Get to Know the Speakers and Musical Performer Who Will Present at the Ceremony for the Department of Dance, School of Music and Department of Theatre and Media Arts.
Jordan Halterman is a dance education major (K–12), with an emphasis in contemporary dance. Jordan is currently starting a dance program at Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy in Lindon, Utah, and plans to continue developing that program upon graduation. She also plans to continue teaching dance to people of all ages and skill levels.
What is your favorite course you have taken?
Contemporary Partnering or Playing with Reality: Investigating Deception Through Games, Film and TV.
What is one experience you think everyone in your major should try to have before graduation?
Dance abroad! Find research opportunities with professors, case studies, tours or study abroad options to dance around the world. Also, apply for a lot of grants and scholarships!
Describe your BYU experience in five words or less.
Fulfilling, opportunity, challenging, growth, joyful.
What do you feel is your biggest takeaway from your education?
My biggest takeaway is that getting involved opens doors. The best skill I have learned through my education is how to take any opportunity that I might be interested in, and allow myself to grow and be challenged in new ways through those opportunities.
Can you give us a teaser for your presentation?
We live in a world that needs more dreamers. Art creates dreamers.
What inspired your speech topic OR what inspires you about the piece you will be performing?
My capacity to do more exponentially increased throughout college. As a dancer, I kept dreaming that I could do and be more, so I sought out opportunities that allowed that growth to happen. My capacity increased in a way I had not imagined before, and that is worth celebrating.
One of the most important things about a BYU education is the intertwining of the intellectual and the spiritual. How has that kind of education impacted you?
This kind of education inspired my Honors thesis research. I found it necessary in my personal education to discover what the intersection of dance and spirituality could teach me. This exploration provided many rich opportunities to work with professors, learn how to research and increase my personal spirituality by increasing my dance artistry.
How have you seen divinity within your craft while studying here at BYU?
A good friend in my cohort said that as dance educators, we get to practice becoming like the Great Creator and the Master Teacher. I have had several wonderful spiritual experiences while dancing, both in class and in performance, and often feel closest to my Heavenly Father when I create and choreograph movement.
Ruth Lyons is an acting major. She always hoped to study acting and said she is proud to have accomplished that goal. Upon graduation, she looks forward to going through life with the knowledge and insight she has gained from her education and plans to work on professional theatre and film sets as an actor and painter. She says she also is excited “to connect with others around me and help them feel Christ’s love for them through me.”
What is your favorite course you have taken?
I have loved taking Classical Acting to learn more about acting Shakespeare's work.
What is one experience you think everyone in your major should try to have before graduation?
I think an experience every actor needs before they graduate is deep success and deep rejection, and persevering through both with our faith in Christ, knowing that all will work out as it should.
Describe your BYU experience in five words or less.
Ups and downs make me.
What do you feel is your biggest takeaway from your education?
I think my biggest takeaway from BYU is how important collaboration is! Our lives are meant to be collaborative, and it is through our connections that we are able to become more like Christ.
Can you give us a teaser for your presentation?
I am talking a little about how only when we collaborate with one another can we open ourselves to growth that we otherwise would not have been able to achieve.
What inspired your speech topic OR what inspires you about the piece you will be performing?
See above answer.
One of the most important things about a BYU education is the intertwining of the intellectual and the spiritual. How has that kind of education impacted you?
Our lives are meant to be collaborative, and it is through our connection that we are able to become more like Christ.
How have you seen divinity within your craft while studying here at BYU?
I have seen divinity in and through others around me — fellow actors, directors, teachers, peers. I have felt divinely bolstered in my education. In different classes or shows, there was an openness towards gospel conversation, and a willingness to talk about how our studies and practices related to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In a specific show I was in, “Men On Boats,” we would sometimes have pow-wows as a cast as a sort of testimony meeting. Throughout the show, the more time I not only spent with those girls, but grew spiritually with them, the more free and real our prayers and trials together became. The more close-knit we were. I am incredibly grateful for the chances to grow and learn spiritually that BYU has given me, that learning being inseparable from the secular growth in these last four years.
Carter Babcock is a trombone performance major. Upon graduation, he plans to move to Boston, Massachusetts, to continue his studies with the Boston Symphony Orchestra trombonists.
What is your favorite course you have taken?
Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Honors Brass Quintet, Brass Orchestral Excerpts, Teachings of the Living Prophets, and Philosophy 200.
What is one experience you think everyone in your major should try to have before graduation?
For music performance majors and anyone who wants to play music professionally: work hard to start subbing in professional orchestras while you are still in school. Learning how to play with different professional orchestras has given me some of my most valuable experience as a musician.
Describe your BYU experience in five words or less.
Faith-filled, truth-seeking, growth, fun, determination.
What do you feel is your biggest takeaway from your education?
My biggest takeaway from my education has been that pure knowledge greatly enlarges the soul (D&C 121:42). I know how the Spirit speaks to me and how to receive revelation for myself, my family and my service in the kingdom of heaven.
What inspires you about the piece you will be performing?
The piece I will be performing, Stjepan Šulek’s “Sonata Vox Gabrieli,” means “The Voice of Gabriel,” referring to the biblical angel Gabriel. This piece is meant to evoke the various ways the Archangel Gabriel conveys divine messages to humanity.
One of the most important things about a BYU education is the intertwining of the intellectual and the spiritual. How has that kind of education impacted you?
BYU's emphasis on integrating intellectual and spiritual development was a decisive factor in my choice to study here. It has created an environment where I could learn from amazing professors who taught their knowledge with the Holy Spirit, who “speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be” (Jacob 4:13). Applying what I have learned from them in my daily efforts to improve as a musician, I have been able to see God help me grow and bless me with more opportunities to serve others.
In addition, how have you seen divinity within your craft while studying here at BYU?
God wants me to bless others with the gift of music. I know He loves the people who I will serve because He has been helping me grow and preparing me to bless them through music. I can feel Him recognizing and strengthening my righteous desires.
CFAC Convocation Information | April 24, 2026
Concert Hall | Music Building
Communications | 9:00 a.m.
Dance, Music and Theatre and Media Arts | 12:00 p.m.
Art and Design | 3:00 p.m.