Thursday, March 5, 2026 | 11 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. | BYU Conference Center
We are pleased to have guest lecturer Norma González come to campus and share her thoughts entitled “Engaging with Funds of Knowledge."
Dr. González has asked that if those attending could complete two readings, if possible, before the lecture. The readings are linked below.
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Norma González is Professor Emerita in the College of Education at the University of Arizona. She is an anthropologist of education whose work has focused on language and literacy practices, language socialization, community school linkages, Funds of Knowledge, anthropological approaches to the study of education, women’s narratives, and dual language education.
She is the recipient of the George and Louise Spindler Award from the Council of Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropological Association, the University of Utah College of Education Research Award, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division G Henry T. Trueba Award for Research in the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education. She has been a Fulbright scholar and is past president of the Council of Anthropology and Education. Her books include I am my language: Discourses of women and children in the borderlands and was co-editor of Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms.
The nineteen-year-old librarian from Coalville was willing to walk over 60 miles to attend Brigham Young Academy, to work as an assistant janitor for $3 a day, and to work with all his heart and soul to extend his small-town self-education. Benjamin Cluff’s drive to learn was focused and intense. Within a year he was asked to become a BYA instructor. Only a mission (to Hawaii) could tempt him away from teaching and learning, and as soon as he was released he accepted that teaching position. With a little teaching experience and a special blessing from John W. Taylor, he was off to the University of Michigan for advanced work in engineering, pedagogy, mathematics, literature, and several languages. His excitement was reflected in a letter to his BYA associates: “The opportunities with which I am surrounded are simply boundless. . . . Time [is] so limited I really begrudge myself the time necessary for sleep and eating.” Benjamin Cluff was devoted to education.
The accomplished young scholar was offered a teaching position at the University of Michigan, in addition to offers from colleges in a number of states. But he chose to return to Brigham Young Academy, writing in his journal: “Though I would be pleased to get a position in the East where I could continue my studies . . . my ambition and desire is to benefit the young at home, to help build up the kingdom of God.” As the assistant principal of BYA, he urged faculty and students to travel to the East to gain a first-class education. He increased the length of classes and the options for fields of study; he introduced new strategies for teaching; he brought noted scholars to speak and instruct. One of his students, Bryant S. Hinckley, referred to him as “a man to be reckoned with—a good organizer, fearless and aggressive.” Advancing to the position of principal, he continued to build the academic capacity of the Academy: The student body increased from 386 to 825, the faculty increased from 28 to 57, and the number of volumes in the library increased from 1,053 to 5,432. He came to the institution as a student at an academy; he left it as president of a university. Benjamin Cluff was devoted to BYU.
The scholar/educator believed faith and science should be interactive, that, as he expressed it, “To the Latter-day Saints, education is the harmonious development of all the different faculties, passions, sentiments, feelings, with special reference to the gaining of intelligence, which is ‘light and truth.’” He believed that academic disciplines are most significant in what they do for the development of the mind and spirit: sciences for observational abilities; logic, mathematics, and psychology for reason and good judgment; literature for imagination; geography and history for memory. He built the university in order to build the Church. Benjamin Cluff was devoted to the Lord