Jeffrey R. Holland

His father, Frank D. Holland, was a convert to the LDS Church while his mother, Alice, came from a long line of Latter-day Saints.[12] At Yale, Holland studied with American literary scholar and critic R. W. B. Lewis and authored a dissertation on the religious sense of Mark Twain.As the church's commissioner of education at the time Oaks was released, Holland was supposed to compile a list of candidates to be the next BYU president.[17]: 42 In order to supplement the school's funds, Holland launched a fundraiser called "Excellence in the Eighties" which sought to raise $100 million from 1982 to 1987.[17]: 115 Regarding violations of the Honor Code, if a student requested their names be removed from the church records, Holland instituted a policy in which they would have to receive special permission from the board of trustees in order to remain enrolled in school.[17]: 122–23 During Holland's presidency, the weekly independent student newspaper, The 7th East Press was shut down due to writing about controversial topics.[24] Holland was called as a general authority and member of the First Quorum of the Seventy on April 1, 1989, bringing an end to his term as BYU's president.Prior to his call as a general authority, Holland served as bishop of a single adult ward in Seattle, as a counselor in the presidency of the Hartford Connecticut Stake,[5] and as a regional representative.[15] From 1990 to 1993, Holland and his wife lived in Solihull, England, where he served as president of the church's Europe North Area.[29][30] In church general conferences in the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008, Holland gave sermons that directly answered accusations that Latter-day Saints are not Christians.[35] On June 10, 2015, he addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords at the UK Parliament.[41] In 2020, as chairman of the executive committee of the BYU-Hawaii board of trustees, he announced the appointment of John S. K. Kauwe III as the institution's new president.[42][43] In August 2021, Holland spoke at BYU's annual conference for faculty and staff and the speech sparked controversy within the LGBTQ+ community.[44] In the address,[45] Holland asked the faculty to defend the doctrine of the LDS Church, BYU's institutional sponsor, with the use of metaphorical "musket fire.[50] Their oldest son, Matthew S. Holland, served as president of Utah Valley University from 2009 to 2018[51] and has been a general authority since April 2020.[52] Their youngest son, David F. Holland, is the John A. Bartlett Professor of New England Church History and Interim Dean of Harvard Divinity School.