As for my contribution to the debate, I want to begin by examining an assumption of the debate. That is the assumption that developing Mormon culture is a good thing. I can think of a dozen reasons an LDS education, and more specifically an LDS university, is a good thing without involving the issue of developing Mormon culture. Some of these involve the already stated issues of pulling our kids out of overly risky environments (and not just environments where drinking and promiscuity is prevalent as Paul E. pointed out—some professors, both familiar and unfamiliar with our faith, have as a stated goal the undermining of the religious faith of their students). This can best be accomplished at an LDS university, with an LDS dorm/apartment situation providing a reasonable substitute. Some of these involve gathering the youth so they can reap the benefits of being around others their age, including the strengthening of one’s testimony and resolve to serve in the Church over a lifetime, and the increased probability of temple marriage. These benefits can be met by Institute, student wards, or even just a strong YSA program.

There are other benefits to an LDS university of course. It’s been said that the Church should get out of teaching secular subjects like Math and Science [Bob (40)], but in establishing the Brigham Young Academy, Brigham Young said, “Brother Maeser, I want you to remember that you ought not to teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the Spirit of God.” Divinely inspired men (and women) of learning certainly exist at other institutions, and most of them are not members of the Church. But if you could gather teachers and professors possessing the highest academic credentials, and the Spirit of God, the power of their teaching would surpass anything the Ivy Leagues can offer. Likewise, if the students gathered with a commitment to both academic rigor and learning by the Spirit, the students trained at such an institution could potentially revolutionize our understanding in all fields. Now is BYU accomplishing this? That’s a question we could debate for some time. Perhaps Paul E. is right in his assessment that the real purposes of BYU may be best accomplished at a more independent institution like SVU, but as the Church’s flagship institution, I’m still hopeful that BYU will one day rise to its full potential.

Now I think any one of those reasons is a great reason to have an LDS university, and none of this has to do with developing Mormon culture, but developing Mormon culture is a byproduct of all of it, and especially of an LDS university. An LDS university will not only increase the dialogue among the members in a nation or community, but it will also provide LDS academics greater opportunity to research and publish in their respective fields, complimented by a more open LDS perspective. Instead of relying wholly on translated material from Church HQs, or those few unofficial publications that get translated (usually general authority titles), local saints will have more opportunity to develop a robust debate on the Church locally and to publish not just material of a strictly academic nature, but maybe even popular fiction or music.

But why do we care about developing Mormon culture? As has been stated, from a global perspective it may actually hinder us in our efforts if we do have a worldwide uniform culture, because we are less able to adapt to local needs. Instead the Church becomes inextricably associated with the United States, because Mormon culture is largely a subset of American culture. That being said, if we could avoid the issue entirely the Church may be better off. BUT Mormon culture WILL develop. It doesn’t matter if we force it or not, it is a natural progression, especially in our faith experience. So if we’re stuck with our own distinct culture, we’d probably be better off if that culture could adapt locally, which is the role LDS universities overseas could help fill, especially if they are not just an overseas campus of a U.S. university. (Note: I am not trying to be critical of Mormon culture, as I am certainly a product of it to a large extent and I love my culture. I’m just trying to be objective in my assessment of its pros and cons, especially overseas.)

Now some people have wondered who would ever want to go to a Church school, whether or not it was sponsored by the Church. I kind of view this in the same way as I view the religious orders in the Catholic church, the Nazarites in Ancient Israel, or the Ammonites in the Book of Mormon. In each of these cases you have a group of people who are distinguished from the body of the Church by additional vows or covenants not subscribed to by the average member. Please do not read too deeply into this analogy. I realize BYU and SVU students do not actually make additional covenants (though the honor code of both institutions is at times more demanding than a temple recommend—i.e. male facial hair). Nevertheless I think the analogy is a good one because at no point has a member of a religious order ever been justified in thinking themselves “more righteous” than a faithful member of the religious body who has not taken these additional vows. While it is true that some members of these orders (and some BYU students) do consider themselves to be “more righteous,” more often the case is the opposite. Often the members of these orders join because they recognize and fear their own weakness and feel they cannot resist sin without the extra protection of additional vows and covenants. This was almost certainly the case with the Ammonites in giving up their arms.

So the Church maintaining BYU as a flagship institution could be seen as something akin to the Jesuits or Franciscans in the Catholic church. No member should ever feel bad for choosing not to attend BYU, just as no Catholic should ever feel bad about not becoming a Jesuit priest. In fact, the Mormons who attend other schools are the strong ones who could resist the temptations of a secular campus. They are like some of the early leaders, including J. Ruben Clark, Jr., who went East to get the best learning the world had to offer so the Kingdom could be better established. But just because some don’t need the security of gathering with other saints during their college years, or they can get by with something considerably less than an LDS university, such as Institute, doesn’t mean there is no value to an LDS university for others. As Paul E. (52) stated, “LDS-oriented institutions are not for everyone,” but the benefits of their existence for some seem clear, at least to me.

For me, the question of an LDS university is less about culture and education as it is a question of gathering. The Church has always recognized the need for members to “gather to Zion.” In the early days this accompanied a command to gather to one of the approved Zion locations, one of the most notable being Utah for its long term demographic effect on that state. But even as the call to gather to Utah was still in effect other gathering sites in Hawaii and French Polynesia were established to provide the benefit of local gathering (see “Unto Every Nation: Gospel Light Reaches Every Land” by Cannon, Cowan, & others). The call for the gathering for modified around 1890, when the message became one of building Zion in your home nation.

However, even as the Church is built up “at home” we still find the need for gathering. In Japan, some 30 units have been dissolved in the last ten years (see http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/japan-hiroshima-mission-to-be.html), and many of them have been wards. (I personally know the Ibaraki 1st and 2nd wards combined with the Suita Ward and the Settsu Ward to form the current Ibaraki Ward in about 2001. Similar consolidations happened in Nagoya with the Meito 1st and 2nd wards, and in other places across the Tokai and Kansai regions). The consolidations are driven largely by sacrament meeting attendance figures, but the fact is the numbers before consolidation had been stable for nearly ten years prior. The Church recognizes that members are stronger and converts better retained when there are more members actively participating in a unit. The fact is the Church in the Osaka region was spread too thin from the beginning, and since converts didn’t make up the difference due to falling baptism numbers coming off the high in the 80s when a lot of the wards were established, the consolidations took place. By consolidating, the wards are now able to provide more of the programs of the Church, focus on strengthening the testimonies of the members, and developing new leadership. While this is good for the health of the overall Church, even with the level of consolidation that has gone on there are still few wards in Japan that have more than two or three active YSA, and no stake is reasonably close to having the numbers to justify a YSA or a student ward (maybe some near Tokyo could justify a small branch).Given the special needs of our college-age youth, a “gathering” seems all the more important. Hence the need for an LDS university.

Here is one final note about the need for LDS universities overseas. In a place like Brazil where most members stay in their home country for school, there is a coordination issue. If we could convince a large number (say 200 or 300) to attend the same university, then not only would the institute be able to offer a wider variety of classes, such as Pearl of Great Price or Church History, but we could establish a respectable student ward or two. This would provide most (but not all) of the benefits of an LDS university. (I want all the benefits so I still support the full package.) However in some places, like Japan and Western Europe, a very large percentage, if not a majority of the LDS youth go to the United States for school. They don’t all get into the BYU system, so many of them filter into alternative “LDS” universities like UVU, Utah State, and Weber State. Unlike some of their counterparts in the lesser developed world, these members have adequate educational opportunities available to them at home. By and large they are not coming just to get an American education. In fact many LDS Japanese BYU-Hawaii graduates find that an American education isn’t as much as one would hope when they go back to Japan. To compensate BYU-Hawaii has pulled together donors to provide students with a living stipend so they can travel to Japan to do free internships, hoping these internships turn into job offers and increase the prestige of the BYU brand in Japan.

Needless to say, these members are coming to U.S. universities to “gather” with other LDS youth, whether or not it is at an official “LDS” university. The problem isn’t that they come (though if we want to develop a non-U.S. centric culture, this alone could be problematic), but that too many of them fail to go back. This process of “spirit drain” is akin to the “brain drain” suffered by many developing nations. The kids who leave are overwhelmingly the active youth, the children of the bishops and the stake presidents, the return missionaries, in short the future leaders of the Church in many of these countries. With low levels of converts in many of these nations, we can’t afford to lose the second generation to emigration, but in many cases that is exactly what happens. An LDS university in their home country (or perhaps closer to home, such as in England for European saints or Australia for New Zealand saints) might help alleviate this problem. Again, not everyone would want to stay, and not everyone who stays would want to attend an LDS university, but let’s give them the option.

Here’s a final thought. Naturally I would prefer the Church gives its official sanction to an LDS university, even if it didn’t receive a tithing subsidy (which I am fairly confident is less then 70% at BYU, though a lot of it depends on what counts in the totals). I would prefer this because we do believe in revelation and a man being “called of God” in the Church. I like the idea of the president of an LDS university being someone who was placed there by revelation and set-apart for that purpose. No, a university president is not an ecclesiastical position, but one does have stewardship over hundreds or potentially thousands of youth in the Church. With that kind of scale involved, I almost think the position is as important as a bishop or stake president, even though a university president should probably never sit as a judge of worthiness by virtue of that office. That said, I am happy to know that President Smith at SVU does treat his job as a sacred trust. I know he prays over his students, cares for everyone of them, and actively seeks revelation with respect to how he runs the school. If the rest of the administration follows his lead in this respect, God can’t help but play a close role in directing the affairs of that school. Of course, as the number of LDS universities grow, it will become a hard task to know which are led by those sincerely pursuing God’s will for their school and which are LDS in name (or culture) only. While settings-apart are no guarantee of faithfulness, it’d be nice to know that someone at least had the mantle of stewardship placed on them by the proper authority.

But alas, it does not appear this is an expansion the Church is keen on pursuing. The Church was approached with the option to buy an existing university in Japan which it turned down. They commissioned a woman on BYU’s faculty to look into the feasibility of constructing a university somewhere in Latin America, but canceled the study after the preliminary figures came in. I’ve been told that Senador Jeffrey Jones approached President Hinckley about the possibility of building a university in Mexico (possibly close to the border, so U.S. professors could teach there but live in the United States, commuting) and that Deputado Moroni Torgan approached the brethren with a similar request for Brazil. Neither petition was met with success.

Is it possible that the Church will about face on this one and start building? Of course, anything is possible. But cost does seem to be the overriding factor. BYU-Idaho now requires all of its students to take at least one online course and they are running on different tracks so they can fit a third more students than would have otherwise been possible. BYU-Hawaii is trying out a pilot program to see if they can get their students to complete all of their first year (mostly GE/prerequisite) courses at institute outreach centers with couple missionaries serving as tutors in their home countries. If successful, BYU-Hawaii will eliminate the freshmen class entirely from its campus, cutting costs, and allowing more students to attend (at least for 3 years). With these innovations, the Church is trying to reach out to more students at a minimum cost, but plans for another campus seem far away. (I wonder what the Church would do if someone donated the campus?)

If I were starting school today, I confess some of these “innovations” might frustrate me. I think there is something special about being a “freshman” and living in the dorms for the first year. Partaking in the excitement as guys you’ve grown closer to than even your best friends from back home, all in a short month or two, begin to receive their mission calls. It gets you excited to turn in your own papers. Tunnel-singing every Sunday night or getting in trouble with the honor code office for dying your hair blue are the traditions and memories that keep students loyal to a school. A university was never just about the learning that you get from lectures and books. It’s about the learning you get from moving away from home, the learning that only occurs when one freely interacts with peers. (Kent Larson [44] mentioned another thread where he discussed the merits of BYU as compared to the Ivy League schools. On academicearth.org you can listen to lectures from some of the best universities in the country for free. Turns out the lecturers at the Ivy Leagues aren’t that much better than BYU professors, though most are better published. With some exceptions, the real difference in value added from faculty at most Ivy Leagues doesn’t kick in until you get to the graduate level. At the undergraduate level, the most value from an Ivy League education actually comes from the networking opportunities and peer discussions. In fact, in tacit acknowledgment of this fact, Yale requires students in most large classes to spend about a third of class time in small group discussions in which the professor is absent, but discussion is led by a TA. BYU experiments with this as well. In response to that other thread, I say we should keep academically qualified students at BYU if possible, because the peer learning is where so much of the value is.) Online learning and independent study may be the future of getting the right credentials, but if that’s the Church’s solution to the demand, they’re missing the value of an LDS education. With that in mind I hope SVU continues to enjoy success, and that others will follow their lead and bring the blessings of an LDS university to ever more locations around the world, whether that be Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Germany, or South Africa.

I hope you don’t mind, Paul, if I “out” you a little, in case it isn’t clear to readers here — Paul is an SVU employee (and someone I knew a little when we were both at BYU many years ago). He has much more expertise on these questions than I.

I must say, however, than I hope SVU isn’t an anomaly. If the Church is really not going to create additional campuses of BYU or institutions of higher learning, I think we will need more “anomalies” like SVU.

Regarding the need: Of course LDS-oriented institutions are not for everyone. Nonetheless, the dominant documented patterns of undergraduate student life throughout the country are not just indifferent to but clearly antithetical to gospel standards (see e.g., the work of Kathleen Bogle regarding sexual behavior on college campuses; or Barrett Seaman’s work on binge drinking). Even the most valiant youth are at high risk in these environments.

Regarding financing: Some college industry-standard rules of thumb for viability of domestic small colleges: $100 million endowment, 1250+ students, with less than 35% discount rate on the average $26,273 private college tuition. Someone mentioned Ave Maria as a model. Look at its most recent publicly available tax documents: over $42 million in expenses annually, but probably less than 15% of that is covered by the $17,500 tuition charged to its less than 600 students. An Ave Maria model would require something like $30-35 million annually from fundraising, endowment earnings, and auxiliary revenue. Not promising.

Regarding the Southern Virginia anomaly: Anomalous indeed. With no endowment to speak of, a sticker price of two-thirds the average private college, with financial aid for nearly every student, with top-financial stability scores from the U.S. Dept. of education, with the majority of operational costs covered by tuition, room & board, look at the results on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). Go to: http://www.svu.edu/about/assessment.aspx SVU seniors as a group are testing in the 93rd percentile nationally for their ability to analyze, critique, and solve complex real-world issues. Graduates are going on to top programs in medicine (e.g., University of Washington), business (e.g., Cornell) and law (e.g., Wake Forest). Not bad.

Regarding an international model: we should all take heart in the stellar model provided by Ashesi University in Ghana. This is not an LDS model, but it is a model of strategic, targeted and effective philanthropy. Go to: http://www.ashesi.edu.gh/

Regarding higher education and culture: cultures require cultural organs and universities are clearly vital organs for the intergenerational transfer of not just information but the tacit knowledge of a culture (see e.g., Michael Polanyi). Interesting to note, however, that it was the chartered (read here “independent”) universities of Europe (Bologna, Paris, Oxford) that became most effective in this enterprise. These institutions were heavily influenced by the crown and the church, but their charters made them institutionally and organizationally distinct from church and crown institutions of learning. A neo-institutionalist read of the past would suggest that in the realm of culture and learning, institutions of the crown and the church have always paled in comparison to what is provided independently (see e.g., writings of Tyler Cowen, Jack Goldstone, Douglass North, E.G. West). Will a Mormon culture rich-enough in letters, arts, and science to stand up to popular culture thrive if all the LDS colleges and universities are owned and operated by the Church? or if all our children opt for state-supported colleges and universities?

Kudos to those who embrace the requirement to be anxiously engaged in good causes (like LDS higher education) of their own free will to bring to pass much righteousness. There is much work to do.

Believe me, its not enough coming from Brazil to have any measurable effect on institutes of religion in Brazil.

I think you are arguing against something that doesn’t happen.

Um, I think that it already has. Outside of the U.S. they don’t really have any other option. They go to college and attend institute just like you suggested.

Your idea really only is relevant in the U.S.

The idea of creating an LDS college (Church owned or independent) would lead to a new option for them.

Will there ever be an LDS Ave Maria? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria_University (as in, new LDS university started with large $$$)

Well, as I pointed out above, Desert Valley says it is trying to raise $75 million — a bit less than 1/3rd of what Ave Maria is trying to raise ($250 million).

Even DVA’s $75 million is a tall order. $250 million? Maybe, but???