• Time: 3:00 PM
• Date: Thursday, June 05, 2008
• Place: DeLamar Jensen Lecture Room, 1130 HBLL, BYU

About the Event

BYU professor Buddy Richards has for some years studied the published works of 18/19th century European educational theorists, such as Johann H. Pestalozzi, Friedrich A.W. Diesterweg, Friedrich Froebel, and Johann Basedow. He has also studied their influence on early BYU curriculum. As Richards will describe, Karl G. Maeser referred to all of these theorist in his Normal Course (a course that taught teachers how to teach). Maeser was prepared to be a teacher during a very narrow window of a renaissance in German educational ideas.

In the Lee Library’s recent exhibition Designing BYU (closing June 15) an idea was put forward that the floor plan for the 1892 Academy Building (Univ. Ave., Provo) was in part based on mid 19th century German school design, inspired by the same educational theorists. Richards’ Omnibus presentation will examine how Europe’s revolutionary ideas converged with LDS doctrine at the young Academy.

Dr. Richards is the Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership & Foundations. He taught for two years at the University of Würzburg, and has returned frequently as a visiting professor. His background is in educational philosophy and his interest in Karl G. Maeser came to him while studying the history of grading in the United States.

• Time: 7:00pm
• Date: November 28, 2007
• Place: Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium

About the Speaker

Born on Okinawa, the young Eric Eliason lived an itinerant life as the son of a USAF fighter pilot and a high school teaching TWA stewardess. As a teenager, he fell in love with Stephanie Smith. After Eric returned from 1987-1988 missionary service to The Netherlands and Belgium, they married in the Mesa, Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

1989 ended not only the Cold War but also Eric’s ROTC scholarship and vague military career plans. This liberated Eric’s desire for graduate school after BYU. At the University of Texas at Austin, his interests in linguistic anthropology and Caribbean Studies were eclipsed by a growing vision of an inter-disciplinary Mormon studies.

With an M.A. in anthropology and a Ph.D. in American studies, Eric came back to BYU as a folklorist and teacher of Mormon literature at Brigham Young University where he received tenure in 2004 and is currently an associate professor.

Topics on which he has published include pioneers in Mormon popular historical expression; Western American folk heroes; conversion narratives; the civil rights of Mormons and other religious minorities; the economics of women’s handicrafts on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba (pronounced “Say-bah”) and the ecology of foxhunting in England. He has written a book about J. Golden Kimball jokes and legends and has edited a reader of Mormon studies essays; both published by the University of Illinois Press.

He is the review board editor for BYU Studies and past vice president of the folklore society of Utah. In Austin, he served as the inter-faith relations specialist for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Public Affairs Council.

Returning to military service in 2002, Eric became the chaplain for the 1st Battalion of the 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in the Utah National Guard and served a tour of duty in Afhanistan in 2004 and the Philippines in 2006. While in Afghanistan he pioneered chaplain training for mullahs in the Afghan Security Forces and oversaw the rebuilding and restoration of 25 mosques in the Pesch Valley using local craftsman and traditional construction styles.

Eric lives in Springville, Utah with his wife Stephanie and three children Shelby, Caleb, and Noah.

• Time: 3:00 PM
• Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2007
• Place: DeLamar Jensen Lecture Room (HBLL 1130)

About the Event

Come and listen to BYU landscape architect Bruce Maw, as he discusses his design philosophy, projects completed across campus, and the university’s comprehensive landscape plan, a Q/A session to follow.

This lecture is part of L. Tom Perry Special Collections’ current exhibition “Designing BYU: Planning + Architecture + Landscape” (October 2007-May 2008), installed on the first floor of the Harold B. Library.

Mr. Maw is a licensed landscape architect, a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and a 1981 graduate of Utah State University Landscape Architecture Program. He has worked in all aspects of
landscape architecture including, residential and urban park design, large-scale planning and public facilitation. Mr. Maw has provided design services in campus and institutional planning at Brigham Young University since 1996.

Links and Materials

• Bruce Maw’s Resume

• Time: 3:00 PM
• Date: Thursday, November 18, 2004
• Place: DeLamar Jensen Lecture Room, 1130 HBLL

About the Event

From the moment Karl G. Maeser accepted the charge of Brigham Young to take the reigns of the Brigham Young Academy, he fought to withstand educational practices (especially from the East) that might detract from the unique spiritual mission of the Academy. So how did grading come to BYU? I have been engaged in research regarding the origins of grading in general and specifically how it evolved at BYU over the years. I have been amazed at how little we know about a practice that has attained almost universal adoption. It has shown itself to be far more a tool of power than of a sound educational practice.

Article available from NewsNet.

• Time: 7:00 AM
• Date: Feb 20, 2003 to May 31, 2003
• Place: L. Tom Perry Special Collections

About the Event

The exhibit is a part of a folklore celebration promoting awareness of folklore and honoring William A. Wilson the founder of BYU folklore archives and recipient of various awards.

Wilson brought the boxed archives from his office to a well-developed display for the benefit of students and researchers of folklore.

“People tend to have a misconception of what folklore really is,” said Kristi Bell, curator for the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives.

Folklore is a term that most people associate with the past, Bell said. What they don’t realize is that it is a part of our everyday life.

Bell said folklore can include everything from family traditions, to the very clothes you are wearing.

The collection features different folklore exhibits put together and collected by BYU students, professors and private individuals.

Links and Materials

• Today’s Folklore on Display Article
• Exhibit Illuminates Past Article