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President Henry B. Eyring Installs President Tanner as Tenth President

John S. Tanner was officially inaugurated as the tenth president of BYU–Hawaii by President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, on Tuesday, November 10, 2015. President Eyring presided over the meeting which was conducted by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Other speakers included Elder Kim B. Clark, of the Seventy and Commissioner of Education, and representatives of faculty, alumni and students.

President Eyring directed President Tanner to seek counsel from the Lord for his charge, and also charged him to “help the Lord build a Zion community here.” President Eyring then said, “President Tanner knows from observation and long experience how difficult the task before us will be, and how much the Lord needs us to do our part. Time and again, the Lord has asked his people to establish a Zion community. As always, the greatest challenge has been in the hearts of the people.”

President Eyring also said that a Zion university will not necessarily bring equal outcomes for everybody. “There will not be dead-level equality in all things. But God will help us to love each other so well that we will feel one another’s pains and joys as if they were our own. That would bring the end of selfishness. That miraculous change in hearts will not come easily…. When it comes, even for a moment, you will have had a taste of Zion. I tasted it more than once in universities.”

Two instances of that taste of Zion were given by President Eyring. One during his time as president of Ricks College in Idaho, when he helped a professor remove mud from the professor’s basement alongside a neighbor and college employee after the Teton Dam broke. The second was during another visit to Laie, where he saw the aftermath of flooded homes.

In his response speech, President Tanner spoke of his charge to seek revelation from the Lord for direction, and where he has found that revelation. “I have found it in many places,” he said. “I have found it in my interactions with you. I have found it as I have walked the campus and read the history of the University and of Laie. I have found it in whisperings at night that filled me with joy and in illumination at dawn that brought light to my mind. Above all, I have found revelation in the revelations that founded the school. A vision of this school has been coming into focus.”

“I see a school purposefully located in an ancient place of refuge and a historic place of gathering,” said President Tanner about his vision for the school. “This is a sacred place, blessed by prophets many times over. I know of no Church college where place and purpose are more profoundly or powerfully linked.  I see a school that continues to provide a Zion-like place of refuge and of gathering.”

Elder Clark called President and Sister Tanner pioneers, “because the Lord will take them to the frontier of His work in the education and development of the rising generation in His true and living church.”

Daniel Scott, chair of the faculty advisory council, Dallin Leota, president of the BYU–Hawaii Student Service Association, and Keilani Briones, manager of BYU–Hawaii alumni relations, all gave welcome greetings to President Tanner as well.

President Tanner succeeds President Steven C. Wheelwright, who had served in the position since 2007.

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