BYU-contracted housing: What to do if you have a problem

Editor’s note: The Daily Universe received more than 100 comments on a June 5, 2017 Facebook post asking our readers about issues they have had with off-campus housing. Those comments led, in part, to the development of the BYU Off-Campus Housing Series. 

Part One – Off-campus BYU housing: It’s complicated

Part Two – Housing quality doesn’t always live up to price, students say

Part Three – BYU students struggle to sell yearlong housing contracts

Part Four – Off-campus tenants and landlords clash over security deposits

Part Five – Students find ways to cope during “homeless week”

Part Six – Students share their housing horror stories

The BYU Off-Campus Housing Series — Part Seven

Annie Wallace said she went through the proper procedures to get her deposit back when she moved out of her apartment in April. She completed her cleaning check, returned her keys and left a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

But after two months she still had not received her deposit.

Her calls to the company that manages her BYU-contracted apartment complex went nowhere. Different people gave Wallace different excuses, she said.

Wallace, a pre-communications junior from Cedar Hills, Utah, turned to the BYU Off-Campus Housing website, where she found a document titled “Tenant’s Notice to Provide Deposit Disposition.”

The document notifies the recipient they have five days to return the deposit and an additional $100 penalty to the tenant. Wallace dropped the notice off at the management company’s office.

Five days passed and Wallace still had not received her deposit. She finally received her deposit in the mail on June 12, but the company failed to include the additional $100 penalty.

Wallace sent the company another email about their failure to pay the penalty. If they fail to respond, Wallace is considering taking the management company to mediation to try to settle the issue.

“We’d go through BYU just because I feel like the threat of being in trouble with BYU housing is a little more powerful for them. I’m sure they paid a lot of money to get property within the boundary, so that’s their goal — to be BYU-approved housing,” Wallace said. “But hopefully we don’t have to take it that far. Hopefully after being notified that they broke the terms of the agreement, they will pay it.”

Off-Campus Housing Office general manager Garry Briggs said he hopes students take advantage of the resources his office and the Center for Conflict Resolution provide.

Briggs said if students experience a housing issue, they should first talk to their landlord or the landlord’s agent and give the landlord a sufficient amount of time to correct the problem. If the landlord fails to do so, the student should file a report with Off-Campus Housing.

Briggs said sometimes students wait to talk to Off-Campus Housing until they move out.

“It just breaks your heart that they’ve lived with this for eight months instead of getting ahold of us and letting us help,” Briggs said.

After a student has filed a report, Off-Campus Housing will get in touch with the landlord so they can respond to the statement, Briggs said.

If the landlord needs to take some kind of action, Off-Campus Housing will give them a few days to do so. If the problem persists, Off-Campus Housing can take away the property’s BYU-contracted status. At that point, BYU students can give the landlord a five-day written notice and move out without any contractual responsibilities.

If the student is not satisfied with Off-Campus Housing’s solution, the office may then hand off the case to the Center for Conflict Resolution, where the student can file a request for mediation or arbitration.

Student tenants and landlords are contractually obligated to seek mediation or arbitration, per section 9 of the BYU Student-Landlord Rental Agreement. This means BYU student-tenants and landlords must genuinely try to reach a solution in BYU’s Center for Conflict Resolution before they can take action in court.

The Center for Conflict Resolution mediates between 150 and 200 student-landlord disputes each year, according to Director Benjamin Cook. Around 85 to 90 percent of those disputes end in a successful settlement, Cook said, while only about a dozen continue on to arbitration.

When a student or landlord files for mediation, one of the center’s two case workers contacts them. The case worker reaches out to both parties, and sometimes the case worker can settle the dispute at this time.

Often, though, the case worker schedules a time for the mediation. The student and landlord meet in the center’s conference room with a neutral third party. 

Cook said the mediator helps the two parties reach a solution, but the mediator does not impose a solution. If the two parties come to an agreement, they sign a legally-binding document. The entire process is free.

If the two parties don’t reach an agreement in mediation, a student or landlord has the option to appeal to arbitration for a $30 fee. Arbitration is “kind of informal court,” Cook said.

In an arbitration, both parties have a chance to present their case to a three-person panel in the conference room. This panel usually consists of a student, landlord and faculty member or administrator.

The arbitrators can ask the parties questions before dismissing the parties to make a decision. The arbitrators issue a decision, and the involved parties sign a legally binding document.

If a party is unhappy with an arbitration decision, they can appeal to an outside court, but Cook has not seen that happen during his three years at the Center for Conflict Resolution. The court usually upholds the decision made in arbitration anyway, he said.

While both Off-Campus Housing and the Center for Conflict Resolution focus a great deal of energy on tenant-landlord disputes, that is not their only function.

Both offices provide students with a channel to communicate with and understand landlords, roommates and others. Briggs said a lack of communication and understanding are the root of many tenant-landlord disputes.

“People usually find out about the center because they have an issue with the landlord, but I’d like students to see it as a resource for any sort of conflict,” Cook said. “I know people think, ‘Oh, it’s not a legal dispute, so I don’t want to go to the center,’ but we have resources to help.”

Cook said students can meet with case workers to learn how to have difficult conversations, and they can consult with the workers on the phone to learn about conflict resolution.

Likewise, the Off-Campus Housing can help students experiencing any type of housing problem because the office focuses on creating a positive experience for undergraduate students, Briggs said.

“They (students) are on the front line,” Briggs said. “We’ve got 23,000 beds out there, so we can’t be everywhere. We hope they do contact us after they’ve given the manager time to address (a problem) and don’t just live with it. Let us help you; that’s why we’re here.”

But Briggs said landlords are not the only ones with responsibilities in BYU-contracted housing; students need to keep their side of the agreement, too.

Kristy McClintick, Redstone Residential’s portfolio manager over College Place, said landlords are human and can make mistakes, but the majority of deposit refund issues have to do with the forwarding address.

“During the move-out process we communicate with the residents on what they will be responsible for completing on move-out day.  One of those items we overly stress is that they need to fill out a form that we provide to them with their forwarding address,” McClintick said in an email. “I would say that 50 percent of the time the residents do not follow through with this request. ”

If students do not leave a forwarding address, the landlord is legally supposed to send the check to the tenant’s last known address, which would be the apartment, condo or house the student just left.

If the student has left a forwarding address with the post office, the check will be sent to the forwarding address. But the check is often sent back to the landlord because the student failed to establish a forwarding address.

In that case, Redstone Residential would reach out to the student, and they would come pick up their check. If the student does not respond, Redstone Residential simply has to wait for the student to reach out.

McClintick said Redstone Residential is always trying to improve the success of this process. Some of their solutions so far include printing out envelopes the residents can fill out; emailing, calling, texting and posting flyers during move-out week; and meeting with students before they leave to personally write down their forwarding addresses.

“Our number-one priority are our residents and making sure they receive top-notch service and leave feeling like they had the best college experience,” McClintick said. “And if someone is not receiving that service, we want to know so we can continue to improve.”

Wallace said before searching BYU’s Off-Campus Housing website, she was not even aware she had the right to take action against the management company or of the law requiring a landlord to return a tenant’s deposit within 30 days. She said if more students are aware of their rights, fewer incidents will occur and students will have a better experience.

Students should read their housing contract and the BYU Student-Landlord Rental Agreement before signing either to learn more about their rights in BYU-contracted housing. The Off-Campus Housing website also has the answers to many common questions, and sometimes includes related legal documents.

Students who can’t find their answer in by going through those steps are encouraged to stop by the Off-Campus Housing Office in C-141 ASB or to call them at 801-422-1513.

Fans say Wonder Woman leads way for more female media representation

“Wonder Woman” is now the highest-grossing live-action film directed by a woman.

The film has made over $745 million worldwide and has the potential to out-earn all other comic book movies from both DC and Marvel dating back to 1990, according to Indie Wire. This female-directed live-action film is the top 35 for all-time domestic grossing films.

Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman in a scene from the recent movie. The film grossed $103.1 million in North America over its debut weekend, a figure that easily surpassed industry expectations, set a new record for a film directed by a woman and bested all previous stand-alone female superhero movies put together. (Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

Only 9.1 percent of directors in the U.S. and U.K. are female, only 30 percent of U.S. movies feature a female lead or co-lead and only 23 percent of speaking characters in the action/adventure genre are female, based on a 2015 study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.

The box office success of “Wonder Woman“ seems to indicate audiences are willing to pay to see a movie that stars and was directed by a woman. Fan reaction from women, in particular, includes mention of what it means to them to have a strong female role-model in the media.

Alison Siggard, a BYU alumna, said she loved the movie so much she saw it twice in one week.

Siggard said even though a few other films have come out with female leads in the past year — she named “Moana,” “Hidden Figures” and “Star Wars” as examples — “Wonder Woman” treats the lead differently. Other films can feel like the female lead is simply replacing what could have been a male lead, Siggard said, but “Wonder Woman” celebrated the fact that Diana Prince is a woman.

“They really focused on her compassion, and the film never asked you to laugh or make fun at things that we think of as mostly feminine. For example, when she first gets to London and she sees the baby and gets really excited, it doesn’t ask you to mock her for that. You’re getting excited with her,” Siggard said. “I just thought it was absolutely incredible. It felt so different. It felt so authentic to see this popular genre but to have it from this very female perspective.”

Siggard said she felt empowered after seeing “Wonder Woman” in the way she imagines men must feel all the time after watching action movies, and she hopes this opens the way for the creation of more female-led media.

13 Jun

Alison Siggard @alison_sig

Replying to @alison_sig

I could gush on for ages about how everything was perfect in that film. Just stunning in all ways

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Alison Siggard @alison_sig

But most of all, A SUPERHERO MOTIVATED & GIVEN STRENGTH BY LOVE OF ALL KINDS FRIENDSHIP EMPATHY ROMANTIC KINDNESS

Family life professor Sarah Coyne said Wonder Woman displays strength, power and independence — characteristics that break the typical gender stereotype. Coyne said research shows the more girls see these types of characters in the media, the less likely the girls are to display gender stereotypes, which Coyne said is a good thing.

“We learn so much from media,” Coyne said. “Media characters can often be role models, and kids learn a lot about what it means to be a  girl or a woman from viewing media.”

Siggard spent the past year teaching seventh grade and said it is important for young boys and girls to see both male and female role models in the media. Female role models teach girls they can be strong and teach boys that girls can be strong, she said. Overall, Siggard said having both sides gives people a “more holistic human perspective” and helps people better understand others.

13 Jun

Alison Siggard @alison_sig

Replying to @alison_sig

& DIANA!!!!!! DIANA IS EVERYTHING!!!!!!! I've also never been more motivated to work out than those fight scenes

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Alison Siggard @alison_sig

I am just completely overwhelmed by it. I think I have a new favorite superhero and ITS DIANA PRINCE WONDER WOMAN

Master’s student Conor Hilton said before studying feminist theory in his English classes, he did not think about the lack of female representation in the media. Now, he understands why a movie like “Wonder Woman” is so empowering for his female friends.

“I think it provides a template for strong women that are involved and are doing things that we’ve historically represented as being limited to men,” Hilton said. “I think as you have more and more representations of women in the media that are covering a wide array of lifestyles and choices, that validates more and more choices of women in the real world.” 

Film director Patty Jenkins, left, and actress Gal Gadot arrive at the world premiere of “Wonder Woman” at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles on May 25, 2017. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Hilton said female media representation can also teach men they can look up to female role models, too. If boys and men can look to strong women in the media, he explained, this can translate into real life, where boys and men might start looking to women as role models and leaders more frequently.

For now, though, the superhero genre, and film in general, is male-dominated, and one movie is not going to change the way society views women in the media, Hilton said.

Women make up half the population, but the majority of award-winning films are male dominated, Hilton said, which is a systemic problem in Hollywood. To combat the lack of representation, Hilton said viewers should be conscious of what they watch and support more films created by and star women — especially films in which the female characters are fully-developed, emotional and flawed, instead of narrow, undeveloped characters that are often seen in popular movies.

“I think (we need to try) to elevate not only stories about women but women that are making stories,” Hilton said. 

BYU study abroad, internship programs remain safe, administrators say

Brandon Randall was walking home from a concert in London with fellow study abroad students when he noticed a boat hurrying down the Thames River on June 3. Later that night he found out what the boat had been rushing toward: the scene of the London Bridge attack — just a few bridges down from where Randall’s group had been.

“It could’ve been me,” said Randall, a senior majoring in English. “That next day, I thought about that, but I also just felt blessed. I felt safe, and I knew that in our study abroad group we’d be fine.”

Brandon Randall participated in the English Choral Music, Past and Present study abroad this spring. He was a few bridges down from the London Bridge Attack on June 3, but said he still felt safe during the program. (Brandon Randall)

Over the next few days, Randall noticed a greater police presence throughout London, but he said there was not an overwhelming sense of fear. Instead, he said there was a sense of solidarity, and people carried on with their lives — including the study abroad students.

Randall is just one of 795 BYU students who will travel to Europe during spring and summer terms for internships and study abroad programs, according to the International Study Programs Office. The programs will continue as normal despite recent attacks, according to International Study Programs Director Lynn Elliott.

Elliott said BYU tries to be very conservative with its security. If there is a clear threat — if plans for an actual attack are known — BYU will make changes to the international programs. If there is not an immediate threat, though, the programs will continue with consideration.

Every student is briefed before they leave for a study abroad or internship, so they know there is potential danger and how to remain safe. The international security office also sends information to the directors if needed, which the directors can then pass on to their students.

Mark Johnson, a comparative arts and letters professor, was directing the Europe art history/classics study abroad during the Manchester, London Bridge and Paris attacks this spring. He was not in any of the cities during the attacks, but his group did arrive in Paris the day after a man attacked a police officer with a hammer outside Notre Dame. Johnson’s group’s first stop that morning was Notre Dame, but he said the cathedral felt the same as always, just with a few more policemen and soldiers than normal.

“As scary as the attacks appear on TV, they really only affect a tiny portion of the populace in these cities with millions, and life just goes on,” Johnson wrote in an email. “The odds of getting caught up in one of these events are very, very small.”

Carly and Jackson Tait are in Riga, Latvia, this summer on the Baltic States Internship Program. Carly Tait says being cautious is important, but students should not let fear stop them from traveling. (Carly Tait)

Johnson said the students in his group feel safe, but safety is and always has been a major concern on BYU international programs. Study abroad and internship directors receive briefings from church security, and the Kennedy Center even has an advisor, Landes Holbrook, dedicated to international security.

Directors also encourage students to be cautious, travel in groups, let the directors know their travel plans and call the directors if necessary. But, Johnson said, after directing over 20 study abroad programs, the main issue he has seen has been with pickpockets but nothing more serious.

Carly Tait, a junior majoring in Russian and history, is currently living in Riga, Latvia, where she is completing an internship at the Riga Museum of Decorative Arts and Design as part of the Baltic States Internship program.

On June 6, her program director, Tony Brown, forwarded the students in her program an email from BYU International Security. In this email, students studying in Western Europe were told not to be surprised if they saw increased security over the summer and to be cautious in crowded areas. Despite the “high potential for continued terrorist activity” in Western Europe, though, the International Security Office wrote “the overall security ratings for these countries remains low” and encouraged directors and students to continue to be vigilant.

“As a reminder, please put into place strong communication protocols with your students such as team leaders and emergency check-in systems,” the email read. “Establish safe havens where students can go to in an emergency and check to make sure all students are accounted for.  Please teach and remind your students to limit and even avoid areas that put them at higher risk of terrorism.”

Tait said even though the email focused on Western Europe, students in her program are still cautious. The students must report their location to their director and have any inter-state travel plans approved. The students are supposed to know the address of the closest U.S. embassy and to go to the embassy in case of emergency. The students also enrolled in the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program before they left for Europe.

Besides that, Tait said she avoids situations that do not feel right, but overall she said she feels safe and, while she thinks being a smart and cautious traveler is important, she does not want to let fear ruin her time abroad.

“As I was texting my sister the other day she mentioned that she has been praying for our safety as we travel Europe, and I realized then after I thanked her that we cannot live in fear each day,” said Tait. “And we can’t let the existence of fear and the possibility of terror attacks stop us from living. In the end, if we are cautious and aware of our surroundings, we need to live without fear. We have to just do our part and follow the feelings and promptings that come to us and not let fear paralyze us from living our lives.” 

Junior Rachel Huntsman poses in front of the Eiffel Tower during the Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the Museums of Europe study abroad. Huntsman said even though scary things happen, it is important to keep traveling. (Rachel Huntsman)

Rachel Huntsman, a junior studying ancient Near Eastern studies, agrees with Tait. While on the Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the Museums of Europe study abroad, Huntsman said she has noticed the increased security in cities like London, Paris and Berlin, but overall she said she feels safe. The group has a nightly check-in, keeps cards with the address of their accommodations with them and makes sure everyone is reachable at all times.

After spending a semester at BYU’s Jerusalem Center, Huntsman said she has learned even though scary things happen, life continues and God will keep students safe.

“I’m pretty passionate that we can’t stop traveling and making connections with the world because of terrorism,” said Huntsman. “Traveling inoculates against prejudice, and we (need) to stop these divisions in our world. Traveling helps you humanize people who you might be afraid of. It helps you learn that your way of thinking isn’t necessarily the best. It helps me know that it is important to be a part of an international community and that I cannot only be thinking about myself and the direction that my country is going, but how to connect with the world.”

Huntsman said it is safe and important for students to travel to Europe, and isolated attacks do not define an entire nation or culture.

Johnson explained why he is not overly worried about his or his students’ safety.

“We have always felt the protection of the good Lord watching over our groups,” said Johnson. “In addition to our own prayers, I know there are 30 sets of parents and 60 sets of grandparents and other relatives praying for our safety.” 

Off-campus tenants and landlords clash over security deposits

Editor’s note: The Daily Universe received more than 100 comments on a June 5, 2017 Facebook post asking our readers about issues they have had with off-campus housing. Those comments led, in part, to the development of the BYU Off-Campus Housing Series.

Part One – Off-campus BYU housing: It’s complicated

Part Two – Housing quality doesn’t always live up to price, students say

Part Three – BYU students struggle to sell yearlong housing contracts

Part Five – Students find ways to cope during “homeless week”

Part Six – Students share their housing horror stories

The BYU Off-Campus Housing Series — Part Four

BYU alum William White experienced a problem many students continue to face in BYU-contracted housing: he did not get his deposit back, and he received no explanation as to why.

White, a 2010 civil engineering graduate, said this happened at the apartments where he lived from 2008 to 2009 and from 2009 to 2010. He contacted the manager of each apartment, but he never received a conclusive response from management or a receipt detailing why each complex kept the entirety of his deposit.

“By the time I graduated, I was just willing to let it go because I knew I didn’t have to deal with it anymore,” White said. “But it was pretty frustrating up to that point. It was discouraging not hearing back on either deposit.”

According to the BYU Off-Campus Housing office, landlords typically charge a deposit when a student signs a contract. The deposit serves as form of security for the landlord in case the student damages the apartment or does not pay rent. The Off-Campus Housing website says deposits are generally refundable “if contractual conditions are met.”

Landlords can take a nonrefundable portion of the deposit for payments and fees, such as carpet cleaning, but this stipulation must be clearly included in the student’s contract when they pay the deposit, the website says. Off-Campus Housing also notes, “if a deposit is specifically designated for ‘cleaning’ or ‘keys,’ it should then be used only for that purpose.”

But when landlords take money out of the deposit for cleaning or other improvements — often called a “reconditioning fee” — many students doubt that cleaning ever occurs.

Scott Wiley graduated from BYU in 1985, and his three children have attended BYU — one graduated in 2010, one in December 2016, and the other graduates in August.

Wiley explained each of his children has moved into an apartment where “there is no substantive evidence cleaning had been done,” even in complexes where owners act like they are using parts of the deposit to clean the apartment. Wiley and his wife have even helped their children deep-clean as they move in and out of housing because the apartments were so poorly maintained.

“The assumption is they (landlords) keep the money with the intent of cleaning, but the next kids move in and have the same experience,” Wiley said.

Eventually, one of Wiley’s daughters learned that if money was taken out of her deposit, she could ask her apartment’s management for the receipts for whatever service her deposit was supposedly paying for. The majority of complexes the Wileys have dealt with since this discovery have simply refunded their money instead of providing receipts — as long as the student had not agreed to a reconditioning fee in the contract.

“There has been no fight when we have asked for the receipts,” Wiley said. “Sometimes, they (students) just don’t even bother to ask.”

Utah real estate law requires landlords to give a tenant a move-in checklist to make note of the condition of the unit, time to fill the document out and a written inventory of previous damage to the unit when the tenant moves in. Landlords or their agents are also requiredto mail a renter’s deposit back to them within 30 days of the tenant’s move-out date. If money has been taken out of the deposit for any reason, the landlord must send the renter an itemized list that explains why each deduction was taken.

For their part, students are required to leave a stamped, self-addressed envelope for the landlord to return their deposits when they move out.

Brittany Larson said she provided students with an itemized list of the charges they had incurred while she and her husband, Chris, managed a BYU-contracted apartment complex from January 2014 to August 2015.

The Larsons started to take pictures of unclean settings and make annotations within their bookkeeping system so they could keep track of the money they were taking from students’ deposits.

Students were expected to have their apartments up to a “move-in ready” standard during cleaning checks — a standard which was much higher than the previous managers’.

If a student was present during the cleaning check, the Larsons would give him or her a chance to re-do a missed step. If a student failed to complete their cleaning check and was not present — either during the semester or when moving out — the Larsons or one of the maintenance workers would then do the cleaning at a rate of $25 per hour per person or job, which was taken out of the student’s deposit.

Even though the Larsons were paid for their labor, they never received the deposit directly; the deposit went to the owners of the complex.

Different owners and managers have different standards, and BYU sets only “bare minimum standards,” Chris Larson said. This means policies, including the amount of a deposit, vary between BYU-contracted complexes.

“When you’re dealing with off-campus housing units, you’re dealing with a private investment of a private entity that’s cooperating with another private entity — that being BYU,” Chris Larson said. “While there were relative guidelines — there’s stuff that’s in black and white in the BYU-student-landlord rental agreement — there’s still a lot that’s left up to interpretation, like cleaning checks.”

Brittany and Chris Larson said they did not always agree with the owner’s decisions, but as managers, they could not go against the owners without losing their jobs. For example, the Larsons suggested several improvements to the complex, which the owner rejected without giving a specific reason.

While Brittany Larson did not necessarily believe the owners treated students fairly, she does not think the owners took advantage of their student tenants; the owners acted in self-interest, but within what was “OK and allowed” by BYU, she said.

Wiley, on the other hand, believes an unintended consequence of BYU-contracted housing is that managers lack power, while absentee landlords abuse it. Because of the semi-regulation of BYU-contracted housing, students must live in certain complexes, which eliminates competition and allows landlords to take advantage of students, Wiley said.

“As long as nobody’s causing a stir, they’re fine that the students are being abused,” Wiley said. “The root of the problem is the housing requirement. No one’s made a good argument for BYU housing being some stamp of excellence.”

Vive la France: Trump and Macron share political inexperience, agendas may clash

Observers say President Trump’s visit today with newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron was a brief, but important, stop on his first diplomatic tour — particularly for Macron, whose lack of political experience rivals that of the U.S. president.

On May 7,  centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won the presidency with 66 percent of the vote, defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who received 34 percent of the vote, according to the French Ministry of the Interior.

The French president is elected by popular vote over two rounds and can serve for two five-year terms. Macron and Le Pen advanced to the final round of the election after receiving the highest percent of the vote — 23.7 percent and 21.7 percent, respectively — in the first round.

The two candidates beat out the typical, mainstream party candidates including François Fillon, the center-right Republican candidate and a former prime minister, and Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon.

Support for Fillon wavered due to allegations that he misused public funds and paid his family for parliamentary work they did not perform while serving as prime minister. Support for Hamon was scarce due to party fractures and the incredibly low popularity of Socialist President François Hollande, who left office with only a four percent approval rating according to a poll conducted by French newspaper Le Monde. Both Hamon and Fillon then encouraged their supporters to vote for Macron to prevent Le Pen from winning.

According to BYU faculty and students familiar with the election, politics seemed to prevail in every conversation — much like last November’s presidential showdown in America. Debate was rampant in the streets, at a café and even at church.

Megan Ryssman, a 2016 BYU graduate in public relations and French who was visiting Paris during the election, reminisced on an election-night conversation with French friends debating the merits of each candidate.

“You could feel the importance of this election to the French people,” Ryssman said. “Uber drivers, waiters, church members, tour guides — everyone was talking politics. It was very polarizing!”

The mainstream party candidates’ failures in conjunction with Macron and Le Pen’s success signaled what The Atlantic called “a rebuke of the political establishment that has dominated French politics for decades.”

Both Macron and Le Pen come from relatively small parties with little political clout.

Le Pen is the leader of The National Front, a party that was started by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 1972. The far-right party is anti-EU, anti-immigration and “pro-France.” The National Front holds only two seats in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament in which constituents directly elect their representatives.

Le Pen’s populist rhetoric seemed to echo that of U.S. President Donald Trump during the U.S. 2016 presidential election. Although President Trump never officially endorsed Le Pen, he said she is “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France,” in an interview with The Associated Press.

Macron started his party, En Marche — now La Republique En Marche — in April 2016 after leaving his post as President Hollande’s Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs. Since his party is so new, Macron is its first candidate. The 39-year-old centrist has never before held public office; he worked as an investment banker before becoming a senior advisor to President Hollande in 2012. Macron ran on a progressive, pro-EU platform, calling for a Eurozone parliament, economic reforms and open immigration. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Macron in a video that Macron shared on Twitter.

“I have admired the campaign that Emmanuel Macron has run,” Obama said in the video. “He has stood up for liberal values. He put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world. And he is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears.”

BYU political science professor Wade Jacoby explained that France’s traditional parties failed during the election, but that does not mean their ideals have failed.

“The French electoral system is a bit like our own in that it provides very strong incentives for larger parties to stick together if they can,” Jacoby said. “Because it has two rounds, it also opens some space for smaller parties, though not nearly as much as in a proportional representation system; thus, what you’re going to see is the two older French parties returning under different labels and names.”

The Results

Macron took office on May 14 as France’s youngest president ever. He is also the first centrist president the country has had since Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was elected in 1974.

French Professor Yvonne LeBras, who is originally from Rennes, France, is a centrist and was pleased with Macron’s win.

“I listened to all the candidates one by one,” LeBras said. “He’s the only one who makes sense, you know. He’s rational; he’s not there to fight against people who don’t have the same opinion.” 

Despite Macron’s comfortable victory, however, he has many challenges to overcome.

Macron received the vast majority of the vote, but many French people abstained from voting as a sign of protest. According to The Washington Post, about 15.5 million people, one-third of registered voters, blank voted or did not vote at all.

Ryssman noted that many French people she spoke to after the election were unsure what to expect from Macron since he is neither the traditional right nor left. The majority also expressed that they voted for Macron simply because he was a better choice than Le Pen. People’s excitement, Ryssman explained, was more for Le Pen’s loss than Macron’s win.

“On the plane home to the U.S. I sat next to a french couple, and we ended up talking about politics,” Ryssman said. “They said they voted for Macron because they believed that Le Pen’s extreme far right beliefs would hurt the future of their children and grandchildren. They said they are not extremely excited about Macron because they don’t know exactly what he is going to do and he doesn’t have a lot of experience, but that he was clearly the better of the two choices.”

This lack of support for the new president could prove a large difficulty for him in the coming months. The legislative elections will be held between June 10 and 17 and will largely determine what kind of leader Macron can be.

“All he needs is a majority of the national assembly in order to govern,” LeBras said. “He wants to govern, of course, and to introduce new reforms.”

What it means for the U.S.

President Trump and President Macron have their political differences, but the two newly-elected presidents are expected to continue the strong Franco-American relationship.

LeBras said France shares common security goals with the U.S.: both countries are nuclear powers, have large armies (France has the strongest army in Europe, according to The Global Firepower Index), share information and fight against ISIS. And, LeBras said, France is “not going to stop” combatting terrorism. 

Macron is also pro-trade, meaning he wants to have strong economic relations with the U.S.  — but only insomuch that any trade deal is well thought out and benefits the E.U.

LeBras believes Macron will push forward the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed free trade agreement between the U.S. and E.U.

Trump, however, has vacillated between supporting the proposal and condemning it. Trump would prefer to make agreement with individual states — he tried to do so with Germany, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that an agreement could only occur between the U.S. and the E.U., as is the law in the European bloc. It now appears that Trump has had a “change of heart” and wants to resurrect negotiations, according to Forbes.

Trump’s changing views on the E.U. have led to some uneasiness amongst the French; Ryssman noted that not a single person she spoke to in France viewed Trump as a presidential figure, with one Uber driver even telling her, “Trump was just a reality TV personality and not a proper president.”

The European Council on Foreign Relations explained that Trump is the least popular American president in the E.U. since World War II, so negotiating a trade deal with the Trump administration could have many negative implications for the E.U. institutions.

LeBras, however, does not think that Trump’s unpopularity in France will have a negative impact on the long-standing relationship between the two countries.

“France was the first country to recognize the United States as an independent state on the sixth of February 1778, so we are the oldest ally of the U.S. I don’t think it’s going to change,” LeBras said.

“Macron’s core idea is to relaunch European cooperation through the E.U., which has been struggling to help fix Europe’s problems,” Jacoby said. “Trump has shown little interest in or understanding of the E.U. (so far). Macron will meet Trump this week, and perhaps they will find useful common ground, particularly on issues around counter terror. But the heart of Macron’s program looks to Germany and the E.U. and not to the U.S. right now.”

BYU Women’s Conference: Christ heals all ailments

Sunday School General President Brother Tad R. Callister and his wife, Sister Kathryn Callister, closed the first day of the 2017 BYU Women’s Conference by speaking on the healing power of Christ.

Sister Callister shared the story of her grandson’s birth in 2014: the family was unsure “little Luke” would survive when he was born prematurely at 28 weeks, weighing a little over two pounds.

Despite the difficult birth, his parents loved him and spent time with him in the neonatal intensive care unit as often as possible, while their seven other children waited at home. Sister Callister shared a photo she particularly cherishes in which Luke is reaching out to put his hand in his father’s.

“Luke instictively knew that he could trust his father — that he was a source of comfort, love and even healing,” Sister Callister said. “In much the same way, we must reach out to the Savior and our Father in Heaven as the ultimate source of our healing.”

Women of the church can be healed from all ailments — whether they are physical, mental, emotional, social or spiritual — through Jesus Christ if they are willing to return, repent and become converted, Sister Callister said.

According to Brother Callister, return, repentance and conversion can be summed up in one word: obedience.

“If we obey God and submit to his will, we will return to him, we will repent of our sins, we will be converted, and as we do so we will be healed in the Savior’s chosen way,” Brother Callister said.

Brother Callister said as members of the Church strive to live obedient lives, they must remember the most important roles they have are not church callings or business titles, but those of mother, father, husband and wife. These titles, Brother Callister said, “stand supreme in the hierarchy of divine titles” and are second only to God.

He further explained mothers are not only women with children; every woman has the attributes of a mother and deserves the title. 

Brother Callister said women who honor their divine titles and are obedient followers of Christ will be exalted in the future.

“In the meantime, as we work and struggle for that exaltation, every obedient woman is entitled to the Savior’s healing and enabling powers that can comfort, refine, perfect and give renewed hope on a daily basis,” Brother Callister said.

Brother Callister encouraged women not to feel discouraged because others have accomplished more. Satan wants women to focus on their weaknesses and shortcomings, but the Lord wants women to focus on their divine identity and destiny, he said.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not an accomplished author or politician, and she may have spent her day completing mundane tasks. But there was “a divinity in her simplicity and her submissiveness to God’s will,” Brother Callister said.

“She was her children’s heaven-sent angel to guide, comfort and inspire them,” Brother Callister said. “And so are you wonderful women heaven-sent angels as you give your all to your children, extended family and the others to whom you reach out to with love.”

Sister Callister echoed this idea as she explained women can not only be healed, but also heal those around them.

“We can show our obedience by being instruments in his hands to bless the lives of others,” Sister Callister said. “The Lord often uses his daughters to invoke his healing powers. We are part of the Savior’s healing hands on the earth.”

Brother and Sister Callister said the Lord will heal women as they turn to the Lord. But women need to be willing to help themselves, as well, Brother Callister said.

“Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Savior’s healing powers are infinite,” Brother Callister said. “There is no rejection, no loneliness, no despair, no sin and no condition to which we can sink for which the Savior’s healing powers do not have the perfect remedy. Sometimes that remedy will include seeking appropriate medical and emotional care, for the Lord expects us to do all within our power to assist in the healing process, but the ultimate healing balm will be found in His atoning powers.”

Little Luke is now a happy and healthy two-year-old. Likewise, women of the Church can find happiness and health as they trust in and follow Christ.

“I am so thankful that no matter what our circumstances, that the Lord loves us and will heal us if we will ‘come unto Him,'” Sister Callister said, referencing 3 Nephi 9:14. “I am also grateful that in my own life, during times of trial and discouragement, I have felt the healing hands and power of our Savior.”