Brigham Young University
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Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://www.byu.edu

Brigham Young University, often referred to as BYU, is the flagship university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The vast majority of students at BYU are LDS and as a condition of admission to the university they commit to obey a stringent honor code while they attend BYU. BYU is often known for its low tuition costs, especially for a private university of its size. A large number of its students have some proficiency in a foreign language. BYU is located in Provo, Utah, approximately 50 miles to the south of Salt Lake City.

Additional facilities include a study center in Israel (the BYU Jerusalem Center); a satellite campus to the north in Utah's capital and largest city, Salt Lake City, (the BYU Salt Lake Center); and study centers all over the world, including London and Washington, D.C. Until recently, BYU operated an academy for its students at Nauvoo, Illinois, a town that figures prominently in Latter-day Saint history (the Joseph Smith Academy).

The LDS Church also has sister four-year schools in Lā'ie, Hawai'i (Brigham Young University-Hawaii) and Rexburg, Idaho (Brigham Young University-Idaho). These schools enroll an additional 14,700 students. The church also runs LDS Business College, a two-year school in downtown Salt Lake City. All these schools are institutionally independent from Brigham Young University, with their own administrations and accreditation.

BYU's origin can be traced back to 1862. In that year, Warren Dusenberry started a school in a prominent Provo adobe building called Cluff Hall located at 200 East and 200 North (northeastern corner. Dusenberry paid $50 a month in rent and manufactured the desks for the school himself. In 1865, he left his school to enter into private business and to serve a mission for the LDS Church. In 1869, he started another school in Provo with his brother, this time in a different building. This school flourished, so they relocated to a building called the Lewis Building on Center and 300 West.

When the student body of the Dusenberry brothers' school hit 300, the school became a part of the University of Deseret, based in Salt Lake City. The school in Provo was called the Timpanogos branch.

On October 16, 1875, Brigham Young, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, purchased the Lewis Building. This is the commonly held founding date of BYU. Young broke the school off from the University of Deseret and christened it "Brigham Young Academy." Young told one of his sons:

"I hope to see an Academy established in Provo... at which the children of the Latter-day Saints can receive a good education unmixed with the pernicious atheistic influences that are found in so many of the higher schools of the country."

Classes at the new Brigham Young Academy commenced on the 3rd of January, 1876. Reed Smoot was the first of 29 students to register for classes on that day. Warren Dusenberry served as principal of the school until April of 1876, when he was replaced by a German immigrant named Karl Maeser.

In January of 1884, a chemistry-lab fire destroyed the Lewis Building. Students then temporarily held class in three separate locations before relocating to a warehouse on University Avenue. The students attended class in the ZCMI warehouse until January 1892, when an elaborate sandstone building called the "BY Academy Building" was completed.

Brigham Young Academy was initially more like a present-day high school than a university. Some academy students were at the elementary level and they received tutoring from older students. The high school was broken off as a separate unit in 1895. High school students would outnumber the university students for a long time; in 1910, there were about 200 students at the university level, but more than 800 at the high school level. The high school class of 1907 was ultimately responsible for the famous giant "Y" that is to this day embedded on a mountain near campus.

In 1903, Brigham Young Academy changed its name to Brigham Young University.

In 1904, BYU bought 17 acres of land from Provo. This land was called "Temple Hill," and many people had presumed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would build a temple on this property. Because of the expectation that a church temple would be built on Temple Hill, some people were opposed to BYU buying the land. But thanks to the leadership of a BYU student named Byron Owen Colton, the opposition to the land purchase was assuaged and the deal was consummated. It was on this Temple Hill land, north of the BY Academy Building, that present-day BYU was begun.

In 1909, construction began on the first building on the current campus.

BYU was once the largest private university in the United States, but has since been surpassed by the nationwide University of Phoenix (240,000), which has campuses around the world; it remains one of the world's largest church-affiliated universities, with an enrollment of roughly 30,200 undergraduate students during the 2004-05 school year.