Difference between revisions of "Kevin Worthen"

Latest revision as of 10:02, 1 June 2023

Kevin J Worthen is a former law professor and university administrator, who was appointed president of Brigham Young University on March 11, 2014. He filled the post on May 1, 2014. Prior to this appointment, he was Advancement Vice President at BYU. He served as BYU president through May 1, 2023, his ninth-year anniversary. “There is nothing magical about nine years," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said when he announced the conclusion of Worthen's service, "but two fellows named Oaks and Holland both served in that position for nine years to the day,” . . . referring to himself and President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, each of whom is a past BYU president.

Elder Holland praised both President and Sister Worthen for their remarkable service. During his tenure, Worthen elevated the mission of the university and worked closely with the Board of Trustees to strengthen BYU’s spiritual focus. He established the Inspiring Learning Initiative, which has provided mentored research experiences, expanded internships, study abroad opportunities and other experiential learning occasions for thousands of students.

Additionally, he helped navigate a period of independence for BYU’s football team and membership in the West Coast Conference (WCC) for other athletic programs before ultimately earning admission into the Big 12 Conference. He also significantly expanded the infrastructure of the university, including the Westview Building, Music Building, Basketball Annex, Life Sciences Building and Engineering Building.[1]

Worthen served as an Area Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from April 3, 2010, until August 1, 2021.

In May 2023, BYU announced that Worthen will spend the 2023-24 school year as a visiting professor at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut.

He will be the Michael Doyle ’62 and Bunny Winter Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and a senior research scholar. The visiting professorship created in 2022, brings in faculty from a wide range of perspectives. The Yale Law School explained that its purpose was to “train the next generation of leaders to take part in discourse across political divides and to include voices from across the intellectual spectrum … all with an eye to enlarge our community’s intellectual horizons.”[2]

President Worthen serves at Yale as the first BYU Wheatley Institute Distinguished Fellow in Constitutional Government. He continues to hold the Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law position at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School.

Worthen was born on April 15, 1956, and raised in Dragerton, Utah. He served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ in Monterrey, Mexico.

He earned an associate’s degree from the College of Eastern Utah. He supported himself at CEU by working summers as a coal miner at the Plateau Mine in Wattis during the summer months in 1977 and 1978. He received a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in political science from Brigham Young University. Worthen graduated first in his class and summa cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. He is a former Fulbright scholar.

He clerked for Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit and for Associate Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. Worthen practiced law from 1984 to 1987 with the law firm of Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1987, he returned to BYU as a member of the Law School faculty and served as dean of the Law School from 2004 to 2008. He was also the Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law. Worthen served as faculty athletic representative to the NCAA for four years and as chair of the University Athletic Advisory Council from 1992 to 2000.

In June 2008, Worthen was appointed Advancement Vice President at BYU, with responsibility for university relations, communications, athletics, and philanthropies.

Worthen is a recognized expert in American Indian law, and his theories on cultural and ethnic assimilation are also widely repeated. In 1995, he was a contributor to Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, and in 2002, served as vice chair of the Utah Constitution Revision Commission.

He has written articles on issues related to Native American law and marriage definition in law. He also wrote an article entitled “The NCAA and Religion: Issues of Non-State Governance” that was published in the Utah Law Review.

Worthen and his wife, Peggy, have three children and live in Provo, Utah.

• Deseret News, "A ‘remarkable, outstanding tenure’ coming to an end for BYU’s Kevin Worthen," by Tad Walch