Thread by @JWhitebread1

And so now we begin the fourth installment of the seemingly never ending "#WhatisgoingonatBYU"

But first some housecleaning!

First off I can't believe I didn't hashtag this from the start. It's really blown up and I appreciate all the positive and even some of the negative feedback. If you missed the first 3 parts, they are listed below:

Part 1 talked about my experience at BYU and how it appeared the faculty was at war with the admin and how the admin was largely rudderless.

https://twitter.com/JWhitebread1/status/1627733770471342080?s=20

Part II talked about my own experience trying to tread the minefield that is sensitive topics at BYU and why many academics chafe at all the invisible fences at BYU.

https://twitter.com/JWhitebread1/status/1628095170901344257?s=20

Part III detailed how the demographics more or less forced BYU to become more selective and how this inevitably let to BYU becoming more elite.

https://twitter.com/JWhitebread1/status/1630253983226019840?s=20

So Part IV we are going to talk about the faculty. *inhales* Okay as a former faculty myself, this is gonna be rough.

But thanks for sticking with me and putting up with all my typos. Hang around til the end for a special announcement *cough*shameless self-promotion*cough*

Okay, so it was obvious BYU was going to have to go bougie, though they tried very hard to mitigate that. Thing is, you can't become an elite institution just by raising standards. You need talent.

BYU has a few weird socio-economic features we need to get out of the way first. BYU is a unique environment and as such kinda has a monopoly on LDS based education.

That means that LDS kids that could go to Harvard, will still go to BYU. Faculty that could work anywhere, will be willing to get payed less, just to be at BYU. And with because it's subsidized by the church you can get a private education at state school prices.

All this means is that the people who go there REALLY want to be there, and for obvious reasons. I mean my eldest pretty much jokes that she wouldn't exist if it weren't for (and this is a quote) the "bride factory"

And honestly BYU is freakin' great. While the pay was less, the benefits were astounding and the environment? Well, let's just say then at other schools when they start a sentence with "Jesus" they aren't going to actually be saying anything about Jesus.

That alone makes BYU leagues ahead of most academic environments. And people are willing to sacrifice a lot to be there. It's like one giant sorority. It's super nice. I mean, tell stories of my time there and it sounds like a Jesus themed Disneyland to most outsiders.

And you can tell how people will react to it based entirely on whether they think a "Jesus themed Disneyland" sounds awesome or like Heck on earth. Thing is, it's not for everyone. And at times, it wasn't for me either. But generally, it's awesome.

So BYU has certain built in advantages when it comes to recruitment, enrollment, etc. because it IS a special place where people want to be. Thing is, it takes more to run a school. It takes skills.

At at the time BYU was making this transition from a religious school with a state ag school curriculum, circa mid 90s, to a more elite private school, there simply wasn't enough LDS with academic degrees to staff an LDS private school.

And this is when a kind of "plan" was hatched. I say "plan" in scare quotes because while people talked about it openly, it was never a formal plan, just a reality of the situation. There was a real dearth of qualified LDS scholars, and we needed more.

In the short term BYU really made a play to get the best scholars they could, regardless of whether they were LDS or not. I had lots of non LDS profs when I was there, the leading Mayan Scholar for a while was at BYU, and there are still a few left, but most moved on.

Non LDS scholars could only ever be a stopgap however because as much as they tried, the things that made BYU appealing to LDS, also tended to go against non LDS wanting to work there.

For example, I aided a few of my non LDS profs in contraband coffee procurement while on campus. Hey, protip, it always helps to suck up to your profs.

But the real solution was for BYU to farm its own talent and that's exactly what they did. Problem is, it's hard. First, a Master's degree is 2-3 yrs, a PhD 5 years more, at least, and they ain't cheap.

So it takes time and talent and money and lots of patience, but it was clear that profs in the 90s were shepherd their best and brightest to grad school with the tacit understanding that if you excelled, you might have a spot at BYU.

And this was happening pretty openly. For example, I was part of a honor's study abroad and out of the 10 or so people that went on that in 93 I think two are full time profs at BYU today.

Again, this wasn't some grand plan, it was just reality. They sent their smartest out, helped them network, get funds, grants, fellowships at the most prestigious grad schools they could all with a hope that they would come back to the roost.

I got several calls during my grad school days from my undergrad profs, asking me where I was, how close I was to graduation, etc. And I know that several other depts kept tabs on the chicks that had left the nest to see if any might have a spot at BYU when they got back.

As it turned out there was never a permanent opening for me, but I doubt I would have gotten that visiting prof gig if they hadn't known me.

And it was clear that certain openings were "reserved" that is, they couldn't guarantee the spot, it was still a national competitive search, but they were hoping for a specific bird to return to the nest. So there were all these inside tracks working.

And frankly, this isn't all that different than what other schools are doing. LOTS of programs have inside track candidates, people they know, because it's a safer bet the person will stick around, work well with their colleagues, etc.

But it's FAR more critical for BYU because it is this special environment where LDS want to be, and not many non LDS want to be, so what else could they do?

And it worked, for a while. We exported our best to grad programs and brought them back with the new expertise we needed, what could go wrong?

Well it turns out, a lot. Not only did we bring back the expertise, but we also brought back a lot of the culture of academia which was at times, often at odds with the culture of BYU. And the academic culture has really taken a turn in the last 30 yrs, let me explain...

Okay so academia has ALWAYS been liberal, you can find quotes from the Middle Ages about Abbot's wondering what the devil are they teaching at the schools these days!

I think that's just the nature of liberal inquiry, but things have gotten a lot more intense in the last 30 years, to explain how, let me take you back to a magical time, I like to call, the 90s

I was working in Visual Resources at Bryn Mawr College. Now Bryn Mawr was a FAMOUSLY progressive and ardently liberal women's college, I mean, just check out this cartoon from the 40s. I mean, if people are cracking jokes like this then, you know you're liberal.

Anywho, they sent around a survey, one of the first diversity survey's I'd ever seen. It asked, do you feel like there are enough people like you here at BM to mentor you in your career? And I said, cheekily, no, I think you should hire more white rural Mormons.

Now, that was stupid, and sure enough, I got called in to a focus group where they asked, in all sincerity, did I really feel like my group wasn't adequately represented at Bryn Mawr?

I came clean and said I was joking. I got along famously with my colleagues, and everyone else, I just thought it was a bit ridiculous to suggest I couldn't succeed at Bryn Mawr unless I had more LDS colleagues.

So we had a long conversation about diversity and they let me, and the only other mildly conservative employee on campus say our peace, they were always civil, but they made it clear that they disagreed and then...nothing.

There were no repercussions, no bullying, just a polite conversation where they made it clear they thought we were wrong and...that was it. Me and the other guy walked out of there and felt better about Bryn Mawr than we had in years.

It may have been liberal, but it was fair and held to the highest liberal values. Another story, a candidate for a job came up at another school I knew about...

He was clearly the lead candidate but it came up that he was politically conservative. That caused a SMALL hiccup, and during a Q&A with the grad students, the other profs wanted to know how that would impact his teaching.

He assured them it wouldn't and...that was that. He was hired. Now, I hate to say this, but I don't think either of those situations would play out that way today. I hope they would, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Academia has become far more cloistered than ever before. It was always liberal, but now it is downright exclusionary. People in academia have felt under assault, sometimes fairly, sometimes not, and they have clearly been excluding contrary opinions for some time now.

We can debate how and why this happened but I don't think it's all that controversial to say it has happened. Conservatives were rare, but now they seem to be an impossibility. And over time, fewer were hired, or promoted, or published.

Or they just bailed, or never bothered going to grad school to begin with because it was a hostile environment so why bother? Again, it doesn't have to be a conspiracy, just a few subtle changes, and over time, the entire culture can change.

And this change happened right as BYU started farming its best and brightest out to academia in the hopes that they would come back and enrich BYU with their expertise, but it's clear they brought something else back with it.

The increasing progressive tilt of academia has consequences everywhere but it has even bigger consequences at BYU because it is a special environment.

We were making missionary like forays into academia, but it's now clear that grad schools were sending missionaries of academia back to BYU.

Again, I don't think anyone realized how far academia would lean left in the next 30 years. I don't think they realized how much it became tied into not just the culture but the very disciplines themselves.

When I started teaching Non-Western History of Art, land acknowledgements, DEI statements, simply did not exist. Now they are more or less de rigueur. And even my liberal friends in the field are scared.

You may have heard about this case about a Hamline University teacher being cancelled over teaching about historical images of the Prophet Mohammed. thedailybeast.com/hamline-univer…

Thing is, I've taught those same images, this would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago. Thankfully, many scholars and Muslims have rallied to their cause, but there has never been a time where academic freedom has been more imperiled in all the 25 years I've been teaching.

But it is obvious that there are not a few at BYU who are very much dedicated to ideologies that many find antithetical to the church's mission. Problem is, there is no easy solution.

I want to stress, I did meet some hard core radicals at BYU but I don't think for a moment they are the majority, but I do know that some depts have intentionally radicalized themselves by refusing to hire conservatives etc.

Others have been radicalized just by the slow creep of academic radicalization that has been happening everywhere. Still others see themselves as kind of reverse missionaries to help the benighted BYU students.

Thing is, this isn't a simple case of a few bad apples. Whole fields of discipline exist where just teaching the discipline runs into issues that conflict with the other mission of BYU to provide a unique LDS academic environment.

So let me put some of the many many threads of this discussion together. The student body of BYU is increasing elite, and being so, have become more liberal in tastes and views.

We've now had a generation or two of those students sent to grad school to get further radicalized and returned to BYU. See the problem?

It just feeds on itself. The thing you did to fix the good problems of growth and elite schools compound the problem. And there are no easy solutions...

I hear a lot of people say, why can't they just fire the bad apples, purge a few programs and fix this? Schools don't work that way.

Curriculum takes years to develop and you really need credentialed people to teach those course. Not every course is taught every semester, it works in cycles designed to best fit a student's path to graduation.

You fire one teacher it makes a hole, a big hole sometimes, and you have to cover those classes, or move them to another semester, that puts a student off from graduation by a semester, meaning, more loans or money, or time, or lost employment.

If you start purging faculty and departments, the only people you are really going to hurt, is the students. If you kill programs, you are going to destroy whole classes of students.

What if you kill a program some kid was going to graduate in? Whoops! Hope your credits transfer to some other school.

I have seen this happen elsewhere, where a state legislature got a bee in their saddle and decided to kill this or that program and left hundreds, if not thousands of students stranded and stuck.

There is no easy fix and every fix will have to be slow and by attrition if at all. Sorry to say it but that's the way I see it. Anything else and you are just screwing over the students.

But I get it, you hear some very non LDS sounding things coming out of the social media of BYU profs and you think, WHAT'S GOING ON? but I've dropped enough black pills, let me drop some white ones.

1. I think the vast majority of BYU profs are faithful saints who just want to teach their disciplines. I think the noise is mostly coming from a few loud corners. I am hearing stories of bishops refusing ecclesiastical endorsements to kids because they think BYU will ruin them

I think that kind of talk is just crazy. BYU is not lost and that kind of action is crazy. I will say, I would give your kids caution about certain degrees or programs. Heck, I have a daughter going there myself in the Fall.

2. Every indication is that the church knows the problem and is trying to fix it, it is, as I've said, a very hard problem to fix without destroying careers or wasting student's time. Have patience.

I have BOATLOADS more of inside stories, and more have come forward since I started this series, so I will be sharing them in the future, but please don't lose hope.

BYU is not lost and is definitely worth saving, and help is on the way. I have a story regarding the religion dept. and the Maxwell Institute running tiff that I may share if I can get permission.

Also, I have other issues I wish to talk about in depth, specifically the whole LGBT issue. In the meantime, this got kinda down, so let's end with some shameless self-promotion!

As some of you know I am ending my career in academia, I'm still adjuncting here and there, but I am moving on because it's clear I don't have a home there anymore.

In the meantime I am going into the lucrative career of comics! (don't laugh, I'm serious.) I am working on a graphic novel now, and will be posting updates here soon. I also write fantasy novels and other things.

I have ONE novel that is currently available and self published under my pen name, Jonah Hewitt. It's called "Limbos Child" and you can get it on Amazon here: amazon.com/Limbos-Child-B…

This is the only novel I felt good enough to publish, I like it, but it has one chief advantage. It's THICC, 209k words, so if you don't like it, you can put it in a plate carrier and use it as Level 2 body armor.

It's the story of a girl who's mom dies and she discovers she is the last living necromancer and she needs the help of a child of Limbo to try and save the world. Oh, and also teenage vampires, but they don't sparkle, trust me. Give it a try. Or use it as a doorstop.

Also if you have any other topics as relates to LDS issues in academia, just ask and I made add it to this series. Thanks a bunch and see you on the otter slide.