BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications
Dear Friend of the College,
Students in the College of Fine Arts and Communications are developing and sharing their talents, serving their communities, and learning and practicing leadership skills. With your support, the college is providing more of our students with inspiring learning opportunities.
Our students are amazing! I invite you to support them by donating [link to giving form] to the department or school of your choice. What you give will be a boon for our students and will help BYU achieve its prophetically directed mission.
President C. Shane Reese said at his inauguration last fall, “As we strive to become the BYU of prophecy, we must develop ourselves in things both secular and sacred. When secular and sacred truths reinforce one another, we must embrace both.”
Students in the college embrace reinforced secular and spiritual truths. There are thousands of examples of this—just three are highlighted below.
Our students and alumni are making names for themselves and boosting BYU’s reputation of service and learning around the world. They lift, inspire, teach, and entertain, and their education is enhanced because of you.
On behalf of the students, faculty, and staff, I thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Ed Adams, Dean
Theatre and Media Arts
Theatre arts education major Judy Schnebly is passionate about bringing inspiring stories to the stage. In the summer of 2023, Professor Alexandra Mackenzie Johns asked Schnebly to accompany her to Lancashire, England, and help produce the British Pageant, a production that tells the story of Heber C. Kimball and other early missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served in the British Isles.
Schnebly says, “Thanks to the generosity of the TMA Student Grant Committee, I learned invaluable, on-the-job lessons about stagecraft, communication, directing, and ensemble building. And I relished the experience of learning alongside Mackenzie Johns.”
The scale of the pageant, with a cast and volunteer team of nearly 500 people, was unlike anything Schnebly had ever experienced before. As a descendant of early British converts, Schnebly was grateful for the opportunity to help share the stories of her ancestors and others like them through the pageant.
School of Communications
School of Communications recent grad Emily Hooke created a business proposal for a social platform to help connect nursing home residents with volunteers in casual one-on-one conversations online. The proposed platform, Insta-Gramp, creates opportunities for connection and empathy across generations. Hooke’s research won her a grand prize in Duke University’s annual New Ideas competition, which promotes business ideas that contribute to improving civil discourse and reducing polarization in society.
As part of her grand prize, Hooke traveled to North Carolina and presented her proposal to a panel of Duke alumni. “It was thrilling to be there,” she says. Regarding innovation, she adds, “If you have an idea that you’re passionate about, and you want to see positive change happen, there’s no reason you should feel limited.”
Hooke was also named Public Relations Student of the Year at the 2023 Utah Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Golden Spike Awards.
School of Music
Before he graduated from the commercial music program in April 2023, Sam Clawson used skills he’d learned in the School of Music to land the once-in-a-lifetime chance to compose for the popular local band The National Parks. Clawson contacted lead singer Brady Parks and proposed the possibility of orchestral arrangements of some of the band’s songs.
Clawson then enlisted the BYU Philharmonic to help with the recordings, and he and the musicians worked with the band and its producers to record the orchestrations. Clawson funded the production with money he received from an experiential learning grant.
Clawson learned how to arrange, compose, and remix music while at BYU. He says his goal as a musician is to “bring a little light, a little happiness into somebody’s life.” Because of his experience working with The National Parks, Clawson encourages music students to go for their goals, saying, “You can make your dreams a reality.”