BYU : The Ensign :: Southern Virginia University : ________ ?
by Shelah Miner
If you came into my house and started rifling through the closets and drawers, you’d quickly discern our family’s academic allegiance– we’re Cougars through and through. I was an English major in the early and mid-nineties, when there wasn’t much job security for BYU English professors. But I’m not embarrassed to say that I had a great experience at BYU. I left feeling like I had received a great education in my major and in Mormon doctrines and culture.
A year after graduation, I started school again, at a much smaller university in the midwest. I’d been used to classes ranging anywhere from 30 to 900 students, so the seminar classes with four or five shocked me (“are they going to cancel this section?,” I wondered every time I started a new semester). For the first time I understood that while BYU had been a great place for me, it might not be the perfect fit for every student.
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It was lunchtime, and I was jonesing for a slice of pizza, a diet coke, and something good to read. I started digging through the magazine basket, and when I saw the Ensign, felt a familiar stab of guilt, ripped off the shrinkwrap, and carried it back to the kitchen. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it was the first time I’d seriously delved into anything but the conference issue of the Ensign in a long while. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but the articles felt stale– boring, preachy, or sensationally faith-promoting.
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This afternoon I came across two interesting tidbits about college options for LDS students. The first, from US News, listed BYU as the second most popular college in the nation, with popularity determined by the number of accepted students who actually enroll as freshmen (77% at BYU, trailing only Harvard, with 79%). The second was the website for Nauvoo University, a Mormon-friendly private educational institution that hopes to enroll its first class this fall, with eventual plans to become an accredited four-year university. More than a decade after a new board of directors reorganized Southern Virginia University as a school catering to LDS students (maybe some of those who decided the BYU environment wasn’t right for them), it appears to be thriving.
Do you see the independent Mormon publications as the SVUs and Nauvoo Universities of the publishing world? In what ways do you see similarities and where do they differ?
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February 16th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Interesting post. From my limited understanding, I think the SVU culture has a reputation for being perhaps more conservative than even BYU. In that vein, the comparison to the independent Mormon publications doesn’t work.
On the other hand, I think that the comparison is apt in the sense that some who attend “non-BYUs” may do so out of a feeling of not wanting to follow the crowd.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I like your angle. Having spent time at SVU (not as a student)(which is not more conservative than BYU), It is charmingly quaint, nothing like rocking on that front porch looking out at giant trees and mountains! I appreciate its culture the same foundation but different setting. I do see these independent pubs as creating new niches- just as svu does in a similar way- same foundation- different environment, different beauties, different strengths
February 26th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Shelah,
I poked through the web sites for both schools you mentioned and noticed something interesting. Neither of them have any sort of religion program.
Colleges have the express goal of training people in some subject area or preparing them for jobs. So their focus is not on religion (unless they are preparing people for the ministry). The only Mormon schools that have classes in religion are the ones officially run by the Church. I’m pretty sure I know why this is. If one of these independent colleges offered religion classes, people would want to know if the religion teachers have official Church approval. BYU and CES teachers are approved by someone in the Church hierarchy. But I doubt the Church would be willing to approve religion teachers for other colleges simply for logistic reasons.
For this reason, I think independent Mormon colleges will stay out of the teaching of religion. Most Mormons are far too worried about drinking from sullied spiritual springs to risk taking a non-Church-approve religion course.
I think this is the reason independent Mormon publications sometimes have difficulty convincing people that we’re OK. Because we do talk about religion a lot, but we’re not officially approved. I meet people sometimes who wonder why I waste my time turning out non-authoritative writing about Mormonism.
I explain that the purpose of independent Mormon publications is not to “preach the gospel,” since we already have a church doing the job just fine. Our purpose is to enrich the culture of Mormonism.
Mormonism endows its members with a unique worldview that can be the springboard for all kinds of new and fascinating art, literature, and thought. Think about some of the more interesting artists, authors and philosophers world religions have produced: Michelangelo, Hieronymus Bosch, Chagall, Potok, O’Connor, Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard, von Bingen. None of these people could have created their art without the a cultural support group that nourished their budding talent.
Right now, I think the only official Church publication that publishes fiction is The Friend. The Ensign and The New Era focus pretty exclusively on doctrine and correct living. So there is all kinds of room in our 10 million member church for publications that support creative Mormon endeavors. I’m pretty sure that’s the goal of each publication on this blog. It’s certainly Sunstone’s.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
You know, I could be wrong here Stephen, but I’m 98% sure that all the stories in the Friend must be “based on a true story.” They all seem to make that disclaimer. So no fiction there either!
Oh, and I agree with you.
February 26th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Stephen– I think you put ten times more time and thought into your response than I did into the original post. Thank you! I love what you say about “enriching the culture of Mormonism.” I think part of what we also do is show that that culture is not monolithic.
Angela– my daughter picked a story from the Friend to read at Family Home Evening this week. The family seemed so cookie-cutter conservative– five little kids, family members weren’t allowed to use the computer on Sunday, Mom already dressed in a church dress at 9am even though church wouldn’t start for four more hours. I was so glad to see “based on a true story” on that page, because it’s fine with me if one person’s story reflects that upbringing and experience, but I’d be more uncomfortable with a fictional story involving those same elements because I’d worry that there was an underlying message that we needed to conform to them in some way.
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