Inauguration Tuesday for Pres. Samuelson

PROVO — Cecil O. Samuelson has been looking forward to his inauguration next week since he took over as president of Brigham Young University in May.

It isn't that he cares for the pomp and circumstance. In fact, the ceremony has been trimmed to fit into the university's traditional hour reserved each Tuesday for campus devotionals.

What President Samuelson has anticipated is further insight and direction from LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley. President Hinckley, who is also the chairman of BYU's Board of Trustees, will conduct and speak at the inauguration and will install President Samuelson as BYU's 12th president.

He also will give President Samuelson a charge, said BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins.

When President Hinckley stunned the former University of Utah student — President Samuelson holds three degrees from the U., where he also spent nearly two decades as an administrator — by calling him to helm BYU, he told President Samuelson, "You'll do what is right."

"Subsequent to that time," President Samuelson said last week during BYU's annual University Conference, "President Hinckley has called to see how our Provo housing is coming but has not given further new or specific direction. I believe he will on Sept. 9."

Elder Merrill J. Bateman of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Seventy was inaugurated in a combined ceremony during graduation in April 1996.

President Samuelson, a physician and former president of Intermountain Health Care hospitals, is also a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.

The inauguration will be Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Marriott Center. The event is open to the campus community. It will be broadcast on KBYU-TV, KBYU-FM and the BYU Television satellite network.