PROVO, Utah — Summer break was in full swing Tuesday, when it took real work to find BYU students anywhere on campus other than in a kitchen or behind a counter, making and selling brownies to a bustling Education Week crowd.
Just more than half of the estimated 20,000 participants who clog the BYU Bookstore, parking lots and hallways and make the week one of the world's largest ongoing education programs are 55 and older, but teens and twenty-somethings love it, too.
For Townsend Judd, 15, just stepping foot on campus Tuesday afternoon was a relief, representing the end of a weeklong drive from his home in Alexandria, Virginia, in a 12-passenger van with the full 12 passengers — his parents, his seven siblings and a family friend and her son.
Judd and his teenaged cousins stayed home Tuesday morning to babysit their brothers, sisters and younger cousins while their parents and aunts and uncles attended morning classes.
The afternoon was teenager time.
Judd and his cousin Aaron Ewell, 15, of American Fork, Utah, looked forward to attending classes taught by John Bytheway and Hank Smith, beloved speakers among youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ewell was here last year. "My favorite part was the dance," he said.
On Thursday night, up to 2,000 teenagers will have the opportunity to attend a dance at BYU's football field, LaVell Edwards Stadium.
"I'm guessing that's going to be my favorite part, too," Judd said confidently.
Why?
"I'm just going to say girls," he said.
Attendance at the 93rd year of Education Week is running about 7 percent higher than last year, said BYU spokeswoman Emily Hellewell. The event includes nearly 1,000 classes that blend faith and reason, one of BYU's chief aims. Each lasts 55 minutes and they range in subject from "Tips for Tackling Teenage Troubles," by Bytheway and Brad Wilcox to credit-bearing continuing legal education courses.
Wilcox began a different class Tuesday by expressing wonder at people who take a week off to attend classes.
"Do you realize how crazy you are?" he asked. "And you're filling this campus."
For Wilcox, Education Week is an expression of LDS reverence for lifelong learning.
"Education runs through us in such a way not only to have educational institutions, but to fill them, and not only with children but (one week a year) with adults."
Wilcox, a professor of education, said many books on education list LDS Church founder Joseph Smith as the founder of adult education. In 1833, he founded the School of the Prophets for church leaders. Both men and women studied religion, cultures, languages and history, Wilcox said.
"They cannot document a school earlier than the School of the Prophets that was a school for adults."
The topics at Education Week are broad, but 61 percent of classes fall under the heading of religion. The rest of the breakdown: education classes, 19 percent; family/home, 9 percent; self-improvement, 7 percent; youth, 5 percent.
The LDS Church, which runs BYU, is heavily invested. Elder Neil L. Andersen of the faith's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles delivered the week's keynote address on Tuesday. He said President Boyd K. Packer, who had been the quorum's leader and next in line to lead the church, was scheduled to speak before his death last month.
It's a big week for LDS artists and booksellers, too. A new painting by artist Greg Olsen will be unveiled this week and be on permanent, public display in the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center. It depicts a metaphor for a journey of discovery.
Sisters Tania Brunner and Claudia Torres of East Los Angeles are discovering Education Week for the first time.
Torres moved to Utah nine months ago to work as a teacher in West Valley City. She is skipping some training to attend Education Week.
"You can say I ditched school for this," she said.
Brunner is a young mother who recently moved from Washington with her husband and three children to Utah, so he can begin a master's degree program at the University of Utah.
"He has a week off before school," Brunner said, "so this is a great opportunity to do something for me and hopefully become a better person and mother."
Brunner is focused on parenting, marriage and temple classes.
"It's like a vacation for me," she said, "a spiritual vacation."
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com