Likewise, mentoring by faculty is personal. ![]() Very importantly, their contacts with many of the staff are one-on-one. Students’ relationships in a room or in a dorm can still be personal. For instance, the student wards are deliberately kept small. Think, for a moment, of just a few of the circumstances in which students here can still experience a frame of reference that remains human sized. But, no, being big does not automatically mean being impersonal! Yes, some mistakes have been and will be made in the direction of impersonalization. However, such depersonalizing trends need not characterize Brigham Young University. Obligations are limited by job descriptions rather than being expanded by the reflexes of the second great commandment. Many simply pull back into their assigned cubicle and “do their own thing,” reluctant to venture forth in unrequired service. Further isolation is then brought about by function. It is so easy to know people merely as functions. There are many less dramatic expressions of the foregoing trends in our general society, such as the abandonment of personalization by bureaucratization. It is all most regrettable and soberingly foretelling! I, for one, brothers and sisters, see no secular rescue columns on the horizon. We also see the prophesied “despair cometh because of iniquity,” because we live in an age when “iniquity shall abound” (Moroni 10:22 Matthew 24:12). There are even wars within as well as between nations, accompanied by a general escalation of violence and confrontation. Furthermore, “Peace shall be taken from the earth” (D&C 1:35). Of the global society in the last days, it was prophesied that the “love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12). In contrast, while we value nurturing at BYU, we shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many countertrends toward depersonalization in today’s world. Staff are less heralded, but, in the words of the Book of Mormon, like Helaman you are certainly “no less serviceable” in the cause! (See Alma 48:19.) I especially include appreciation to those of you who serve in important staff and other functions and to our special guests, the retirees. Since I will be speaking to the faculty tomorrow afternoon on matters appropriate to that occasion, these remarks will be somewhat different. Hence my major purpose in being with you tonight is simply but gratefully to say “Thank you very much” for all you have done, are doing and will yet do in accomplishing the purposes of Brigham Young University, a special university! We have yet to invent better words than those expressive but well-worn words thank you, although we can juxtapose adverbs. Colleen and I appreciate the invitation from President Lee to be with all of you tonight.
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