Celebrating Our Present

BYU is wrapping up a celebration 150 years in the making, and what’s an anniversary without some gifts?

One large component of the sesquicentennial was the Beacons of Light projects—initiatives members of the BYU community undertook to radiate light within their fields. Guided by the tagline Celebrating Gifts of Light, academic and administrative units across campus honored BYU’s 150 years not just with treats and parties but also with meaningful results.

BYU Marriott found unique ways to mark the milestone by supporting 16 projects—more than any other BYU college—with outcomes as distinct as the sponsoring departments, programs, and centers themselves. Here we highlight some examples of how BYU Marriott came together to celebrate its beloved university.

A Case for Being Christlike

The flagship BYU Marriott Beacons of Light project was a case competition held in October 2025. While the school sponsors case competitions annually, this event incor-porated a distinct focus: Christlike leadership.

More than 200 students, working in teams, were asked to advise an AI startup that was moving from servicing small businesses to focusing on franchisors and multi-location organizations. Throughout this transition, leaders hoped to maintain ethical standards, honor legacy clients, and balance profit with responsibility.

The business world is often nuanced, says BYU Marriott Dean Brigitte Madrian, and it’s not always intuitive how to act as the Savior would in complex situations. “The case competition was a great opportunity for students to take what they’ve learned about being a disciple of Jesus Christ and apply it,” she says.

Dallin Christensen, a member of the winning team, says that the case competition helped him realize that incorporating Christlike leadership can lead to better outcomes.

“If we had only thought about the case from a cut-and-dry corporate perspective, we might have just said, ‘Let’s do what makes the most money,’” says Christensen, a strategy student from Pleasant View, Utah. “But because we thought about it in a Christlike way, we went a lot deeper and found a really innovative solution that took care of the business’s needs and some of the clients’ needs too.”

National Advisory Council member Larry Tashjian, one of the competition’s judges, noticed how the students thoughtfully applied a balanced approach while focusing on Christlike leadership. “They’re being trained in the discipline of business but at the same time expanding their thoughts into something more than just profit and loss,” says Tashjian, CEO of CAM Capital Advisors. As a result, BYU Marriott students take their training and share it with others beyond the university. “I can see the excitement in their eyes,” says Tashjian. “They can’t wait to get out and make a change in the world—they genuinely want to make good decisions for society.”

Experiential learning opportunities, such as case competitions, benefit students long after they leave BYU, Madrian adds. “When they graduate, take jobs, and work in their communities, they will have already thought through some of the wrinkles and challenges and will be better prepared to lead as the Savior would.”

The BYU Marriott vision of transforming the world through Christlike leadership—along with its mission to develop leaders of faith, intellect, and character—defines the school’s purpose and supports the broader Church Educational System mission. “This is not a vision and a mission that you’re going to find at any other business school,” Madrian says. “It’s unique to who we are. It’s true to who we are. It’s aspirational and, in my experience, it’s motivational for both our students and our employees.”

Presents with Purpose

A number of BYU Marriott Beacons of Light projects were designed to create impactful experiences for the student participants and the communities they served.

At the Ballard Center for Social Impact, these efforts took the form of launching a hunger initiative that was focused on bringing people together to learn about and combat food insecurity. The scope of global hunger is significant: According to the World Health Organization, more than 2 billion people worldwide face moderate or severe food insecurity.¹

The hunger initiative was marked by three large-scale gatherings. The first was US Against Hunger, an event to educate BYU students on food insecurity and to generate change. The Ballard Center also hosted Social Impact Leaders Convening, a two-day conference that brought together faculty and staff from universities across the country. A third event, the Do Good. Better. Conference, featured keynote speaker Reverend Dr. Heber Brown III, who built a church-based food security network that turns unused church grounds into gardens.

Mara Magill, a BYU Marriott strategy student from Layton, Utah, leads the Ballard Center’s student-run hunger team. She noticed an energy that came out of the conferences, despite the heavy topics. “You confront how deeply hunger and food insecurity affect marginalized communities, but then you see people who recognize and confront that reality and choose to act in ways that are practical, scalable, and replicable,” she says. “It’s not just inspiring to see good work happening; it makes you believe, I can do that too.”

Another far-reaching sesquicentennial project involved 30 students participating in a study abroad in Asia and the Pacific through the global supply chain management (GSCM) program. Because Australian regulations now require large organizations to report how they address modern-day slavery, students partnered with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to study technologies—such as audio equipment—used in its facilities and to assess forced-labor risks among manufacturers the Church partners with.

The project culminated in presentations to church leaders in New Zealand, where students shared findings to help guide ethical decision-making in the future. For study-abroad participant Natalie Kruitbosch, from Layton, Utah, the experience was especially meaningful because she got to “contribute direct research to help the Church make progress on an issue that’s important in the world today.”

The experience also gave Kruitbosch, a GSCM senior minoring in global and community impact, a chance to see her two areas of study intersect. “That’s exciting because I am going to step into an international buyer role, and I’ll have that lens of how I can address social problems while also moving my company’s goals forward because I saw that in a real context,” she says.

Back in Utah, BYU Marriott information systems (IS) students worked with the Turtle Shelter Project, a local nonprofit, for another experience-based endeavor. As part of INTEX, a weeklong capstone exercise focused on a real-world project, IS students created website prototypes for the Turtle Shelter Project to help manage service events and volunteers.

The main objective of INTEX, says IS Associate Professor Ryan Schuetzler, is to help students connect what they’ve learned—database design, programming, networking, and analytics—while making an impact. “The experience showed students how classroom skills are not only practical but also applicable to helping an organization,” he says. “There are so many organizations that could benefit from even just a little bit of technical capability.”

The project helped Amy Sessions, an IS student from Joliet, Montana, refine her technical skills and enhance her ability to work in groups. “It was a fun experience learning how to work with different personalities,” she says. “We definitely had some challenges, but the project was also a big opportunity to figure out how to work efficiently.”

During INTEX week, the entire first-year IS class—all 240 of them—took a break from applying their technical skills to assemble Turtle Shelter vests, which people experiencing homelessness wear to stay warm in freezing temperatures. Aaron Zorrilla, an IS student from Orem, says the project helped him feel that he was making a tangible difference. “It turned out to be something I really enjoyed since it’s not often that I get to help an organization that does so much for the homeless,” he says. “Everything we did felt like it had purpose.”

When students serve others unconditionally, they are learning about becoming Christlike, says Greg Anderson, an IS professor. “We should love everybody no matter what—whether they have money or they don’t, whether they have housing or they don’t. We can see everyone as a son or a daughter of our Heavenly Father.”

Photo by Photo by Tanner Grenko

Gifts That Keep on Giving

While some Beacons of Light projects were one-time efforts, others were designed as perpetual gifts—resources meant to last well beyond the sesquicentennial celebration.

For its project, the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology compiled a legacy list featuring 150 businesses started by BYU students, faculty, and alumni.

BYU has a rich tradition of supporting budding entrepreneurs, says Mike Hendron, Rollins Center director and associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship. “If you look at our history, you see people willing to take risks, explore ideas, and create new opportunities and inventions,” Hendron says.

Many of those ventures, he continues, are extensions of what others have accomplished. “We see wave after wave of new entrepreneurship activity building on the work of those who came before,” Hendron says. “The legacy list shows that we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, and it encourages people to keep building more ventures.”

Hendron believes that BYU’s entrepreneurs are shaped by a unique mix of influences, including church culture, mission service, and BYU’s entrepreneurial network. The Rollins Center draws on that network by bringing alumni into courses and extracurricular activities to share career insights. “We encourage speakers to talk about how they built their businesses in ways that reflect gospel principles and follow Christ’s approach of respecting and loving others,” Hendron says.

Hannah Cardon, a recent BYU graduate who studied entrepreneurship and Russian, had an office space in the Rollins Center for her startup, DryRise, which offers a noninvasive wearable device for people with overactive bladders. “If my team didn’t have that space, we’d have to keep all of our equipment in our apartments,” she says. “Having an office also helped us become more tight knit.”

The center also supported DryRise as the team prepped for BYU’s Student Innovator of the Year competition and applied for grants. “There are specific instances when people at the center took time out of their day to help me, even when they didn’t have to,” Cardon says. “Those moments had a big impact on me. Now I want to do the same for others—to help them and to keep that positive momentum going.”

Cardon has been inspired to become a more Christlike leader because of the Rollins Center’s employees who “work so tirelessly to help students. They’re always encouraging us to reach out with questions, and that creates a lot of positive energy,” she says.

BYU Marriott’s Business Career Center (BCC) also drew upon positive energy and advice as it created a collection of videos—Career Life Hacks: A Resource Library for Students—for its sesquicentennial project.

The purpose of the effort is to empower both current and future students, says Noelani Wayas, career director for experience design and management (ExDM). Nearly 200 BYU Marriott students were recorded answering four questions: Why did you choose your major? How did you land your internship? How did you overcome self-doubt? What advice would you give your younger self?

The recorded comments were compiled into a searchable library. “As students reflected on their journeys, they had the opportunity to celebrate how far they’ve come,” Wayas says. “Now, these videos will inspire future students to shape their business school journeys, build confidence, and move forward boldly in their next steps.”

Students who watch the videos can hear advice from people such as Samuel Clark, an MBA student from Sandy, Utah. “My self-doubt comes from not being vulnerable,” he shares. “[I would advise my younger self] to plan a little less and just go and do it. Try to make yourself uncomfortable in the name of progress and working toward something instead of just sitting there and planning it out for so long.”

Wayas believes the project helped build Christlike leaders by embracing one of the BYU Marriott core values: respect for all. She recalls that during the filming, “there were many times when I found myself crying because of the hardships and the emotional stress students shared. Their grit, resilience, and perseverance to meet their goals and live up to their true potential were so inspiring.”

The Beacons of Light projects, such as the BCC’s videos, honored BYU during its sesquicentennial year with efforts that not only strengthened its community but also benefited the world. “I’m grateful for the tremendous effort that has gone into the planning, execution, and preservation of these projects,” Madrian says. “Each of these endeavors has given our students the opportunity to experience and share the light of Jesus Christ.”

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Note

1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), and World Health Organization (WHO), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024: Financing to End Hunger, Food Security and Malnutrition in All Its Forms, 2024, xvi–xix, 4, 17, doi.org/10.4060/cd1254en.