Aloha!
The year 2005 is a watershed twelve months at Brigham Young University Hawaii as we celebrate our Golden Jubilee — our 50th anniversary of intellectual and spiritual growth.This year gives us time to memorialize the significant people and proceedings of our past while simultaneously charting an even stronger course of promise for the future.
I marvel at how BYU-Hawaii and its companion of the heart, the Polynesian Cultural Center, are increasingly fulfilling what David O. McKay, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and founder of this campus, boldly proclaimed in the sugar cane fields of Laie on February 12, 1955.
President McKay's declarations — that this campus would refine men and women to become leaders in establishing peace in the world, and that this little town would entice millions to see its significance — ring more profoundly true today than ever.
Our 2,400 students come from 70 nations. With 46 percent of them originating outside the United States, BYU-Hawaii is the most international university, per capita, in the country. U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks us among the best undergraduate universities in the Western U.S., and Consumers Digest recently rated the campus as "top value" among all private universities in the country.
Even more important than any external assessment, as President McKay foresaw, BYU-Hawaii continues to produce "genuine gold" — young men and women of quiet moral character who have interacted with peers from all over the world and are returning home to be leaders in their families, communities, careers and the Church.
As the BYU-Hawaii Golden Jubilee year progresses throughout 2005, we hope all are reminded of the great work and cherished experiences occurring on this campus. BYU-Hawaii changes lives forever.
Mahalo,
Eric B. Shumway
President
BYU-Hawaii