Nelson believed that educational opportunity should not be limited to those who could formally attend colleges and universities in the standard campus format.
Most of the participants are adults, significantly more females than males, who want to augment their personal enrichment or education.
Many of these are short summer programs aimed at improving the skills of specific groups such as adults, professionals, and youth.
Both days of the conference begin and end with a general session in the Marriott Center, where all participants meet together.
Topics, centered on the annual theme, include home, family, marriage, service, gospel (scripture, doctrine), and other topics such as missionary work and education—all discussed from a gospel perspective and directed toward women.
This was done because Michael Oher had several years earlier used BYU Independent Study courses to boost his grades.
[12] The BYU Conference Center is located on the northeastern part of campus, and shares a lobby with the Harman Continuing Education Building.
Students enroll through the BYU campus in Utah, travel to the Holy Land, and live in the center for programs that extend for approximately four months.
Classroom study is built around field trips that cover the length and breadth of the Holy Land.
Beginning in 1952 lectures and classes were periodically offered by BYU faculty in Salt Lake City.
In January 1959 the BYU Salt Lake Center was formally organized with Lynn M. Hilton as chairman.
It was originally located in the Alfred McCune House, but this proved to be too small for the program.
The BYU Barlow Center located in Washington, D.C., houses BYU Washington Seminar students, the Church's Office of International and Government Affairs, Church Educational System offices and rooms for institute classes, and a student branch.
Students enroll through the BYU campus in Utah, travel to Liverpool, Preston, the Lake District, York, Oxford, Dover, and Canterbury—in addition to visits to Dublin, Republic of Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
J. Kenneth Thatcher, who was the superintendent of the Sugar-Salem School District in Idaho, was hired to organize the center.
In establishing the center, Ernest L. Wilkinson, president of BYU, and Joseph Fielding Smith, chairman of the executive committee of the BYU Board of Trustees, sent a letter in which they emphasized that the institution was geared toward adult continuing education programs and not meant at all to compete with Weber Junior College.
[17] The BYU-California center was started in 1959, with central offices but most courses given in LDS Church buildings scattered throughout southern California.