Brian J. Hill (BS ’86) ran to his dorm to change into his black sharkskin polyester suit and a tie. “What else would I wear to hear the prophet?” he remembers thinking on his way to attend President Spencer W. Kimball’s devotional address in 1979. Despite feeling a bit overdressed, Hill enjoyed a powerful experience in the Marriott Center.
Now an experience-design professor, Hill worked with a group of researchers to quantify the value of devotional attendance at BYU.
Led by BYU experience-design professor Patti A. Freeman (BS ’88) and joined by Gary Ellis at Texas A&M University, the study sought to understand the impact of the experiences available on campus, from student-wellness classes to connecting with a professor. Results, published in the Journal of College Student Retention, found that devotional attendance was ranked near the top for helping students feel connected to BYU. “It’s a pretty powerful ritual that any BYU student would remember,” says Freeman.
Nearly 900 students in Hill’s experience-design course sampled thousands of campus experiences and reported their feelings of connectedness with BYU and BYU’s mission. Devotional attendance landed only behind playing on an athletic team—an opportunity not available to most students. Devotional participation, however, is open to all.
“When we go to the Marriott Center for devotionals, we feel connected to something way beyond ourselves,” Hill explains. It’s this collective connectedness that bolsters students’ sense of belonging and self-relevance. “It informs and affirms who you are,” adds Freeman.
Engaging experiences like these add unique value to a student’s life. “When you feel connected to BYU,” Hill says, “you also feel connected to other people. I think that is a source of happiness.”
