Richard J. McClendon is an associate director of Institutional Assessment and Analysis at Brigham Young University. Prior to this position, he spent two years as the Research Director for the Economic Self-Reliance Center in the Marriott School of Management at BYU. He taught in the Department of Sociology at BYU and was an adjunct professor in Religious Education. He received his PhD in sociology from BYU, where his focus of study was on LDS returned missionaries, family, and education.