New BYU Building Combines Education and Worship (A place to learn and worship)
Deseret News 14Dec99 B1
By Edward L. Carter: Deseret News staff writer

PROVO, UTAH -- The LDS Church dedicated a unique chapel on BYU's campus Sunday, one that BYU President Merrill J. Bateman billed as the wave of the future. The building will house two LDS student stakes as well as BYU's English Language Center. The building will be used both for BYU classes on weekdays and for regular LDS meetings on Sundays and in the evenings. Bateman sees this dual use as the "prototype for what the church does across the Earth."

While a number of BYU campus buildings (and those at other LDS owned colleges as well) are also used for church meetings on Sundays, the University Parkway Center, as the building is called, is the first specifically designed for both purposes.

The dedicatory prayer for the building was given by Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve, who also serves as commissioner of the Church Education System, which includes BYU and other LDS Church owned colleges. In remarks given to several hundred people in one of the building's two chapels, Elder Eyring said that the building will be an important addition to the BYU student experience. "As I walked through the building just now, I had a remarkable experience. There is something in this experience that will be of tremendous importance for education and our religious reach across the world."

Elder Bateman said that the lessons learned in constructing the building would help the Church's ecclesiastical and educational arms become seamlessly connected. "Since coming to campus as the president, I've had a very strong feeling that we need to combine the secular with the sacred. The Lord's school doesn't have a dividing line. Life doesn't have a dividing line."

Construction on the three-story building began in November 1997 and finished in August.