Posted by:
behindcurtain
(
)
Date: April 02, 2012 06:08PM
Jeffrey Holland gave a talk in the early nineties at BYU, where he was president. He told the students at the university that they were staying at BYU too long; they were taking too long to graduate. He urged them to leave BYU quickly by graduating quickly. He used the example of monarch butterflies in his talk at the Marriot Center. In a certain part of the world, millions of monarch butterflies gather together. They change the direction of the wind. One butterfly by itself cannot change the direction of the wind, but millions flapping their wings in concert can. Holland said that each BYU student was like one monarch butterfly. If all the students work together by graduating quickly, they can have a cumulative effect on the university: they will give more people a chance to attend BYU.
The message that Holland conveyed was simply wrong. It is wrong to try to get students to graduate quickly, at any university. A university is a place to figure out what you want to major in, and it takes extra years for some people to discover a major that really fits. Students should not feel pressured during this time of exploration; pressure can be counterproductive. Besides this, students are paying for their education, so they ought to get their money's worth.
There is no good religious reason for doing what Holland wanted. The Church does not make BYU attendance a requirement for salvation.
Holland should have thought about building more Mormon universities. That idea makes a lot more sense than his "monarch butterfly" idea.
I was attending BYU at that time, and my bishop would not let me attend BYU any longer because of the "sin of masturbation". Maybe Holland gave a special talk to all the BYU bishops, telling them to find any excuse at all to throw students out. Because of this "witch burning" I missed out on finding a major that fit. That has affected my life and my ability to earn.
Holland's most recent talk this general conference again reflected his selfish outlook. He was trying to get inactive men to become active, and he was acting like there was no good reason why they would want to be inactive. He was trying to guilt them into coming back to Church just like he was trying to guilt BYU students into leaving BYU. Holland does not demonstrate any humanitarian feeling in these talks; all he shows is a very selfish and ignorant attitude.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2012 06:16PM by behindcurtain.