BYU is a controversial place, even for church members. As a Catholic friend once remarked to me, "You never hear Catholics talk smack about Notre Dame, but I hear Mormons make fun of and say terrible things about BYU all the time." It's true. BYU has become the university that you either absolutely love, or you absolutely hate.
A recent entry in the bloggernacle had me thinking about my own experiences thus far at BYU (and about how I should probably read at least one book from Vonnegut, if I want to call myself an English student). I have about one and a half to two years to go, depending on how I take it, and will most likely stay and finish at BYU, despite some serious debate at various points of leaving.
As one person said, "BYU provided me with a quality education at bargain price. Part of the reason my student loan debt is manageable is solely due to them. I also met my wife there. Everything else is trivial fluff as far as I’m concerned." I suppose this is true for me; I'm getting a good education at bargain price, and I met my wife here, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. But yet I do.
Many people often misunderstand the source of my complaining. Yes, sometimes the religious zealotry hijacking reason for asserting religious opinion as fact is annoying (and I view it as dangerous also), and sometimes the insular Provo culture is maddening. But most of the reasons why I complain or criticize some of the things BYU does is, as one person puts it, "people don’t like BYU for the same reasons they don’t like missions. Or singles wards. Or married wards. Or gospel doctrine. It’s an expectation mismatch issue."
Well, I enjoyed my mission, and I like gospel doctrine. Maybe a little too much. I had a mission president who was an inspiring giant of a man, who had little time for policy and meetings and positions and titles and was a genius at applying scriptural knowledge and philosophy to his everyday dealings with the rank and file missionary under his guidance. While I had strove hard to keep religious learnings and secular dealings separate before (something I am still guilty of doing to this day), he blended the two perfectly and proved it was possible to take seemingly improbable and impractical religious teachings and make them work for everyday life.
So perhaps I had expected BYU to be like that, but as one person also commented, "many Mormons let the church get in the way of their beliefs." I am critical of mostly secular administration policies and bureaucratic tendencies that bother me or I feel are contradictory to the gospel in general, and this causes me to become critical. At the very source of this criticism is love, and not hate. A lot of the time, I am disappointed to see Brigham Young University students act in a certain way, or to see administrators make policies that I feel are bumbling and lack faith in their own student body. I want BYU to succeed, to really become a powerful force for good, and when it fails to meet my (I will admit) fantastic and sometimes outrageously high expectations, I become disappointed.
I have always been careful to avoid criticizing the Church. I certainly wonder sometimes of doctrines and policies, which lead me to ponder and consider and pray. For example, I have publicly talked out loud about my wondering of why God would ask the Church to step in on the gay marriage issue politically, but it has never caused me to question my firm knowledge of God or the Church's validity as His instrument; only wondering of motives and probing deeper into His character. Thus, this carries over to BYU; I take care not to criticize mandates from the Brethren; but the Brethren rarely step into BYU affairs, and so many of my grievances are targeted at specific, mortal, human decision making policies that I see as short sighted and contradictory. I take careful care to separate man-made bureaucracy and administration from prophetic mantles.
But, as the hymn suggests, I have been counting my blessings, and so far, I'll say I'm pleased with my experience. As many commentators in the blog entry mentioned: "The dirty little secret is that BYU is teeming with liberal professors. You just won’t find them in the Religion departments, but so what?" The faculty actually runs the whole gamut, from not quite out of the closet communists to your neoconservatives to your libertarians (the student body is a different story, but that is not of real concern for me anymore). They are interesting, and for the most part, are competent and generally care about you. BYU does have a lot of prestige and class. They have some very worldclass programs. I've had run ins with irrational, ignorant students and especially discouraging counselors, but at the same time, I have made good friends and rubbed shoulders professors that have changed my life on numerous occasions. And yes, I do get a quality education for a great price and I did meet my wife here.
And one poster made a comment that made me think:
It is an uncommon environment, especially for a university, in that it is based upon truth being known and taught, not sought and questioned. I’ve noticed two common responses to this: acquiescing to the truths taught without the searching/pondering/struggling that deepens their affect on the individual or working so hard to pay one’s intellectual dues in searching/pondering/struggling that the affect of fully accepting the truths and moving forward doesn’t occur.
Fortunately, travellers on each of these paths usually are granted time to realize the incompleteness of not pursuing the struggle and then accepting, and committing to, the reward.
Older, wiser, hopefully a bit more mature, I've recently been trying to keep a level head when it comes to my school of which I've developed such an emotional love/hate relationship with. No one, and no institution, is perfect thus far on this incredibly imperfect and mortal earth, and I must temper my expectations thusly without losing the optimism and high expectations. This is a difficult line to follow, and one I will be trying to perfect all my life. Overall, I'm sure I'll look back to my memories at BYU with degrees of fondness, depending on the memories (memories of English faculty: high fondness; memories of singles wards; not so much fondness). Will I still be criticalof various aspects of my hopefully future alma mater? Will I continue to frown upon some of the BYU administration's school policies and decisions? Certainly, just as I frown upon many of the actions of my government, and this should be considered a compliment. I criticize my government because my parents did too good of a job instilling patriotic feelings and teaching me classical republican and democratic ideals. My parents also did perhaps too good of a job instilling religious feelings and teaching me correct gospel doctrines and principles. And because of this, I continue to reveal grievences with some of the actions they make.
My parents often criticize me of my weight, or my posture, or my exercise habits. Yet, I know they do it because they love me. The same stands for BYU. I just want my university to be a little bit better at some things, and find nothing to be gained by staying silent.
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