Each year, BYU Continuing Education (CE) hosts various events aimed at supporting both personal growth—such as Education Week, Life After Loss, and Women’s Conference—and professional development, including the Counseling Workshop, EMT Certification Course, and test prep for exams like the DAT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, and MCAT. The purpose of these events is to create learning experiences where attendees can hear from speakers as well as expand career skills, gain academic credentials, have networking opportunities, and experience spiritual growth.
In his 32-year career working at BYU CE, Robert Holcombe, Director of BYU CE Events, has seen how impactful these have been. “People come to BYU because it’s a destination for them as a Latter-day Saint,” he said. “We see people’s lives impacted by being able to be recharged spiritually to face all the other things that life brings.”
In 2024, BYU CE saw a turnout of more than 15,000 adults and teens for BYU’s Education Week alone. Speakers from that event included Elder Neil L. Andersen, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young; presidents of the Relief Society, Primary, Young Men, and Young Women organizations of the Church of Jesus Christ; as well as many more in the 1,007 classes that were offered as part of the event.[1]
However, in an effort to make BYU CE Events more accessible to people around the globe and not just those either located in or who can afford to make a trip to Utah, videos that were previously exclusive on the InspirED platform as well as recordings of select BYU CE Events are now available to all people on YouTube. “Brick and mortar is great, but it’s constrained to a geographical area. Now, we can offer some of those things [on] a much broader basis, which blesses a lot more lives, which is what Continuing Education is really about anyway,” said Holcombe.
This shift, in large part, was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what first seemed like an obstruction soon became an opportunity. For the first time ever, events like EFY, Education Week, and Women’s Conference were held online due to the inability to be held in person. This change soon opened the door for new ways of thinking and finding ways to touch more lives. What started as a necessary adaptation has now become a new way of strengthening BYU Continuing Education’s mission to “[inspire] lifelong learning to benefit the world,” whether participants are sitting in the BYU Conference Center or are in the comfort of their own home.
Whether the event is in person or online, one of the things Holcombe hopes all attendees take away is a sense of personal clarity and spiritual grounding. “All of the things that we do have a moral compass built into them,” he said. “But they also have spiritual compasses, and [they] point toward the temple, and I would say that’s where you make [important] decisions.”
This emphasis, for many attendees, is what has the most lasting impact of BYU CE Events. “The spirit is always brightest in the Lord’s house,” he said. “All the different [events] that we put out there do for people is give them a little feel of that touch of the Master's hand.”
A calendar of upcoming BYU CE Events can be found at lifelong.byu.edu with more information regarding each event, including dates and registration.
[1] https://www.deseret.com/education/2024/08/16/byu-education-weeks-1007-classes-include-steve-young-latter-day-saint-leaders/