Temple Recommend required to work at BYU

[MikeWaters]

Is this a good idea?

Doesn't it encourage people to fudge, and by placing external incentives on it, also demean the recommend itself?

One more reason I would never work for BYU.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I can understand both sides of the argument. I tend to believe it is a bad idea, for the reasons you mentioned.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Is this a good idea?

Doesn't it encourage people to fudge, and by placing external incentives on it, also demean the recommend itself?

One more reason I would never work for BYU.

I guess it depends on what the intent is.
I don't think it's a good idea and is at odds with the purpose of a university.
You also tend to get a homogeneous faculty, again, at odds with the purpose of a university. My sister in law just started a graduate program at the zoo and out of curiosity, i checked out the department faculty pages. Every single faculty member did their undergraduate work there, and it was about 50/50 on going away to do graduate work before returning as faculty. Amusing.

One more reason I never went and would never encourage my daughter to go.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Brian

I guess it depends on what the intent is.
I don't think it's a good idea and is at odds with the purpose of a university.
You also tend to get a homogeneous faculty, again, at odds with the purpose of a university. My sister in law just started a graduate program at the zoo and out of curiosity, i checked out the department faculty pages. Every single faculty member did their undergraduate work there, and it was about 50/50 on going away to do graduate work before returning as faculty. Amusing.

One more reason I never went and would never encourage my daughter to go.

It depends on what your goals are. You may send your daughter to a small liberal arts school with very good academics. She may be the only member at the school, and the only college student in her ward (if she attends).

That would be the extreme example of complete absence of Mormonism. There are of course plenty of schools with a strong Mormon contingent. But as a parent, I would be aware of the issue and try to guide my child to a school with a certain minimum, or when schools are otherwise equal, to the school with a stronger Mormon infrastructure.

[MikeWaters]

One other quick point. You don't go to BYU because of the faculty. You go because of the students.

BYU gets good students, better than its faculty.

[YOhio]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Is this a good idea?

Doesn't it encourage people to fudge, and by placing external incentives on it, also demean the recommend itself?

One more reason I would never work for BYU.

A temple recommend is only required if you are LDS. I believe the non-LDS faculty/staff requires an ecclesiastical endorsement from their pastor or priest.

I'm don't think this is a good idea when universally applied. But I have no problem with having a temple recommend requirement for administration. They are de facto employees of the church and are engaged in non-academic activity.

[MikeWaters]

I may be wrong, but I believe that hiring of non LDS faculty has been severely curtailed.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

One other quick point. You don't go to BYU because of the faculty. You go because of the students.

BYU gets good students, better than its faculty.

this is a formula for disaster.
Can't you get the same results from match.com, for a lot less?

[Brian]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I may be wrong, but I believe that hiring of non LDS faculty has been severely curtailed.

How can you curtail 0?

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Brian

I guess it depends on what the intent is.
I don't think it's a good idea and is at odds with the purpose of a university.
You also tend to get a homogeneous faculty, again, at odds with the purpose of a university. My sister in law just started a graduate program at the zoo and out of curiosity, i checked out the department faculty pages. Every single faculty member did their undergraduate work there, and it was about 50/50 on going away to do graduate work before returning as faculty. Amusing.

One more reason I never went and would never encourage my daughter to go.

This is very rare. What's the program? Maybe they have a lot of old faculty on tenure about to retire. The faculty quality level is improving quickly significantly over the last 20 years. Today you wouldn't have a chance to get hired as a professor at BYU with a PhD from BYU. It's become extremely competitive to get hired at BYU, and you'd need a degree at a top school and some success in research to get a sniff.