Purpose, passion, and people: 2024 GE Professorship awarded to Jon Ostenson

In a game-changing new general-ed course, students dive deep into BYU’s distinctive mission and find their place in a community of belonging.

Rickelle Richards, Ph.D., MPH, RDN knows the places the Lord guides us aren’t always the places we expect. Each day at Brigham Young University, Richards teaches large and small groups of students about the principles of nutrition. From general education classes to complex high-level courses, Richards embraces the challenge of teaching students with a wide variety of backgrounds and knowledge bases.

We are excited to announce this semester’s Honors scholarship recipients, who have demonstrated impressive Academic Excellence through their service and scholarship.

Rise and shout! Across various disciplines, BYU students are being recognized for their world-class accomplishments.

Audrey Hanks, highlighted for her work as Prestigious Scholarships Coordinator, has built the Prestigious Scholarship Office from the ground up.

Meet the 2023 Outstanding Honors Graduate and University Commencement Speaker

Exploring the Power of Inquiry

Congrats to these outstanding scholars!

Meet the newest Honors Alumni

For Professor Bob Hudson (French and Italian), nothing captures the human spirit quite like encounters with another culture. Born in Arkansas and raised between there and Kentucky, Hudson experienced such an encounter when he left the rural South to serve his two-year Church mission in Paris, France.

This year, seven BYU Honors students had their work featured across two premier Honors academic journals. The Palouse Review and Scribendi are two academic publications that showcase the best work from Honors students across the Western region. We commend these BYU Honors students for their hard work and congratulate them for this achievement and recognition.

Lots of Honors students love to read but senior English student Louisa Eastley has taken her love of books one step farther. With her job in the book repair lab on campus and an accidental enrollment in a book binding class, Louisa is now delving into a creative thesis focused on teaching other students about book binding and the literary treasures that can be found in the basement of the Harold B. Lee Library in Special Collections.

Despite the challenge of balancing his schedule as a Chemical Engineering student, junior Honors student Parker Johns still reaches out for inspiration in other fields, especially when completing an interdisciplinary project for his Honors Leadership Development Experience (LDE). Creating an automatic quinoa washer for rural farmers in Peru proved to be a difficult but fulfilling project and Parker returned with some recommendations to make the LDE a fun experience for every Honors student.

Rise and shout! Regardless of discipline, BYU students continue to make an impact in various fields of study – and they’ve got the hardware, awards and scholarships to prove it. While it’s impossible to recognize every award-winning student on campus, these highlights capture the considerable academic work and creative abilities of our Cougars.

At BYU’s commencement exercises this week, University Honors student Emilee Carr will represent the graduates as the student speaker. A molecular biology major with a minor in chemistry, Carr, like her fellow classmates, has accrued many achievements as a BYU undergraduate.

We congratulate Honors students named as the Outstanding Honors Graduates for 2022! Emilee Carr will represent all of the University’s graduates as the student speaker at BYU’s Commencement exercises this week. Rebekah Olsen and Lindsey Walker will share their remarks at our Honors Graduation exercises, and Amberlee Woodhouse will perform the musical number. Each of these students exemplifies the mission of the Honors Program and is a broad thinker, creative problem solver, and influential leader. Here we get to know a little about each of them:

With board games listed as mandatory class materials, it was clear that “Pandemics, Plagues, and Contagion” was going to be a unique class. It is team-taught by Dr. Marlene Esplin of the Interdisciplinary Humanities department and Dr. Mary Davis from the Microbiology and Molecular Biology department.

It can be easy to assume that everyone else at BYU looks exactly like you or that they fit the majority demographic: white, middle-class American. This simply isn't true. We are surrounded daily by students who are first generation, identify as LGBT+, come from different family backgrounds, and are of distinct ethnicities.

For most people, trolls, the environment, International Cinema and general education do not have a lot in common. But for Christopher “Chip” Oscarson, associate dean of General Education, these things have shaped his life and helped him create unexpected connections.

Senior Family History student Heidi Riboldi is proving that history is more than just dusty books and ancient people. Studying Family History has led Heidi to a new understanding of her own family, as well as the formation of lifelong connections.

At 6 feet 4 inches, Richard Watt towers above his CHEM 101 students and patiently answers question after question to bolster their confidence for the upcoming midterm. As Watt brings chemistry alive, his love for chemistry and his students is apparent.

Cougar Queries are a series profiling BYU employees by asking them questions about their work, interests and life. Today, we meet Shaunna George, business manager for BYU Undergraduate Education.

Outstanding Honors graduate Alyssa Baer represents the graduates at Commencement this week.