Chapter 4
Education for Reality
Stephen L. Brower, 1971-74
I see nothing obscure here and [CCH] will continue to be known and
its influence spread … across the Pacific and into the East and all over the
world—unique in every way but with great underlying principles and [a]
foundation which has been revealed to the prophets in these latter days.
Elder Howard W. Hunter
As a reporter, editorial writer, and editor for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the
newspaper with the largest circulation in Hawaii, A. A. (“Bud”) Smyser had reported or
commented on most of the major news events in Hawaii since 1946. He was used to
ceremonial public occasions. But the inauguration of Stephen L. Brower as the fourth
president of The Church College of Hawaii, February 11, 1972, had him sitting up a little
straighter and scribbling notes a little faster.
The inauguration audiotape brings into sharp focus what archivist Evalyn M.
Sandberg described as “the historic high water mark of emotion at CCH in the most
public forum possible.”1 The audience of 1,500 attending the formal event included
students, faculty, and staff. Dignitaries in attendance included N. Eldon Tanner of the
First Presidency, Apostles Howard W. Hunter and Marvin J. Ashton, Neal A. Maxwell,
Evalyn M. Sandberg, “Man With a Mission: Stephen L. Brower, Fourth President of CCH (2971-74),” in
“Following the Vision: Addresses and Statements of the Presidents of CCH-BYUH, 1955-2000,” compiled
by Greg Gubler, typescript compilation, sec. 2, p. 46, Joseph F. Smith Archives, Brigham Young
University Hawaii, Laie, Hawaii.
1
1
Church Commissioner of Education, and Kenneth Beesley, Associate Commissioner of
Education. Civic leaders in attendance included U. S. Senator Hiram Fong, Lieutenant
Governor of Hawaii, George Ariyoshi, and Richard G. Sharpless, the managing director
of the City and County of Honolulu.
Laurel Porter, representing CCH faculty in delivering a four-minute address,
described his fellow faculty as men and women who might have achieved eminence in
academe except that they had chosen sacrificial service at this “remote, underrated, and
little recognized college.” As a result of that choice, faculty served “without the
recognition of the world, without adequate thanks, and are often regarded with contempt
by those whom we serve.” Then he addressed the new president directly:
Now, into our lives, you have come as president of the Church College of
Hawaii with a new style of leadership seemingly pointing us in a new direction.
To us, this seems untimely and out of sequence. You have asked us to establish
goals and objectives that we thought were long ago established; you have asked
us to make decisions which we feel are not ours to make. You have asked us to
involve ourselves in the lives of students outside of the classrooms; you have
asked us to submit to a priesthood form of administration; you have asked us to
come back to the crossroads and follow a path different from the one we have
chosen, one which we have already traveled for some distance. To us, the new
path seems beset by many dangers, the danger of diminishment of importance or
the elimination of particular academic disciplines; the danger of unemployment
and/or relocation; the danger of more work, with little or no extra compensation.
2
We see the obscuring of rules and guidelines. You have asked us and will
ask us again to give up concessions that have been hard won, many of which we
hold sacred. In short, you have asked a tired faculty to pick up a heavier load and
carry it even further. Some have resisted and others will resist again. We are
learning that the birth process of meaningful change is long and painful. For
some the pain will be too great. They will leave The Church College of Hawaii to
seek the shelter and safe harbor of more conventional educational institutions
where the burden is not so heavy, where the rules and guidelines are more clearly
defined, and where the monetary rewards are greater.”2
It was a statement of remarkable candor, even bluntness. Elder Howard W.
Hunter’s response to Porter’s words were equally direct. Deviating from his prepared
remarks, he turned from the podium, pointed his finger at Porter, and said, “I could not
dissent more from the statement that has been made here today that this is an obscure
college…. I see nothing obscure here and it will continue to be known and its influence
spread as it spreads across the Pacific and into the East and all over the world—unique in
every way but with great underlying principles and [a] foundation which has been
revealed to the prophets in these latter days.”3
2
Laurel Porter, text of Address to the Faculty, in Following the Vision: Addresses and Statements of the
Presidents of CCH/BYUH, 1955-2000, edited by Greg Gubler, 2:52-53, unpublished bound typescript,
Joseph F. Smith Archives, Brigham Young University Hawaii, Laie, Hawaii.
3
Howard W. Hunter, comments made at the inauguration of Stephen L. Brower, February 11, 1972, Ibid.,
2:53. Interviewed in 1981, Howard W. Hunter again misquoted Laurel Porter, recalling that he had said
CCH was not a “great” school: “Now, I don’t think he meant it the way he said it,” commented Hunter. “I
think he was speaking in academic language about great universities. I think he meant that The Church
College wasn’t a great university or a great college in that respect….I said I could not disagree more. And
I shouldn’t have said that. And the thing that embarrassed me was what I said, not what anybody else said.
For a long time I was going to go back over to the school and find him and apologize to him.” Howard W.
3
Smyser did not miss the implications of this apostolic rebuke. Since Brower’s
arrival in Laie in August 1971, the news media had been interested in the new president’s
publicly announced goals to make changes in the school while maintaining its distinctive
LDS characteristics, a change of direction that was difficult for some members of the
college community to accept, especially while they were still adjusting to the departure of
the easy-going and popular Owen Cook.4 I was sitting with Smyser at the inauguration,
and he told me that he was impressed that officials were so open and confident at the
ceremony that they did not fear airing sensitive policy and personal issues before other
administrators and the public.5
If the board of Trustees felt that a strong president was needed to make changes at
Laie, they had chosen a confident and vigorous man to carry out their wishes. Brower’s
background was not that of a conventional academician. He had served as a county
agent, then as an international consultant in South America. From that position, he had
been called for a three-year term (1968-71) as president of the Venezuela Mission. At its
conclusion, he and his wife, Vivian, flew back to Salt Lake City where they would report
their mission, as was then customary. They arrived exhausted from a fifteen-hour plane
delay and were interviewed by Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, who was then supervising the
missions in both South America and Asia. Hinckley told Brower that the Brethren had a
new assignment for him, told him what it was, and gave him his first instruction: “When
Hunter, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, August 12, 1981, OH-166, 16. Even though this apology is
based on a double misrepresentation of Porter’s words, it deserves to be on the record.
4
For example see Janos Gereben, “New Educator at Laie: His Plea, Talk Things Over,” Honolulu StarBulletin, August 5, 1971.
5
A. A. Smyser, comments to Alf Pratte, CCH, February 11, 1972, Laie, Hawaii. His story reflected this
element of controversy. A. A. Smyser, “New Goals at Church College Challenged at Inauguration,”
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 12, 1972. In contrast, the other major Honolulu newspaper published a
bland report that focused primarily on Brower’s educational goals and did not mention the exchange among
Hunter, Porter, and Brower. Jane Evenger, “Church College President Sworn In,” Honolulu Advertiser,
February 12, 1972.
4
you find out why CCH is located in Laie, please come and tell me.”6 Brower interpreted
this instruction as openness to recommendation for sweeping changes. And he was used
to being part of new programs that lacked precedents and guidelines.
He arrived at Laie with concerns about what he called inflexible administrative
structures, tradition-bound curricula, teaching methods designed to inflate the ego of the
instructor, scholastic stagnation, and the tendency of universities to become the greatest
consumers of their own products.
He listed these concerns in his inaugural speech. To demonstrate that his
proposed reforms were not confined to CCH, he quoted from a U. S. News and World
Report article that reported on needs in the employment market. Placement officers
asked questions like the following: “What do you do with a history major who, at the end
of his college term, tells you he doesn’t know what he wants to do?” This is part of what
we are talking about when we say “education for reality,” Brower said.
In America we revolve around jobs. When you’re out of a job, you’re in
tough shape. It seems to me we’ve been educating just for the sake of educating,
rather than for reality. This is from a national magazine. We’ve got to educate
for what it’s all about at the end of the line….I do not feel bound by traditional
academic thought or the secular models that are generally used in the world today.
I feel that the mission of this school cannot be accomplished by the traditional
models.7
6
7
Stephen Brower, letter to Alf Pratte, July 22, 2004.
Stephen Brower, “Response to Inaugural Charge,” in Following the Vision, 2:55, 57.
5
When Brower took over in 1971, 58 percent of CCH’s students were from Hawaii
while the other 42 percent came from the mainland and thirty-four foreign countries.
About 20 percent of the student body was non-Mormon. Like Cook, Brower found a
small but distressing fraction of both non-Mormons and LDS students had failed to make
a full commitment to the values of CCH.
The CES Context and Brower’s Assignment
Maxwell’s biographer, Bruce Hafen, outlined some of the Church Educational
System’s problems during the 1970s:
In an important sense,… the far-flung educational system of the Church by
1970 clearly reflected the educational philosophy of David O. McKay—a
philosophy long shared, though with variations in emphasis, by his predecessors
and colleagues in Church leadership. Yet the rising demand for education among
young Latter-day Saints was on a collision course with the internationalism and
growth of the Church….The Church simply could not continue to fund colleges
and schools to match expected growth. What had been possible for a small
church in Western America was not economically or logistically feasible for a
large, international church. Further, in the eyes of some observers, the Church’s
deep commitment to the value of education in an increasingly secularized society
ran some serious risks.8
Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple’s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book,
2003), 332.
8
6
Maxwell referred to such risks in a 1981 interview when he recalled that some
LDS schools had to be closed down—for example, the Church academies founded in the
late nineteenth century throughout Utah and Idaho: “We had them when we needed them,
[then] we closed them. They’d served their purpose.” Conflicts over the costs of
education were, in Maxwell’s opinion, an area where there could be “some very honest
differences of opinion that will reflect your own experience.”9
Although both of President McKay’s immediate successors strongly believed in
education, their support was more cautious and more critical. Joseph Fielding Smith
(January 23, 1970-July 2, 1972) and Harold B. Lee (July 7, 1972-December 26, 1973)
expressed concerns over reports that The Church College of Hawaii was not meeting its
goals, concerns that Maxwell passed on to the new president. Lee, who implemented the
LDS Church Welfare and Priesthood Correlation programs, was also anxious about the
cost-benefit percentages of the Church Educational System. It was Lee who, in 1968,
checked BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson’s proposal to build a system of junior
colleges feeding into BYU. In blunt budget language, Lee concluded that the $20 million
per campus required for the initial outlay plus on-going, expensive operations simply
meant: “We cannot afford it.”10
Another of Lee’s concerns was that students were not returning to their
homelands in adequate numbers. Even though many bishops and stake presidents in
Tonga and Samoa were CCH graduates, the percentage wasn’t high enough. President
Lee phrased his concern this way: “We’re investing in all those young people in all those
9
Neal A. Maxwell, interviewed by Kenneth W. Baldridge, 11 August 1981, OH-165, 10. Unless
otherwise noted, all oral histories from this collection are hereafter cited by abbreviation and number, e.g.,
OH-106, and are housed in the Joseph F. Smith Library Archives, Brigham Young University Hawaii, Laie
(hereafter BYUH Archives).
10
Lee quoted by Kenneth Beesley, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, July 9, 1981, OH-162, 6.
7
areas. This investment is to prepare them to be leaders back home. They’re coming to
CCH and then they’re going down to Waikiki and driving taxis, not being active in the
Church, and not completing their education.”11 Maxwell commented that Church leaders
did not want CCH to become a “way station” for Pacific Islanders who wanted to migrate
to the mainland and strongly urged a vocational approach that would prepare students for
the employment market in their home nations.12 “The kids were coming up from the
islands, from a non-money economy,” explained Brower, “getting a taste of money, and
it was hard to get him back, so there was a drain of potential leadership out of the South
Pacific financed by tithing funds. President Lee talked about employable skills. Some
interpreted that to mean making CCH a vocational training center. That could only
traumatize the liberal arts faculty, and Cook was not one to do that,”13 Brower, however,
was; and he was prepared for the waves to be a bit rough as he steered CCH in a new
direction.
Alton L. Wade, who would serve as the school’s seventh president, was
administering Church schools in the Pacific region and working on his doctorate
simultaneously.14 He identified returnability as a problem so significant that, based on
his findings, there was briefly a policy that no Polynesian could be admitted to CCH if
there were other educational alternatives available. This policy could have closed the
11
Lee quoted by Stephen L. Brower, interviewed by R. Lanier Britsch, June 23, 1976, 4-5, James Moyle
Oral History Program, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.
Photocopy in BYUH Archives.
12
Maxwell, OH-165, 5.
13
Stephen L. Brower, Oral History, interview by R. Lanier Britsch, 1976, typescript, 5, James Moyle Oral
History Program, Archives, Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-say Saints, Salt
Lake City.
14
Alton L. Wade, “The Church College of New Zealand, Past, Present, Future: An Analysis/ Study
conducted by Alton L. Wade and Barney Wihongi, Temple View: New Zealand, Church College of New
Zealand,” 1974.
8
Polynesian Cultural Center, because there wouldn’t be enough Polynesians coming to
staff it by working their way through school, Wade said.
As a consequence, a cart-before-the-horse situation developed in which the
Polynesian Cultural Center felt a need to do independent recruiting of entertainers and
workers, whether they were students or not; but President Lee made it clear that the
Center would not stay open if its original intent was not maintained and if it did not
provide work opportunities for students.15
Some faculty argued that requiring students to return to their homelands
conflicted with the cherished belief in life-long education. Others also pointed out the
inconsistency of not requiring Canadians, Europeans, and Americans from small rural
communities to likewise “return.” As a further complication, some parents and Church
leaders in developing countries advised their children to stay in the United States and
help their homelands by sending back a portion of their ample paychecks.
Rumors surfaces throughout the 1950s and 1960s that Church leaders were
considering the possibility of selling CCH; and they resurfaced every time there was
dissatisfaction with the school’s performance. Brower, a loyal soldier, was willing to
facilitate the school’s closure if it was really necessary; but he felt that a change of
direction would ensure the school’s survival and help it fulfill its mission even more
effectively.
According to Ken Beesley, Associate Commissioner of Education, Elder Maxwell
never saw shutting down the school as a serious proposal.16 Maxwell, reflecting on this
period almost two decades later, confirmed to Ken Baldridge: “It seemed to me we had
15
16
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 18.
Beesley, OH-162, 20.
9
President McKay’s prophetic vision; we had facilities in place; we had good dedicated
faculty, and we needed to address these other problems.”17 Given the school’s prophetic
destiny, its leaders needed to keep “search[ing] for a role that would make that happen.”
He conceded that the cost per student was “enormously high”—President Lee’s main
concern—but he saw “redefinition,” as “what was needed.”18
Brower’s Management Style
Barbara Elkington, a member of the English faculty, contrasted Cook’s pleasant
and personable management style as one end of the pendulum swing with Brower’s
decisive, even aggressive, style on the other end. He felt that waiting for consensus to
develop might result in costly delays when he felt he had received a mandate to “clean up
a mess.” His loyal willingness to take unpopular action took a tremendous toll,
commented Elkington, not only on the faculty and students but on Brower and his family.
“It must have been a personally excruciating time for him….His tires were slashed on his
car; his wife had a heart attack and was in the hospital. I’m sure he felt that the stress of
his situation is what did it to her, and it may well have.”19
Unlike Wootton and Cook, Brower did not see much advantage in participatory
management. “As far as dealing with a bunch of academicians, I don’t think he’d had
that much experience. And he was very conservative,” observed Elkington. “So you put
all that together, along with the problems that were just part of the times, and he had a
real can of worms to try and deal with. He dealt with it the way he thought he should,
which was to get rid of faculty members that he felt were causing problems and to
17
18
19
Maxwell, OH-165, 14.
Ibid., 9.
Barbara Elkington, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, February 7, 1989, OH-323, 17-18.
10
encourage other faculty members, generally, to clean up their act and pull up their socks
and, “Let’s get back to the basics here and be a little more sound, doctrinally.”20 It was a
stressful and even painful time all around, even though good eventually resulted.
Two students wrote accounts of Brower’s presidency for an undergraduate history
course, and both gave some attention to his administrative style. One concluded that
Brower’s “mission style mentality” contributed to the campus unrest, while the second
characterized Brower as “Captain Bligh” in his style of leadership.”21 Carlos E. Asay, a
future General Authority but also a BYU administrator and former mission president
himself, also appraised Brower as having the strengths and weakness of the “mission
presidency mentality”: “A mission president … has full control and he’s used to calling
the shots. He’s used to … people jumping and obeying and following….That could have
had a big bearing on Brower’s administrative style.”22
Feeling that he was carrying out his supervisors’ instructions, Brower moved
ahead boldly. He had four “pinnacles of excellence” as his goals for the students: (1)
experiences in righteous living, (2) education for reality, (3) experience in international
acculturation, and (4) stewardship accountability. In 2004, he described his change
methodology in terms of organization behavior specialist Edgar Schein’s three phases of
change: (1) “Unfreezing” which generated motivation to change; (2) “Changing” the
institution, and (3) “Refreezing” or re-stabilizing the institution.23 He began with the
curriculum.
20
Ibid.
Debbie Barker, “Mandate for Change—or Mission President Mentality,” 1998; and Mark Heath,
“Discovering the Vision: Captaining the Project in the Pacific from 1960-1980,” 22; both in BYUH
Archives.
22
Carlos E. Asay, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, October 12, 1998, OH-298, 16.
23
Brower, interviewed by Alf Pratte, July 15, 2003.
21
11
The Curriculum
In a 1981 interview, Ken Beesley recalled that “changing curriculum is like
changing a cemetery. There’s a lot of resistance for that. Even when things should be
buried, [people] don’t want them changed.”24 Brower challenged the relevance of
traditional liberal art courses such as history, psychology, and his own field of sociology.
While reducing this conventional core, he innovated four new programs: (1) a travel
industry management program, (2) modernized agricultural training and entrepreneurship
or business training, (3) a parent-child training program, (4) a social work training
program. He also gave new emphasis to the already-existing TESL program.25 Other
innovations included a reduction in the number of degrees offered, more cross
disciplinary degrees, shorter times for completing academic degrees, and increased
educational opportunities in cooperation with the Polynesian Cultural Center.
At spring 1972 graduation, valedictorian Roger Tansley from New Zealand
expressed a troubling political possibility that might result from this toward vocational
education:
I fear for the quality of future degrees from this college, however, because
of administrative policy changes during the last year, giving the curriculum a
strong vocational orientation rather than a traditionally academic one. Under the
slogan “Education for Reality,” programs are being formulated which supposedly
train South Pacific students (and local Hawaiians) in a useful skill to fit them for
service in their homelands. The administration believed that social and economic
24
Beesley, OH-162, 20.
Brower, OH-107, 22. Plans to expand a vocational agriculture program (his second goal) did not
materialize.
25
12
“reality” in the South Pacific countries will require more applied and less
academic training. It must be remembered that the South Pacific consists of many
countries, many newly and proudly independent, and rightly so. Church College
must be careful not to convey the paternalistic image which is still remembered
from colonial days. 26
Tansley was no under-graduate barely out of his teens. A former bishop, he had
come to CCH bringing his wife and four children. He conceded that vocational training
was important but pointed out that South Pacific students seeking “to obtain vocational
training of the style envisioned here,” especially in the fields of social services or public
administration, would be better served by schools in New Zealand or Australia, “or for
that matter, New Guinea,” since “a great degree of correlation still exists between
Australia and New Zealand, and the islands.”27
Despite these very real concerns, three of Brower’s curriculum innovations made
solid contributions to the college: the program in travel industry management, social
services programs, and business management, including training in secretarial and
clerical skills. All three of them were still part of the curriculum in 2005.
The Students
Brower’s style in dealing with the students was a marked change from Owen
Cook’s easy friendliness. Almost certainly some of this relationship style was a
continuation of his mission president’s style—the expectation that his subordinates would
obey without argument and that they would be subordinates, not colleagues.
Roger Tansley, 1971-72 valedictory address, quoted by Kenneth Baldridge, “Church college of
Hawaii—BYU-Hawaii, 1955-86: A Historian’s Perspective,” chap. 4.
27
Ibid., 18.
26
13
The major nonacademic changes involving students were the elimination of
ethnic-group athletics; the elimination of rock concerts that did not meet LDS standards,
a change in student government so that officers were appointed by the stake presidents
rather than being elected, and new attention to LDS dress, grooming, and living
standards.
Although records are skimpy before Brower’s tenure, he told historian Lanier
Britsch in 1976 about what he called a tradition of fighting between team members and
spectators. “It was recreation for many Samoan and Tongan kids, who just loved to be
physical,” Brower said. Probably with some exaggeration, he claimed, “Every time you
had soccer or a rugby match or any other kind of athletic activity between any of those
ethnic groups, it turned into just a knock-down, drag-out thing.” His solution was to
“eliminate ethnic sport competition as one of the signals that there were going to be some
changes.” Instead, “competitive sports would be made up of cross-cultural teams.”28
Brower also prohibited entertainments whose performers did not adhere to LDS
Church standards. BYU had had the same policy since Ernest L. Wilkinson’s tenure.
One crisis occurred in November 1971 when popular and well-loved Waikiki entertainer
Don Ho brought an entertainment troupe to CCH whose costumes did not meet CCH
standards, despite prior assurances by Ho’s stage manager.
A second incident, the details of which are somewhat vague, occurred when the
student body president signed the popular rock band, Good Thunder, for a concert,
despite instructions to the contrary. About an hour before the concert began, campus
security received a phone call from the Honolulu Police saying they could not guarantee
protection on the campus if Good Thunder was allowed to perform. It is not clear what
28
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 10.
14
the Honolulu Police saw as they were playing, but Brower met the band as they arrived,
informed them that they would not be performing at CCH, and gave them tickets to the
PCC evening show.29
According to Brower, the student body president asserted that, although he was
not a drug user, other students had the right to use drugs if they chose. Brower quickly
corrected him: “They have the right to do what the Lord says, and what the prophet says,
and that is as far as it goes.”30 He eliminated student elections and instead had stake
presidents “call” student body officers. It was not a completely new idea. The idea had
already received some discussion between Marion D. Hanks of the First Council of the
Seventy, and Daniel H. Ludlow, director of instructional materials for the LDS Church.31
With some cautions about maintaining accreditation standards, President N. Eldon
Tanner of the First Presidency approved the new concept.32
Brower praised the first student body president, Whaanga Kewene, who was
already serving in a campus bishopric. Having priesthood-appointed student officers
greatly enhanced LDS-oriented standards in dance, drama, and athletics. Kewene’s
successors “also did a very good job,” and the system was so successful that it continued
until 1974 when CCH (now BYUH) established a closer administrative relationship with
BYU-Provo.33 Brower acknowledged in a 1986 interview that, in a different era, it might
not work and that he wouldn’t recommend it on a continuing basis. But it served an
29
[Reference?]
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 11.
31
Daniel H. Ludlow, memo to Marion D. Hanks on The Student Association of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, November 2, 1971, Stephen L. Brower Papers, Box 50, fd. 1, BYUH Archives.
32
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 16.
33
Ibid. The other priesthood-appointed student body officers were Randal Booth (1974-75), Ken Coffey
and Dudley Kekaula (1975-76).
30
15
important purpose for Brower and CCH at a critical moment—successfully refocusing
the students on maintaining an LDS environment.34
When one student complained that Brower was moving too fast, Brower, using a
surgical metaphor, retorted, “Would you prefer to have your appendix taken out by
degrees or all at once?”35 He saw swift and decisive action as necessary to bring a more
spiritual atmosphere to campus by eliminating “looseness” in dealing with fighting, dress
and grooming, sexual immorality, drug use, and the like. “[In] confronting people who
have done something serious that could destroy their lives, you have to be incisive,” he
summarized. “If you don’t confront them and give them a chance to turn around, you
have done a disservice to them.”36 He reported that, in the first three months he was on
campus, eighteen students were excommunicated, most for sexual immorality. Before he
came, he claimed, bishops tended to scold the students but not to take serious priesthood
action.37
Under Brower, enrollment declined from its all-time peak of 1,400 to about 900.
Both Maxwell and the board of Trustees had approved such a decline, stressing their
desire for fewer than 5 percent nonmembers and fewer mainland Caucasians.38 On May
15, 1972, the campus paper printed an announcement of the new admission policies,
effective two weeks later on June 1. “Returning students” who had not been
continuously enrolled and new students from the mainland would “be required to have a
3.00 GPA” and sign “a statement committing themselves to live and/or serve in the
34
Ibid., 17.
Brower, OH-107, 16.
36
Ibid.
37
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 11.
38
Brower, OH-107, 8-9.
35
16
Pacific Basin (including Hawaii) and the Asian Rim countries. [They] … will also be
required to make a return fare deposit.”39
The Faculty
Obviously Brower’s sweeping curriculum changes directly affected the faculty;
and as part of his “unfreezing” policy, he announced that he was putting all of the
departments on hold. He saw departments as cliques that interfered with good
communications and interdisciplinary efforts. “The historians talked to the historians and
they held each other’s hands and resisted interdisciplinary communication,” he recalled in
1976.40 By the end of his first year, he had reorganized the college’s twenty-nine
academic departments into five major divisions.
He dealt with frustrated faculty by encouraging several to retire or find other
employment opportunities. Among those who no longer had a place on Brower’s
administrative team were Ralph Olson, the college’s popular Dean of Students, and
Academic Dean Nephi Georgi.
A new member of the team was Curtis N. Van Alfen, of BYU’s College of
Education, whom Neal A. Maxwell specifically appointed to work closely with Brower
and the faculty and report back to the commissioner’s office about the timetable and
status of reforms being carried out at Laie. Van Alfen, arriving as a fairly objective
outsider, saw the faculty and administration as all “good” people but snarled in an
extremely contentious situation:
39
40
(No byline), “New College Admissions Policy Goes into Effect June 1,” Ke Alaka`i, May 15, 1972, 1.
Brower, interviewed by Britsch, 13.
17
Priesthood brother against priesthood brother, contention in the High
Council, stake president involved in a degree of this, community involved, a
commissioner’s contact [himself] that wasn’t understood, and contention. Yes, I
felt very strongly that, “My goodness, what do we have here? You know, I
remember the incidents of abuse that Steve went through from students with
firecrackers, sugar in his gas-tank, slashed tires and those kinds of things. He was
just here to serve and do the best he could. And then came the comments from
the faculty, they were harsh. Very harsh. And I guess I anguished inside, and still
do as I’ve thought about it, or reflected about Steve’s experience here.
Ultimately, his wife [Vivian] had a heart attack and had open heart surgery. And
of course, we became very close to Steve and the feelings that were in their lives.
And I just really found it to be an anguishing circumstance. Yes, a ship that was
sinking physically, but more than that, it was sinking spiritually in my judgment.
I thought, “My goodness, how can priesthood brother [be] against priesthood
brother?”41
Some measure of the trauma is that, during the 1971-72 school year, twenty-two
faculty left CCH and only seven were hired. That was the highest ratio of faculty
departures and arrivals in BYUH history.42 Naturally, the declining student enrollment
and the need to reduce faculty were an interactive cycle.
Virtually the only non controversial change Brower made regarding the faculty
was that he arranged for faculty to have access to leasehold homes from Zions Securities
rather than renting them.
41
42
Curtis Van Alfen, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, June 12, 1989, OH-346, 6.
Baldridge, “Church College of Hawaii—BYU-Hawaii, 1955-86: A Historian’s Perspective,” Appendix
E.
18
Accreditation, 1972
On April 20, 1972, while the campus was in turmoil during Brower’s first year, it
came due for re-accreditation. Francis M. Herrick, of Mills College and chair of the
visiting accreditation team, recognized the challenges of conducting a site visit during a
“difficult and unfortunate time” when a new president and academic vice president were
trying to make far-reaching changes. While the college’s accreditation was renewed, he
pointed out “We did sense a feeling of very real uncertainty with regard to the future.”
The students and faculty they interviewed communicated that “some of the things in the
college were being threatened….There is certainly no feeling of disloyalty to the College
in general, nothing like that but a feeling of uncertainty about what the college was going
to become.”43 To relieve this feeling of uncertainty, Herrick asked Brower to clarify his
program’s direction and extent to the faculty without delay.
The final report complimented the administrators and faculty for their
“dedication,” the effective English language programs, its on-going success in teacher
education, library improvement and well-groomed campus.
It recommended “a serious review” of the curriculum changes with their “possible
consequences” on the college’s degrees. It also urged more effective consultation with
faculty. “While the Committee commends the energy of the administration and its
concern over the special mission of the College, it recommends caution in pushing
through changes without sufficient faculty consultation, which might have the effect of
lowering educational standards and handicapping rather than helping students who
43
Francis M. Herrick, chairman, 1972 Accreditation Report, Summary Statement, April 20, 1972, BYUH
Archives.
19
receive degrees from the college.” It also brought up two additional areas of concern:
that the relationship with the Polynesian Cultural Center not become exploitive and the
value of having orientation for new students.44
Assigned to following through with these recommendations was a returning
faculty member in the English Department, Eric B. Shumway, who had just been elected
chair of a reinvigorated Faculty Advisory Council. With his colleague, Dale Hammond
of the Chemistry Division, he penned a tactful but strongly worded memo that invoked
President McKay’s initial vision: the college was not to be narrowly confined only to
vocational needs in Tonga or Samoa, for instance, but it was to bless local Hawaiian
students and those in Asia as well.45 “BYUH must remain a fully-accredited four-year
college with a strong ‘mainstream’ bachelor’s program in many of the so-called
traditional areas,” they pointed out. “No matter what service we may want to provide for
our students in academic, vocational, or spiritual learning, we will be doing them a great
disservice if we cease to be recognized as an academically-respected four-year college.”46
It was a strong and, as it turned out, ultimately decisive argument that enabled the college
to keep its traditional foundations while incorporating the new programs that Brower had
brought to campus.
Certainly an important contribution to new stability was a new relationship with
BYU-Provo. When Spencer W. Kimball became Church president in July 1972, much of
the work that Neal A. Maxwell had done as Church Commissioner of Education bore
fruit in an arrangement that made BYU-Provo the “umbrella” for Church education on
44
Final Report of the Committee on Accreditation to The Church College of Hawaii, June 8, 1972, 4, 19,
BYUH Archives.
45
Eric B. Shumway and Dale Hammond, memo to Faculty Advisory Council, February 15, 1973, Brower
Papers, Box 1, fd. 2, BYUH Archives.
46
Ibid.
20
April 12, 1974. The Church College of Hawaii formally became a branch campus of
BYU-Provo, with a new name: Brigham Young University Hawaii. The arrangement
allowed for the freer exchange of students and faculty between the two institutions and
better representation on the Board of Trustees. During the administration of Church
President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ricks College was changed to Brigham Young University
Idaho, effective August 10, 2001, and was authorized to offer a four-year rather than a
two-year program, a dramatic expansion of its academic curriculaum.
Brower’s Legacy
With the formalization of this new relationship, Brower’s work on campus was
done. While valuing the sometimes dramatic changes that Brower had effected, Maxwell
recognized that his presidency was “not always smooth.”47 Brower was hired at Brigham
Young University, and, drawing on his expertise as the former Iron County agent
fearlessly testified in a suit filed against the government in 1956 by sheep ranchers whose
animals had been killed by fallout from above-ground nuclear tests in Nevada in 1953.
The loss was calculated at about $1.3 million in 1982 dollars, and Brower’s autopsy
report on some of the sheep, which showed “extremely high” radioactivity in their
thyroid glands, had been slammed into a “secret” classification by the government.48
More than any other president before or after him, Brower made far-reaching
changes, some of which continue thirty years after his tenure. The new degrees offered
47
Maxwell, OH-165, 4.
(Spring 1982 Alumni pub) [Lavina’s note: Alf, author? Title of article? Title of publication? Pp. of this
information?]
48
21
in social work and travel management remain popular. He also strengthened the
Teaching English as a Second Language program. Despite the frustration of the faculty,
as historian Kenneth Baldridge notes, Brower instituted the norm of constant academic
reevaluation, improvement, and justification.49
In June 1998, Brower returned to the campus where successor-president, Eric B.
Shumway, praised him: “In addition to his wide academic and community interests and
generous nature for service, Stephen L. Brower exercised immense courage in asserting
the spiritual foundation of this school at a time when radicalism was overtaking many of
the nation’s university campuses. His unpretentious character, unwavering faith in the
Lord and His purposes for this school, and complete fidelity in discharging his duty
ensured the firm foundation of faith which we enjoy on our campus today.”50
In a candid interview nine years after he left Laie, Brower conceded that he could
have done things a little differently. “My management style was a surprise to me,” he
confessed. “I’ve reflected on it and agonized over it.” He thinks that his “normal
inclination would have been … to be more concerned with people and people’s feelings
than only with hard-driving, program-oriented kinds of efforts.” He had come to see that
he had given priority to the second orientation. “There was a lot of discomfort for me
both in decisions and procedures that I used that impacted negatively on many people’s
lives. I was keenly aware of that.”
However, in this interview, he added a new dimension that the struggling faculty
may not have understood completely at the time: “I’ve kiddingly indicated to Ken
(Beesley) that I was really uncomfortable under what I call his bill-collector model of
Baldridge, “Church college of Hawaii—BYU Hawaii, 1955-86,” 50.
Eric B. Shumway, “Presidential Citation for Stephen L. Brower, June 20, 1998,” in “Following the
vision,” sec. 2, p. 73.
49
50
22
management. But I gathered that he was under strong pressures to put a lot of pressure
on me.”51
Curtis Van Alfen pointed out that the controversies of Brower’s administration
were complex: “That’s what people need to understand. His was not a good faculty
battling a bad Steve Brower, or a good Steve Brower battling a bad faculty. That wasn’t
the case at all.”52 Van Alfen conceded, “I think all of us, if we were to do it over, we’d
do many things differently.” On balance, however, he sees that it was “a good
purification process” for everyone. “Hopefully, good has come in many ways in our own
personal lives as well as the organization.”53
A testimony to the purification came in Nephi Georgi’s magnanimous evaluation
in 1979. He did not attempt to gloss over the pain of being removed so summarily from
the campus he had served devotedly since 1955, and perhaps it was his exceptional
honesty that allowed him to reappraise the experience:
It was personally good for me. People don’t realize how good a break like this
can be. I got much too apathetic in my position. I thought, “Georgi, you know,
you’ve got everything. You’ve just got everything. You got positions [in the]
town on various strong committees; you’re going to be appointed a member of a
cable-television outfit next year—I’d already been asked by the lawyer from the
outfit—and I was with the governor’s commission; I was top dog in the army
reserve and also on several mayor’s committees with some zing to them; we were
doing things there—because of my connections with the military we were able to
51
Brower, OH-107, 10.
Curtis Van Alfen, interviewed by Alf Pratte, July 17, 2003, Provo, Utah, typescript, 11.
53
Van Alfen, OH-346, 11.
52
23
do several things for the state and for the city and county. Things were going
great and I just got too complacent. And I think the Lord saw that and I think he
just figured, “This is it; Georgi, you need a change; you’ve got to find out that you
can fail and come back.” Anyway, it was kind of reflection, I think, that finally
made me realize that Steve’s role was a very positive one in my life and not [the]
negative one that it appeared.54
Even more moving was a moment in 1980 when the former presidents were
honored at the university’s silver anniversary celebration. A group of the faculty and
visitors attended an endowment session in Laie’s beautiful temple; and as the prayer
circle55 formed with its injunctions that only the best of feelings could be experienced in
it, Eric Shumway witnessed what he called one of the “grand moments” in time and
eternity. He saw Georgi reconcile with the man who had helped to ease him out of his
job. According to Shumway, “I could tell he was still suffering inner conflict. He
wanted, indeed, he needed to participate in the prayer circle but his old boss was there.
How could he stand in God’s presence and forgive the man who had caused him and his
family so much sorrow? I watched conflict play out on his face, but then in a gesture of
strength and finality he stood and took his wife and walked into the circle. The shock of
54
Nephi and Hedi Georgi, OH-66, 69.
According to George S. Tate, “Prayer Circle,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols. (New York:
Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1120-21, prayer circles consist of “an equal number of men and women
dressed in temple clothing” who … having affirmed that they bear no negative feelings toward other
members of the circle,” surround an altar … to participate unitedly in prayer.”
55
24
surprise was accompanied immediately by the powerful sense of relief in the room. I
could not [keep] the tears from my eyes.”56
It was a sweet ending for an experience that had been more bitter than sweet. A
strong and committed leader colliding with an equally committed faculty had
successfully brought about a major reexamination of the institution’s purpose for
existence. It had been traumatic, but the school had survived and would be better
because of what Brower had brought it. For some, the hard feelings never completely
dissipated; but for others, like Georgi and those who followed his example, the trauma
was healed in a moment of transcendent, spiritual brotherhood. BYUH was now about to
enter a new era with a new name and a new president.
Eric B. Shumway, “The Supernal Gift: Daily Blessings of the Temple in Our Lives,” Draft of Address to
BYU Women’s Confernce, May 1-2, 2003, Provo, Utah, 4-5; al;so conversation with Pratte, Laie, June 15,
2004. See also Eric Shumway, interviewed by Kenneth Baldridge, OH-270, 10.
56
25