Jae Ballif: Laying the Foundation for an Educational Mt. Everest

It’s hard to imagine a time when Brigham Young University didn’t have its resolute declaration “to assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life.” This and other iconic phrases from the BYU mission statement were carefully crafted in part by the college’s founding dean, Jae Ballif. While serving as BYU’s provost, Ballif worked alongside then BYU president Jeffrey R. Holland to create BYU’s mission statement. Ballif’s prior assignment as the inaugural dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences helped prepare him for this momentous task. As we celebrate the college’s fiftieth anniversary, we look to our first dean and his formidable assignment to help form BYU’s mission statement and honor the impact both the college and the mission statement have had on BYU.

BYU’S UNIQUE FOCUS ON UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING AND RESEARCH

When Jae Ballif joined the BYU faculty in 1962, physics and mathematics were in one department, and there was one large College of Physical and Engineering Sciences. Ballif’s department wanted to expand research efforts but not at the expense of quality teaching, so Ballif began to experiment with new kinds of teaching, creating larger classes and developing new teaching methods to maintain quality instruction. He developed experiments to demonstrate physics principles during class. Ballif even filmed the experiments, added explanations, and put copies in the library so students could rewatch the experiments as many times as they wanted. This was cutting-edge technology in the 1960s. Ballif helped build the legacy of focusing on undergraduate teaching, which continues today. In an address to BYU faculty, Jeffrey R. Holland recently commented:

It seems clear to me in my seventy-three years of loving it that BYU will become an “educational Mt. Everest” only to the degree it embraces its uniqueness, its singularity. . . We must have the will to be different and to stand alone, if necessary, being a university second to none in its role primarily as an undergraduate teaching institution that is unequivocally true to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.1

Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System (CES), also observed, “This is the only place [in the CES] where we are really going to do concerted scholarship as part of our mission. . . . BYU is the flagship. You are the hope of Israel.”2 While many universities focus either on research or teaching, BYU seeks to thrive in both areas.

While quality teaching has always been of utmost importance to Ballif, he also recognized the need for research at BYU, especially in the sciences. “If you’re going to be an Everest in education, you have to be a contributor to the ideas of the discipline,” Ballif says. “You can’t just follow along 10 years later and get part of the story. The creative mind must be at work, and that’s why students do research in our disciplines.” To this end, Ballif built a research lab and began mentoring several students. He soon saw how transformative mentored research was for both students and faculty. “Mentoring research students takes a lot of time, energy, emotion, and money,” says Ballif. “I’m not saying BYU can do it at the level they do it at Caltech or Harvard, where they have resources way beyond what we have any idea of obtaining. But I think we’ll have some divine help that gets us to where we are to go if we’re working hard enough.”

The emphasis on student research at BYU has grown tremendously in the past several decades, especially in our college. Last year, there were nearly five times as many student researchers as there were a decade ago. Ballif has great hope in our students and the scientific discoveries they will make. “Who’s going to tell us what dark matter and dark energy really are and how they cause the acceleration of galaxies?” he asks. “I’d like to think some of our people [at BYU] will contribute to the best thing that happens in understanding this beautiful creation of ours, especially in the sciences.”

A NEW DEAN FOR A NEW COLLEGE

Half a century ago, then BYU president Dallin H. Oaks announced the division of the College of Physical and Engineering Sciences. The Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Geological Sciences, Mathematics, and Statistics moved to the newly created College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. The Computer Science Department joined the college within a few years, and the Department of Mathematics Education was added several decades later. Although Ballif was a young professor focused on research and teaching, he was asked to be the founding dean.

As the first dean of the college, Ballif addressed two major needs. First, he hired someone to oversee the financial and physical needs of the college so that Ballif could focus on the faculty and the curriculum. Second, Ballif created the Student Advisement Center and hired an advisor, who began tracking students’ progress in their majors. With those positions elevating the work of the college, Ballif began working with the department chairs to strengthen the vision and goals of each department. He wanted the department leaders to know two things: “They had to understand the mission the college was engaged in and the principles that were guiding the work,” Ballif says. “We all had to understand the principles that were going to be applied in making decisions. Then I thought the chairs could operate under those conditions with as much freedom as possible.”

As science and technology began impacting more fields across the university, some departments considered hiring their own physics, math, statistics, and computing faculty to teach classes for their majors. Ballif believed in the importance of having faculty members who were deeply rooted in the discipline and could understand the discipline’s applications in various fields enough to create courses that would be useful for students in other majors as well. Then when the technology changed, as it inevitably would, the faculty would have enough background in the discipline to adapt.

A CALL WITHIN A CALL

Ballif and his wife were called to preside over the Massachusetts Boston Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1977. The mission covered the New England states from Maine down to Rhode Island and Connecticut. But President Oaks felt he needed Ballif back at BYU, so he asked Church leadership if Ballif’s mission could be shortened. The Church asked if the Ballifs would object to serving only two years instead of the typical three. Ballif responded, “Look, we have the same boss in both jobs. So you tell us what you want us to do, and we’ll be happy to do that.”

Then President Oaks flew to Massachusetts and personally asked Ballif to come back to BYU, this time as a vice president. “I couldn’t give him an answer immediately,” Ballif says. “It wasn’t what I had in mind. I still wanted to do research and teach physics, but I said I’d think about it for a month and call him back.” After many prayers and conversations, the Ballifs had an answer for President Oaks. “If you only keep me a little while, I’ll be a vice president,” Ballif responded. Then he clarified, “I still want to do some of the other things I came to the university to do.” Ballif served as the administrative vice president, responsible for intercollegiate athletics and media services. At the end of the year, President Oaks left BYU and became a judge on the Utah Supreme Court, but Ballif’s time in BYU administration had only begun. BYU’s new president, Jeffrey R. Holland, asked Ballif to become the provost and oversee all academics at the university. Once again, Ballif struggled with his decision but ultimately accepted the office. He served throughout President Holland’s tenure.

A PROPHETIC CALL TO ACTION

The university needed to unite faculty, staff, students, and administrators in alignment to a common mission, and President Holland asked Ballif to write the mission statement. It was a heavy task for Ballif because he wanted to get it right, knowing it would aid future decision-making. He also knew it needed to be different from other university mission statements because BYU’s mission statement needed to reflect the unique nature of BYU as a religious university.

At the time, Spencer W. Kimball was serving as president of the Church and had recently dedicated BYU’s centennial bell tower in commemoration of the University’s 100th anniversary. During the dedication, President Kimball gave a pivotal talk titled “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.”3

President Kimball’s address was integral to Ballif’s work on the new BYU mission statement. “President Kimball came and gave a remarkable talk that I thought was scripture as far as I and other BYU leaders were concerned,” Ballif says. “I think he gave us our BYU mission. We were to become an intellectual Mt. Everest, among other major items. That was no small charge, but we took it very much as a prophecy for us.”

Under the direction of President Holland, Ballif and others worked to create a mission statement for the university using President Kimball’s talk as a framework. “We, of course, reworked the wording and tried to frame it,” Ballif explains. “Working with President Holland, we had a mission statement that was very reflective of the things President Kimball said.” The mission statement was approved by the BYU Board of Trustees on November 4, 1981, and is still used at the university today.

SETTING OUR SIGHTS ON THE SECOND CENTURY ADDRESS

In the decades since the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences was founded, BYU has continued to embrace its singular role in higher education. As the university approaches its 150th anniversary and the midterm of the Second Century Address, we are prompted to ask, “How are we doing at becoming the ‘educational Mt. Everest’ President Kimball challenged BYU to become?”

As BYU and our college look toward the future, the challenge remains to uphold the principles embedded in BYU’s mission statement, fostering an environment that is distinct, exceptional, and true to our foundational values. This challenge was reiterated in President C. Shane Reese’s inaugural address: “President Kimball implored us to employ gospel methodology, which will not only distinguish us from other universities but also shape how we learn and improve as a community,” he said. “As we embrace our unique institutional identity, we will foster at BYU a unique learning environment that will empower us to be peacemakers in an ever more divisive society.”4

In celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, we are grateful for alumni like Jae Ballif who helped make BYU what it is today. Our college is the result of countless alumni, students, faculty, and staff who make the world a better place through discovery, innovation, and faithful commitment. As we look forward to the next fifty years, we can’t wait to see what future students and alumni will accomplish.

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NOTES

1. Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University,” BYU university conference address, 23 August 2021; emphasis in original; quoting Spencer W. Kimball, “Installation of and Charge to the President,” Inaugural Addresses, 14 November 1980, Brigham Young University, 9.

2. Clark G. Gilbert, remarks, BYU leadership meeting, 15 April 2022.

3. See Spencer W. Kimball, “The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” BYU devotional address, 10 October 1975.

4. C. Shane Reese, “Becoming BYU: An Inaugural Response,” address given at his inauguration as BYU president, 19 September 2023.