Wade Jacosby special edition 7

THE SYAHIM MAG
Student and Faculty Thoughts on Wade Jacoby at
the Student Memorial Service, March 5, 2020, in the
Joseph F. Smith Building at BYU
"The last two years we’ve been neighbors and he helped raise my children. He was pretty
good at being neutral with students about politics, but he was a bit of a progressive. In our
neighborhood not everyone is progressive although many are, and there was a man on the
end of our street, a lovely man, but an arch conservative. And sometime in the 2010s Wade
heard this man’s comment about politics. You’ll never guess what he said. Wade said the man
said “The country will never be whole again until there is a military coup to replace Barack
Obama.” And the man said he would join it. And Wade called on him for hours with his
wife, to talk. And he loved this man, even though he disagreed with this man as much as you
can disagree. Its emblematic of Wade. Wade contested the culture of contempt in American
politics and he did so many things to get over the empathy wall and love people, and love those
with whom he disagreed, and he never wanted to change their views, and he wasn’t going to
change his view, but his view was that we love. We love everyone."
-Dr. Daniel Neilson
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"I wasn’t exactly happy at school, my freshman year, and I felt like I didn’t have any friends,
and I took advantage of the opportunity and to take advantage of the fact that there are
people paid to listen to me. To hang out with me. The very first week I went to professor
Jacoby’s office hours. And just sitting with him because I was so desperate to have a friend.
And that day he just sat with me and he talked with me about my home and about the things
that I missed and what I was excited for in college. And I left that very first day feeling just a
little bit better. About being in a place that I didn’t know, because I knew that professor Jacoby
who had so many other students and so many other things on his plate, that he was there for
me even when he was busy. He was going to put time and effort into me because that’s just the