Academic Vice President
John S. Tanner

Beehive and Portico

The juxtaposition of a beehive atop a classical entablature serves as a visual reminder of BYU’s dual heritage and mission. The neoclassical design reminds me that BYU belongs within a venerable academic tradition stretching back to antiquity. We have received from ancient Athens and medieval Europe the idea of a university, just as we have inherited the elements comprising the Maeser’s neoclassical design. The beehive reminds me that BYU also belongs within a specifically LDS heritage. We are the beneficiaries of founders who, out of their poverty and through their industry, established a house of learning in the desert at the behest of prophets and inspired by belief that God expects us to seek learning “by study and also by faith.” We who labor here “have a double heritage which [we] must pass along: the secular knowledge that history has washed to the feet of mankind with the new knowledge brought by scholarly research–but also the vital and revealed truths that have been sent to us from heaven” (Spencer W. Kimball, Second-Century Address).

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