SAS Events

Student Association Events

Future Events

Future events will include:
-A Mormon cultural night with a movie and potluck
-A meetup and history tour of Gilgal Sculpture Gardens
-A meetup for the ARCH-HIVE December 2021 art show

Stay tuned for more details!

Past events

"They Without Us": a paper presentation and discussion of Mormon environmentalism.

This meeting took place on 8/25/21. You can find the recording of it here or watch below.

Readings on LDS environmental stewardship:

"Christianity and The Survival of Creation" by Wendell Berry, an environmental activist, poet, essayist, novelist, and farmer.

"Rupture and Re-membering" in Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (2009) by Ellen F. Davis, an Old Testament Scholar and Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School.

"Reverencing Creation" by Steven L. Peck, an evolutionary biologist, novelist, and Professor of Biology at Brigham Young University.

"Rattlesnakes and Beehives: Why Latter-day Saints Should Support Ecologically Sustainable Development" by David Osborn, who serves in the Australian Government's Department of the Environment and Heritage.

To get a sense for where the LDS Church stands on environmental stewardship, see these authoritative perspectives: "Environmental Stewardship and Conservation" in Mormon Newsroom; "The Moral Imperative of Environmental Stewardship" by Steven E. Snow of the LDS Quorum of the Seventy; Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment (2006), edited by George B. Handley, Terry B. Ball, and Steven L. Peck.

About this event:

UVU student and Claremont Graduate University admit David Jimenez read from his paper entitled, "They Without Us: Sacred Matter, Temples, and the Foundations of an LDS Theology of Stewardship." In this paper, Jimenez argues that the Mormon belief in the eternality of matter and the familial covenants of LDS temple worship necessitate a commitment to environmental stewardship. We followed this up with a discussion of his essay and of LDS perspectives on environmentalism more broadly.

David Jimenez is a (aspiring) philosophical theologian of Mormonism. He is principally interested in Mormon cosmology. More precisely, much of his work has focused on the implications of the doctrine of eternality of matter on Mormon conceptions of relationality, process, personal identity, and environmentalism. He was recently admitted to Claremont Graduate University to study philosophy and theology as a Howard W. Hunter Fellow.

"The Challenges of a Mormon University": a roundtable discussion on BYU.

This meeting took place on 9/16/21. You can find the recording of it here or watch below.

Readings on BYU:

"The Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University" (2021) by Jeffrey R. Holland; speech at BYU.

"The Maxwell Legacy in the 21st Century" (2018) by Jeffrey R. Holland, pages 9-22; speech at BYU.

"Intellectual Cultures of Mormonism: Faith, Reason, and the Apologetic Enterprise" (2017) by Brian Birch; chapter in Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics, edited by Blair G. Van Dyke and Loyd Isao Ericson and published by Greg Kofford Books.

"Keeping Faith in Provo: Warning of the Dangers of Secularism for Brigham Young University" (2014) by Ralph Hancock, Professor of Political Science at BYU; blog post.

The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU (1998) by Bryan Waterman and Brian Kagel, chapter 10, pgs. 424-447 (starting at section "The AAUP Conference on Academic Freedom at Religiously Affiliated Universities").

"One Lord, One Faith, Two Universities: Tension between 'Faith' and 'Thought' at BYU" (1992) by Scott Abbott; presented at the 1992 Sunstone Summer Symposium; audio version available here.

"Clipped and Controlled" (1996) by Scott Abbott; article in Sunstone Magazine.

Review of The Lord's University (1999) by Kent P. Jackson, then Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU; published in BYU Studies.

"The Charted Course of the Church in Education" (1938) by J. Reuben Clark; address to seminary and institute of religion leaders at the BYU summer school.

"Emphasizing Christ-Centered Education at Brigham Young University" (2020) by Hanna Seariac and Tristan Mourier; petition.

"BYU Petition: Time for Another Witch Hunt?" (2020) by Mary Ann; blog post.

"How a New Instagram Page is Exposing Apostate BYU Professors" (2020) by Jeremy; blog post.

About this event:

Our second Student Association meeting took place at the UVU Classroom Building.

This event is a roundtable discussion titled "The Challenges of a Mormon University." We discussed a variety of topics including the Maxwell Institute, the Church Education System, Jeffrey R. Holland's recent address, debates over the direction of BYU, the tensions between faith and scholarship, and the parallels between today's challenges and those of past decades.

"Making a Conspiracy Culture": a book club discussion on Ezra Taft Benson.

This meeting took place on 11/5/21. You can find the recording of it here or watch below.

Readings:

About this event:

This meeting took place on Friday, November 5th, at 5:30pm.

This discussion of Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon conservatism focused on chapter three of Matthew Harris' book, Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right. We covered topics relating to Benson's interpretations of the "secret combinations" mentioned in the Book of Mormon, his ties with the John Birch Society, his theories of communist infiltration of BYU, the government, and the Civil Rights movement, and his lasting impact on fringe Mormonism. You can find a PDF of this chpater, distributed with Dr. Harris' permission, below:

Short Creek 2021: a tour of a community at the heart of LDS fundamentalist history.

This trip took place on December 12, 2021.