Wheatley Institution
The Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley Institution of Brigham Young University (BYU) seeks to promote high level scholarship and disseminate ideas broadly. Currently the institution's director is Richard N. Williams.
The organization started in 2007 and was founded through the efforts of Jack Wheatley. Wheatley previously spent more than 20 years on the board of Stanford University's Hoover Institution and wanted the new BYU institution to fulfill somewhat the same role.
In October 2009 the Institution held a forum on combating the New Atheism.
Beginning on January 11, 2010, the institution had several distinguished outside speakers such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Condoleezza Rice. One of the leading figures behind the institution's success inviting such speakers was one of its senior fellows, Amos Jordan, who previously had been president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, the institution sponsored a series of speakers on scientism. Speakers included Daniel N. Robinson, Peter Hacker, Richard G. Swinburne, Bas van Fraassen, Lawrence Principe, Kenneth F. Schaffner, and Roger Scruton.
The board of overseers consists of:
- Jack Wheatley, chair; a northern California real estate developer
- Merrill J. Bateman, vice-chair; former president of BYU
- Alan Ashton, member; business executive
- Bruce Christensen member; business executive
- Sandra Rogers, member; BYU International Vice President
- Brent W. Webb, member; BYU Academic Vice President
- Charles Wheatley, member; Principal, Wheatley Financial Consulting LLC
- Kevin J Worthen, member; president of BYU
- Gerrit W. Gong, member on leave; member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the LDS Church.
- Jane Clayson Johnson, member on leave; TV news correspondent; public speaker