominantly Democratic Massachusetts attending college in predominantly Republican Utah, I just saw what I wanted to see.

But as a political science major I hung with as many College Democrats as College Republicans (I am a registered Independent so I felt comfortable floating freely among them all).

I had fabulous professors like Dr. Gary Bryner and Dr. Joe Black (click on link and scroll down until you get to his name). They pushed us to see thorny issues from all angles. I listened to well known national Democrats like Senator Joe Biden who came to speak on campus.

I worked on the annual Peace Symposium committee, and invited my Quaker grandmother to speak about her experiences traveling on a mission of peace to Nicaragua at the age of 80. The auditorium was packed with students who were concerned about US involvement there.

I watched my friend Becky get up exceptionally early for months to coordinate student volunteers serving breakfast at the community food and care coalition (I did help her a little, but not nearly enough). Inspired by her, I wrote bleeding heart articles for the Student Review, the alternative off campus student newspaper, and dreamed of making a difference the world.

Here in Utah I am quite left of center. As a US citizen I’m left of center, though not as dramatically. And I owe much of that to spending many happy formative years at BYU.