Welcome to this edition of the Review magazine, a resource that seeks to connect Religious Education at Brigham Young University with the public and others who are interested in the events and activities sponsored by Religious Education. We have attempted to highlight the exciting developments in faculty research that took place in the second half of 2015. One of our faculty members spent the last year servings as the director of the MIT institute in Boston, another of our faculty members spent time excavating in Jordan with several undergraduate students, and from the list of publications you will see that the faculty have been productive in many different ways.

One event that took place in 2015, to which I’d like to draw your attention, is the service of Assistant Professor Barbara Morgan, who spent the last year on a one-year assignment in Boston coordinating the seminaries and institute program there. While there, Barbara was appointed to be the the first and now only female chaplain-at-large over higher education. While serving as chaplain at MIT and Harvard, Barbara had the opportunity to advise both LDS and other students on religious questions.

I would also like to call your attention to a timely article on the Church’s restoration efforts in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Mark Staker and Alex Baugh have documented the Church’s approximately decade long efforts to restore the site and draw attention to the pivotal position of this site in the early events of the Restoration.

Part of the goal in publishing the Review magazine is also the opportunity to share the exciting work that the RSC is doing and has done in the previous months and year. We had an exceptional publication year in 2015, and we continue to receive excellent submissions of manuscripts and articles. As publications director of the RSC, I can say that the flood of information regarding the history of the Church has had positive consequences for our publication agenda. For publications in the past year, we would draw your attention to some of our important offerings: From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon; Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World: The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and Wonder; and Far Away in the West: Reflections on the Mormon Pioneer Trail. While this short list is by no means comprehensive, it does represent some of the fine work that Religious Education faculty have produced.

I welcome you into the pages of this edition of the Review and hope that you find something of value, something uplifting, and something to cause a moment of reflection.

Thomas A. Wayment

Publications Director

Religious Studies Center