Initiative 2: Retain and Transition Students

Brother Chad H Webb: Another area we have been focused on is to retain students who are currently enrolled in their seminary and institute programs. One of the best ways we can bless more youth and young adults is to help those who are already with us to enroll for the next year or the next class.

President Oaks recently invited all youth and young adults to make consistent attendance in seminary and institute a priority. To those consistently attending seminary, President Oaks promised you will:

• “Feel God’s love,

• “Find answers to your life,

• “Deepen your testimony of Jesus Christ,

• “Build emotional and spiritual resilience,

• “Prepare for the temple, missions, education, and a future family, and

• “Gain courage to stand for truth.”

To those who consistently attend institute, President Oaks promised them, you will:

• “Learn to distinguish truth from error,

• “Build your relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ,

• “Find direction and discover answers to life’s questions,

• “Meet others to help you along the covenant path,

• “Meet people who you may choose to date and marry, and

• “Prepare to love and lead like the Savior.”

These powerful prophetic promises underscore how important it is for each of us to help each of our students enroll for the next term or the next class.

Our overall S&I retention for 2024–2025 school year was 79 percent. We’re really grateful for your efforts to help students continue to learn. But when you really think about that number, that means that one out of five students don’t return to our classes the next year.

Think of what would happen if we not only reached out to bring in more students but also retained those who have already been with us. We would see even more significant increases in our enrollment.

The most significant drop-off in our system occurs as seminary students transition into institute. Currently, 59 percent of our students in their final year in seminary go on missions or attend a CES institution or institute the following year. There are many reasons for this gap, including the loss of parental engagement, a historical expectation that institute is optional, and a flurry of secular and life forces facing our young adults. But even still, we’re seeing gains, and you can help accelerate that progress by helping our young adults find solutions to those obstacles.

Our biggest opportunity lies in strengthening the handoff from seminary to institute. These are young people who you already know, who trust you, and who have begun building a spiritual foundation we can continue to deepen if we help them take that next step and enroll in institute.

Let’s look at some areas that are working hard in their efforts to help seminary students transition to institute. We will first hear from the Utah South Area, followed by the Canada Area.

Brother Chad H Webb: We have Brother Shad Martin here with us from the Utah South Area and Brother Danny Bennett from the new Canada Area. It’s so nice to have you here with us. Thank you both very much.

Brother Bennett, how have you successfully partnered with priesthood leaders in your focus on the transition from seminary to institute?

Daniel Bennett: Yeah, thanks for the question. I think the key word in that question is partnered. If we see that our objective is their objective, and they see that their objective is our objective—to invite those young adults to come unto Christ—then we have that symbiotic relationship with them.

I mentioned some of the things we’ve done in that video, but one of the things I did recently was I emailed all of the geographical stake bishops, and I gave them an enrollment report from last semester and said, “Hey, would you look over this report and identify individuals who could benefit from an invitation to institute?” And I specifically invited them to look at the recent grads. “What of those stand out to you? We want all of them to receive an invitation to institute.”

One bishop got back to me on Tuesday this week, and he said, “Oh, there’s this kid who’s a recent convert, recent grad, and I’d love for him to attend institute.” And so he said, “I’ll reach out, and I’ll invite him.” Well, Wednesday night came, and I’ve got a big class, but this kid walked in, and I hadn’t met him before. So I went, and as soon as he introduced himself, I knew it was that kid. And just because I had the interaction with the bishop, I felt this immediate love for that kid. And so I felt the power of really partnering in that instance with priesthood leaders.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Brother Bennett, I love the connection to the priesthood leadership and to the wards and stakes. They’ve put so much time and know these young people so well. We really think that is a critical link in building our retention from seminary to institute. Thank you. And I hope all of you are getting your own ideas and impressions and inspiration for what you can be doing to help with this transition.

Brother Martin, with all the efforts you’ve been making—we heard so many great ideas on that video—as you try to help graduating seniors enroll in institute, how did you create a culture where both seminary and institute both feel responsibility to help all students attend institute?

Shad Martin: Thank you for that question. It’s really the main thing is always the main thing. We want them to have powerful spiritual experiences in the scriptures that will convert them more deeply to Jesus Christ and His restored gospel, but they can’t have those experiences if they’re not with us. And I think our teachers—as we’ve just asked the question and had them counsel in faculties or with their coordinators about that very question, “Just what can we do to help them, particularly those seniors, transition from seminary to institute so they can continue to have those converting experiences?” Our teachers are so creative. Our leaders are so creative. All those ideas have come from individual teachers and leaders that have had ideas, shared them, tried them. Some have succeeded, some have failed. But we are starting to find some things that really make a difference.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: And I love the, you know, the idea for a seminary teacher is if we’re really about lifelong discipleship, I’m not trying to get them through seminary graduation; they need to change, become disciples themselves, and be prepared for the next step. You know, I might be at a bus stop, but I’m not there just to entertain them while they’re in the bus stop. You know they need to make progress on their journey. So I love this connection between seminary and institute.

Brother Chad H Webb: That’s really wonderful. Thank you.

And I probably ought to clarify something. I know there are people right now who have a question. In the past, we’ve actually been asked not to invite seminary students to attend institute while they’re still in secondary school or high school, but we’ve received new guidance from the Young Women and Young Men organizations that it is appropriate to create an experience—whether it’s an activity, a workshop, or even a class—to introduce seminary students in their final year of seminary to institute. New policy adjustments aligned with that will be coming. But just so everybody understands that what’s being suggested here has been approved, it’s working, and we really encourage you to think about how you might implement a similar program.

We’d also like to take another question for Brother Martin from the Central America Area.

Shad Martin: Thank you, Hector. It’s nice to see Hector.

We did face some challenges. One of the challenges that we faced is we realized that when we assigned a seminary instructor to provide an institute experience, that we would have a large number of people come from that particular seminary, even though multiple seminaries were invited. What we realized is that seniors sometimes have a hard time making that transition because they’re afraid they’re not going to know someone there. And what we realized is that we had to just work through that and counsel through that. How can we not only provide awareness of what institute is but an experience so that after they had the experience, they would feel more comfortable to attend institute?

And as we asked those questions, teachers started to accompany their students to those classes in the evenings. We had seminary councils that would get together with other members of the seminary and go together. And we found that there’s a large number that probably don’t attend because they’re terrified of walking in that building and not knowing anybody. And if we could overcome that, it would allow more of them to come experience it. And once they experience it and cross that threshold, they often would come back and experience it again and again.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: What do you do when, you know, so many will go into institutes in the area they’ve been going to seminary? Some will move geography, some will go off to a Church school, and maybe the majority will stay. And that will differ by every seminary in the Church, that ratio. How do you include everyone and make them realize this is for them, even if they think, “I’m not going to be here next year” or “I’m going on a mission” or “I’m moving geographies”?

Shad Martin: Yeah, in that senior-only institute class, we have specific nights that are dedicated to learn where they’re going, including if it’s on a mission really soon, and then how we could connect them to where they’re going. And we have coordinators that are running around like deacons, you know, passing around QR codes to capture information so that we could get that information to the institute. And then the institute teachers and leaders are so awesome to minister to, to reach, to call out. I had a daughter who went to a local college here at Southern Utah University. Before she even went, a member of the institute council had called her that summer between her senior year and institute, invited her, and she went and was excited to meet that person and to go to institute. And so we put intentional efforts to collect, like Moroni would say, that “their names [are] taken, [so] that they might be remembered and nourished.” And it’s every single night of that class that we’re doing something to do that.

Brother Chad H Webb: Wonderful. Thank you. And this might even be more important with the age change to sister missionaries to have that introduction to institute before they go and then a warm welcome when they come home from their missions as well.

Anything else on that, Brother Bennett?

Daniel Bennett: Well, we do something similar in Canada. We have all the seminary teachers collect information countrywide about where their youth will be next year.

Brother Chad H Webb: And then a specific personalized invitation?

Daniel Bennett: Yeah. And then we all get it, and at institute, we can filter it by location of where they’re going to be that next semester, and then we’ll contact every single student that’s in our location.

Brother Chad H Webb: Wonderful. Thank you both for what you’re doing. That’s fabulous.

Let’s continue, all of us, if we can, to work together and find inspired and creative ways to help our students successfully make the transition from seminary to institute. We have a handful of resources, tools, and reports to help us. Like you’ve mentioned, every seminary teacher should feel that your job is not done until all of your students are safely in the next seat, including institute.

Similarly, we have a focus on inviting those who have yet to enroll.