Mentor Students Through the CES Network
Alumni of CES institutions can pay it forward to another generation of students.
Above image by BYU Photo
When you were a student in the Church Educational System, who coached you, gave you career advice, and helped you chart your course into the future? Through the CES Network, you have the chance to pay the gesture forward for a new generation of students.
CES Network platforms create a place for students and alumni of CES institutions to connect in a faith-centered, worldwide professional network.
“The goal is to connect students and alumni who can serve as mentors and guides for the students,” says Alexa Anderson, alumni relations marketing manager at BYU. “They’ve been in their shoes. They’ve taken the classes they’re taking. They may be able to open doors for potential jobs and internships.”
Through these platforms, alumni can mentor current students, post internship and job opportunities, conduct informational interviews, and provide referrals. Alumni also benefit: they can apply for open positions and engage with former classmates, current students, or those working in a similar field.
Each CES school has its own hub for connecting students to alumni—BYU Connect, BYUI Connect, Ensign Connect, and the Ohana Network (for BYU–Hawaii). However, in 2025, the Church Educational System is combining the platforms into the CES Network and providing new features.
Rob Bagley, manager of career services at Ensign College, is helping spearhead the CES Network. Bagley says that although students can currently connect with alumni of other institutions with approval, the process is long and sometimes tedious. Along with other features currently under development, the CES Network will include a powerful search engine to allow easier networking between students and alumni of all CES schools.
Alumni and students can sign up for their school’s Connect hub with an email address, school ID, or LinkedIn profile. Using the last option will automatically populate an individual’s Connect account with information, making for easy profile creation.
Connect: Sign up for the CES Network at ces.peoplegrove.com.
Alumni Chapters: Go Forth to Do Good
Looking for opportunities to serve? Find an alumni chapter.
Pounds of food: 82,000. Volunteer hours: 13,767. Scholarships: $923,000. It sounds like a professional charity. But really, those are just numbers from last year’s BYU Alumni chapter events, which exist to extend the BYU mission to all graduates. “We’ve entered and learned, . . . and now it’s time for us to go forth and serve,” explains BYU’s alumni relations manager Amanda Courtney Cox. “Part of that is . . . sharing the spirit of the Y. No matter where you are, the opportunities are there.”
That’s never been truer than today. There are more than 120 regional chapters—four added just last fall. Add in the 20 or so professional and school chapters, and BYU Alumni is spreading across the world.
And those chapters aren’t just for BYU graduates—they’re for all CES alumni. “If there’s a BYU chapter in your area, it’s for everyone,” Cox clarifies. “We want you to feel like you’re a part of it.” In some areas, BYU–Idaho has its own chapters, but “wherever a BYU chapter is located in the same region as a BYU–Idaho chapter, the goal is to collaborate,” notes Benjamin Watson, BYU–Idaho’s alumni engagement manager.
One of the best opportunities for collaboration is at BYU football tailgates. The events have massive turnouts, and they aren’t just for cheering on a team. “Our focus is really on serving,” says Matthew Sherry, senior manager for alumni relations at BYU. “To get together and rally for the game is [the vehicle for] a service project.” The service projects can range from coat drives to special needs fundraisers to food bank partnerships.
There was a particularly competitive football game when Cox served as a chapter chair. But because of an effort to serve—donating books to the local United Way—“by the end, we had emails that said, ‘We are fans of BYU!’” And while the events are a way to make new friends through service, that response is just a byproduct of the real work—helping the Church of Jesus Christ fulfill its mission of blessing the world. “[We] have a direct line to the mission of the Church,” Sherry explains.
With that goal in mind, BYU Alumni chapters take the spirit of CES institutions around the world. “None of this would be possible without members volunteering their time,” says Cox. “They don’t have to do it.” But an amazing number do. And there’s still opportunity to grow. As Sherry remarks, “Look at what this community can do with its current level of participation. Imagine all the good that could be done with more!” With hundreds of thousands of CES alumni across the world, the work is just beginning—and there’s room for anyone to join.
Connect: Learn more about alumni chapters in your area at alumni.byu.edu/chapters and byui.edu/alumni.
Lifting Society
The BYU Management Society strives to build moral and ethical leaders around the world.
In 1977 Merrill J. Bateman, dean of the BYU Marriott School of Management (now of Business), envisioned a network of principled professionals fostering moral and ethical leadership throughout the world. This organization could counter declining moral standards in society, mentor and propel young leaders, and help like-minded individuals build connections.
Since its founding under Bateman nearly half a century ago, the BYU Management Society (BYUMS) has become a global networking organization with more than 70 chapters in eight regions.
Roughly 1,000 BYU alumni serve as mentors each year to students in the program, connecting young entrepreneurs to managers, lawyers, and other professionals. BYUMS hosts a variety of opportunities for students to dig into their professions, from business lunches to job fairs. Volunteers also raise funds for scholarships and share their experience in leadership-development seminars.
In 2024 the society arranged business plan competitions in Nigeria and Singapore, giving entrepreneurs valuable experience, providing them feedback on their plans and entrepreneurial pursuits, and connecting them with mentors and coaches. Winners of the competitions received funds to help grow their business endeavors.
Jason Brown, executive director of the BYU Management Society, emphasizes the organization’s efforts to develop ethical leaders and build capable providers. “It’s about helping individuals wherever they’re at,” says Brown. It’s about “helping them have a better business plan so they can become self-reliant.”
That includes professionals worldwide. With past events in Ecuador, India, Mongolia, and other locations and an upcoming event in the Philippines, BYUMS continues to stretch its helping hand across the globe. “We don’t want anyone to feel like they’re left out because of distance,” Brown adds. “Education is the gateway to a self-reliant life. We want everyone to have the same opportunities to achieve their true potential.”
From the founding of BYUMS, Bateman wanted to establish a “giving and receiving society.” That vision is realized in the society’s cycle of replenishment: As Brown explains, rising professionals “can launch a career, advance in a career, and provide for their family at a high enough level where they have time to give back to their community.”
The society welcomes participants from a variety of academic backgrounds—not just BYU alumni. Brown encourages all who are interested to join their regional chapter and raise their hand to opportunities to give back, even in small ways. “Everyone’s a small player on the world stage. What’s our small part?” he says. “I love being a part of that lifting of society.”
Connect: Find your BYU Management Society chapter at byums.byu.edu/chapters.
Get Inspired with CES Devotionals
Spiritual messages at CES institutions provide insight for students, graduates, and others throughout the world.
“There’s something to be said . . . for taking a few minutes in the middle of a week to be uplifted by a spiritual message,” said BYU–Idaho president Alvin F. Meredith III in a September 2024 devotional address.
Weekly speeches combining study and faith are an integral part of campus life at Brigham Young University, BYU–Idaho, BYU–Hawaii, and Ensign College. BYU–Pathway Worldwide publishes addresses for its students online every few weeks.
These speeches—given by general authorities, faculty, staff, and guest lecturers—bring together discipleship and academic discipline. “Devotionals are an important reminder that we believe in being both conversant in our disciplines and in the language of the Spirit,” said BYU president C. Shane Reese before a devotional address in October 2024.
Devotionals aren’t just for current students. “Nearly every day we get an email from somebody that said, ‘This is the talk that just really was heaven-sent for me today,’” says Charles Cranney, senior manager of digital media at BYU Brand & Creative. He oversees the online distribution of BYU’s speeches.
Speeches are available online in audio, video, and text formats, and BYU is currently expanding its speeches collection to other languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Japanese. BYU, BYU–Idaho, and Ensign College also share addresses in podcast form. In addition to its Recent Speeches podcast, BYU offers nine other speeches podcasts on topics like marriage and love, temples and covenants, and overcoming adversity.
If you don’t have time for a 30-minute address, BYU shares smaller portions on social media, with inspiring short videos, highlights of humorous moments, and clips with words of wisdom, presenting an uplifting break from doomscrolling.
“When we talk to our alumni across the country and ask them to reflect on their time here on campus, . . . many talk about great memories of gathering every Tuesday for devotional,” said President Meredith. At BYU a recent study led by experience-design professor Patti Freeman found that devotionals rank No. 2 for helping students find belonging on campus. “It’s a pretty powerful ritual,” Freeman says.
Whether or not you are enrolled in a CES institution, you can benefit from the uplifting spiritual and educational messages contained in these speeches. Cranney attests: “There’s nothing like it in all the world.”
Connect: Access speeches from Church Educational System institutions at the following sites:
A Privilege to Give
Donor-funded scholarships and other opportunities open educational doors for learners all over the world.
When he was in fourth grade, Nasanbold Sukhbaatar left school to work on his family’s farm in Mongolia. He made it back in ninth grade, working hard to catch up to his peers, and eventually was able to attend BYU–Hawaii with his wife, Otgonchimeg Chimedregzen, thanks to a donor-funded international scholarship program. Sukhbaatar now works as a communications manager back in his home country.
“There’s no federal financial aid like Pell Grants for international students, which make up 75 percent of the students at BYU–Hawaii,” says Tanise Chung-Hoon, managing director of the Church Philanthropies Department, based in Provo and serving every CES institution. “Many students come from places where they don’t have the means to fund a formalized education. And thanks to the generosity of many donors, they have resources to be able to do that.”
Each student at a CES school, she says, receives a generous tuition subsidy from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even with that help, higher education may remain financially out of reach for some.
Philanthropies fundraising efforts on behalf of each CES institution can help make up the difference for thousands of students. “We gather resources from generous donors and friends to fund scholarships and student aid,” Chung-Hoon says.
Generous giving provides opportunities to students like Siena Christensen, a BYU linguistics student who used a donor-funded grant to study the brainwaves of people learning new languages, and Caio Moyano de Almeida, who received a scholarship for returned missionaries to continue his education at Ensign College.
These opportunities are provided by donors who give significantly and others who share what they can, including everyday alumni with a desire to give back.
“The thing that I love about giving is that it is a tangible way we can mimic our heavenly parents, who gave us the earth, water, the air we breathe—everything joyfully given to bless our lives,” Chung-Hoon says. “Philanthropy is our privilege to learn to become like God.”
She encourages alumni who feel the call to share their resources to explore needs and opportunities on the Philanthropies website.
“Anytime we’ve chosen to make a sacrifice for someone else, we feel so blessed and grateful for the privilege,” Chung-Hoon says. “The people that we work with who make significant sacrifices are also the most joyful and grateful.”
Connect: Find opportunities to support Church Educational System institutions at philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org.