BYU Ed Week is featuring 1,000 classes

PROVO — This year's Education Week features 179 presenters brought back by popular demand and 29 new presenters as organizers of the 85th annual event offer more than 1,000 classes on topics from home organization to scriptural understanding to making money and brain mapping.

Co-sponsored by BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Church Educational System, Campus Education Week brings in more than 20,000 visitors each August, including teenagers who may pick from 60 or more classes designed for them.

Participants may register for the week, a day or just a few hours.

"We're just a bit ahead of our registration numbers last years at this point," said H. Bruce Payne, administrator of Campus Education Week. "Last year, we had 20,615 people register."

Classes are held in buildings all across campus, but this year no classes are in the Marriott Center except the devotional on Tuesday at 11:10 a.m., which will feature Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That makes everything more centralized, said Payne.

Campus Education Week 2007 conflicts with the start of school for some local school districts, so that cuts down on the number of youths who can attend, but Payne said the event has to be carefully scheduled so as not to bump up against the start of classes or orientation activities at the university.

"The good thing is it starts to cool down a bit this late in August," Payne said.

Also, organizers have made an effort to plan classes that fit within the school day so parents can come to Education Week and still be home for their children in the early afternoon, he said.

Highlight performances of Education Week will include the debut of "The White Star," "Take Down the Mountain" and a musical treat, "An Evening with Marvin Goldstein."

To register for Education Week, log on to educationweek.byu.edu.