LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley lauded the past history of LDS Business College and gave a hint of its future Thursday during a ceremony to honor the endowment of a scholarship fund named for his parents.
The Bryant S. and Ada Bitner Hinckley Scholarship Endowment has grown to $262,000. Much of that sum was gathered by faculty members, Hinckley family members and friends of the college since President Hinckley learned last summer that faculty members had endowed a small scholarship fund honoring his parents.
He subsequently offered his own generous donation and asked college president Stephen Woodhouse if he could "help get this thing going."
Since then donations have accelerated, culminating with Thursday's ceremony in honor of exceeding the endowment's original goal of $250,000. The corpus of the fund will remain in perpetuity, with the earnings used to fund eight part-time scholarships for students each year.
The school has 1,350 students representing every state and 50 foreign nations.
In a video presentation honoring his parents' legacy of teaching and service to the college — founded in 1886 — President Hinckley told how his father was asked to become principal of the school in 1900, after internal turmoil saw the exodus of many students and faculty, threatening the school's future.
A recent graduate himself, Bryant Hinckley toured the nation's best business schools in the East at his own expense and used the knowledge he gained there to engineer the school's structure, curriculum and faculty-student relations.
Ada Bitner was one of the first teachers at the college after attending the school herself. She returned to teach English and literature and share her skills in typing and Gregg shorthand. Her skills were widely lauded among students and faculty alike. She met and married Bryant Hinckley at the college, where they were both employed from 1899-1910.
"Teachers put something in the hearts of students that transforms their lives forever," Bryant Hinckley once said.
President Hinckley emphasized the value of the hands-on education the school provides, saying he hopes the endowment fund will continue to grow, "possibly by small increments, so that more and more students may be blessed" through financial help.
He lauded the college as unique among the institutions of higher learning owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and suggested that those in attendance "take a good look at these premises because you aren't going to have them much longer."
Plans are under way to relocate the college as part of the LDS Church's redevelopment of several commercial properties downtown. President Hinckley serves as chairman of the school's board of trustees.
"We're going to move you to better quarters. I've been in meetings the last day or two concerning new housing" for the school, he said, adding that students living in older dorms will "have a nice place to sleep. It will be an improvement over what you have."
The church is committed to the continuation of the school, he said, noting it's a "very unique and interesting place. . . . We hope it will increase in importance and stature as a part of the Church Education System."
The ceremony was held on the third floor of the college, which resembles many of the other stately mansions that line South Temple. As he left the event, President Hinckley quipped to the audience that there is "one thing you won't miss when you move — that's the elevator in this building."
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