Academic Career
In August 1900 Widtsoe became the director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at what is now Utah State University. While in this position he founded The Deseret Farmer with Lewis A. Merrill and J. Edward Taylor. Their goal was to have it be a popular magazine that would be read and implemented by the actual farmers.
In 1905 Widtsoe was dismissed from the agricultural college as a result of political debates about its future and President William Jasper Kerr's feeling that Widtsoe was insufficiently supporting him.
For a short time he was a professor of agriculture at BYU, and is arguably the founding father of Brigham Young University's college of biology and agriculture. On BYU campus the John A. Widtsoe building is the home of the College of Biology and Agriculture. Soon, however, he returned to Logan to succeed Kerr as president of Utah State University from 1907 to 1916. He also served as the president of the University of Utah from 1916 until his call as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in 1921. Widtsoe was the fifth Commissioner of Church Education from 1921 to 1924 and was the seventh commissioner from 1934 to 1936.
During his time as an apostle Widtsoe taught a religion class at the University of Southern California.
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