Brigham Young University-Hawaii

the underground Hawai‘i Catholic Church the right to worship, while at the same time allowing other faith traditions to begin establishing themselves. By 1919, the church was prominent enough in the area to build a temple in Lāiʻe. Two years after the temple was dedicated then-LDS Church apostle David O. McKay stated the church would build a school in the area in the future. In 1951, McKay, as church president, began preliminary plans on the school, and in 1955 ground was broken for the new institution. Classes began at BYU–Hawaii in September 1955 as the Church College of Hawaii to accommodate the burgeoning LDS population in the Territory of Hawai‘i. This was largely a result of McKay's views on both education and strengthening the church outside of its longtime intermountain west U.S. base. The original class consisted of 153 students and 20 faculty meeting in old World War II buildings, with Reuben D. Law as the school's first president. The school's first buildings were dedicated on December 17, 1958. The …