SALT LAKE CITY — John “Keoni” Kauwe was introduced Tuesday as the 11th president of BYU-Hawaii by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, chairman of the executive committee of BYU-Hawaii’s board of trustees and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The announcement was made during a devotional broadcast from Salt Lake City and livestreamed on BYU-Hawaii’s website.
Kauwe is an internationally recognized researcher specializing in Alzheimer’s disease and is the dean of Graduate Studies at Brigham Young University in Provo. BYU’s graduate program has 2,800 students, similar in size to the BYU-Hawaii campus.
He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and is a senior editor for the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Last year, his research was cited 2,700 times, according to Google Scholar.
At 40, Kauwe will be the youngest president in the history of BYU-Hawaii and one of the youngest college or university presidents in the Church Education System.
He will replace John Tanner, 69, who served five years as president, on July 1. An inauguration will be scheduled later, traditionally in the fall.
Kauwe earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at BYU. He completed a doctoral degree in evolution, ecology and population biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
He also lived in Hawaii for several years as a child. His fourth great-grandfather, Kaleohano, was one of the first converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawaii, taught by Elder George Q. Cannon in 1851.
“Like many of you, I am a direct descendant of men and women who built the first churches and homes that established Laie as a community of Latter-day Saints; a descendant of the men and women who labored to build the temple that stands nearby,” he said. “My heart is ‘turned to my fathers’ and I feel deeply connected to the history of sacrifice, faith and prophetic direction associated with Laie and BYU-Hawaii.”
Said Tanner, “I’m particularly excited that one of Hawaii’s native sons will now serve as president.”
Kauwe is married to the former Monica Mortenson. They live in Orem with their five children, ages 13 to 2.
Elder Paul V. Johnson, church commissioner of education, conducted the devotional.
Tanner was introduced as BYU-Hawaii’s 10th president during a campus devotional in May 2015 by Elder Russell M. Nelson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who then was the chairman of the executive committee of BYU-Hawaii’s board of trustees. President Nelson is now the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and chairman of the church board of education.
The church owns and its board operates BYU-Hawaii and four other schools — BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide and LDS Business College.
“The officers and board of trustees of BYU-Hawaii have extended their heartfelt vote of thanks and conveyed a much deserved letter of release to John and Susan Tanner for their remarkable years of service at the university. We are grateful for John’s industry, his loyalty, his religious faith and his academic vision,” Elder Holland said. “We will miss him and Susan.”
Tanner expressed gratitude to Elder Holland for counseling him as a doctoral student as he weighed potential careers teaching religion or English.
“It seems so fitting to be by your side as I end my academic career and put into harbor,” Tanner said to Elder Holland.
Tanner succeeded Steven Wheelwright as BYU-Hawaii’s president on his birthday in July 2015 and was inaugurated in November 2015 by President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency of the church. President Eyring said Tanner yearned to combine academic excellence and the charity of Jesus Christ in a Zion university.
Tanner pivoted BYU-Hawaii to the Pacific Rim. BYU-Hawaii already was an international school with students from 70 countries, but his administration increased enrollment from 2,700 to 3,200 with an emphasis on adding students from the Pacific Rim.
In October 2015, Tanner announced the elimination of intercollegiate athletics, in part to pay for the larger student body.
Tanner is a Milton expert who spent most of his career at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. His academic career included time as a Fulbright Scholar, chairman of the BYU English Department and academic vice president at BYU.
He also served as president of the church’s Brazil São Paulo South Mission and as first counselor in the church’s Sunday School general presidency. He delivered his final BYU-Hawaii devotional on Jan. 23, then guided the school through the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring.
Tanner’s wife, Susan Winder Tanner, a former Young Women general president for the church, gave a devotional address last week that she modeled after the final lectures of prophets in the Book of Mormon.
BYU-Hawaii was founded in 1955 by the late church President David O. McKay, who said he received a revelation to bless the people of the Pacific with a school in the shadow of the Laie Hawaii Temple.