Following Renata Forste’s retirement in August, Brigham Young University announced the appointment of a new International Vice President: Richard Houseman, who has been serving as the Dean of Continuing Education since 2023. In this new position, he will be over Continuing Education, Performing Arts Management, and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies.
Entomology and Education
Houseman’s path to international education followed a winding route. He earned his bachelor’s degree from BYU in biology and secondary education. After graduating, he taught science, math, and PE and coached the varsity basketball and baseball teams at Tintic High School in Eureka, Utah.
He returned to BYU to get a master’s degree in zoology; his thesis research involved zoogeography of stonefly populations in the Raft River Mountains of Utah. He was accepted into the entomology PhD program at Texas A&M University. There his focus shifted from stoneflies to termites; his research focused on studying the spatial distribution of subterranean termite foraging in urban and natural environments—important information for the development of effective termite baiting technology. “We knew practically nothing about how subterranean termite spatial dynamics affect baiting strategies before our work there at Texas A&M,” he says. “Now termite baits are a very commonly used product around homes.”
After earning his PhD, he did a postdoc at Texas A&M, where, in addition to doing research, he managed their termite management correspondence course—where pest management technicians nationwide could take an independent study course on termite biology, behavior and management.
He was hired as an assistant professor in the entomology department at the University of Missouri. In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities, he was the state extension urban entomologist, teaching and training on biology, behavior and management of insects associated with human environments for the pest control industry. He also trained county extension faculty throughout the state. “Ever since my postdoc,” he says, “I’ve always been engaged in extension and continuing education.”
He’s also long been engaged in international research; during his master’s degree, he did research in Costa Rica on stoneflies at high altitudes. Later, he surveyed termite pests in rubber plantations in Thailand and also trained students in South Africa on termite research methods. “We visited the traditionally black universities in the northeastern part of South Africa,” he says, “and helped train students there on how to do termite research, because termites are a really abundant pest there. It was more education than research, but I had a lot of fun collecting lots of termites myself.”
A Season of Unexpected Changes
In time, Houseman became a tenured professor at the University of Missouri. He and his family—which by then included six children—enjoyed Missouri, and he assumed he’d spend the rest of his career there. But his path took a sudden turn when he received a phone call from Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, asking for a meeting. He and his wife met with the First Presidency and were called to lead the Brazil Recife Mission.
So, Houseman left the University of Missouri, and he, his wife, and four of their children moved to Brazil in 2017, where they served as mission leaders for three years. “It was a wonderful experience,” he says. “I met and fell in love with the people and culture of Brazil.” As mission president, his interactions weren’t limited to people from Brazil. “We had missionaries from all over the world in our mission,” he says, “not just Brazil and the United States, but Mexico, Central America, South America, Cabo Verde, Spain . . . I learned to appreciate all of their backgrounds and where they came from, and to understand their perspectives. I was so incredibly fortunate to see that and to have that kind of experience. I felt like I was exposed to many kinds of cultures and people, and I loved our mission experience and serving with all of our missionaries.”
Three years later, as they were preparing to leave Brazil, things took another sudden turn in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. Missionaries around the world found themselves scrambling to get home as country borders closed and travel became difficult. “We were really in the thick of a lot of logistics of international travel,” he says. “That was a really unique experience.”
But the pandemic wasn’t done turning his life upside down. As he prepared to return to the workforce, Houseman had applied for positions at several universities and had been invited to interview at some of them. Once the pandemic hit, however, those job openings started closing because of the uncertainty surrounding funding.
So, while the world waited out the pandemic, Houseman and his family returned from Brazil and moved in with his parents in Idaho, and when his wife got a job at Church headquarters, the family moved to Lehi and enrolled their children in school there. After each academic position he’d applied for was frozen, he decided to take a job as a technical director for a large regional commercial pest control company. There, his background in urban entomology came in handy as he trained and worked with technicians at large commercial operations. “It was very different from before our mission—I had to transition from a tenured professor and researcher to crawling around and getting my hands dirty,” he says. “I learned a lot and made a lot of great friends.”
While he enjoyed the work, he still longed to be in academia. So, when a position supervising adjunct faculty at the BYU Salt Lake Center opened, he applied, was hired, and worked there until he took a position at Church headquarters in the Missionary Department. In that capacity, he managed a team of in-field reps who worked with mission leaders to manage situations related to missionary health, safety, and security. “We would manage those kinds of situations all over the world every day,” he says. “I learned a lot about international logistics, about the risks in various countries and how situations can dramatically change overnight.”
In 2023, Houseman was hired to replace the retiring Dean of Continuing Education at BYU. “It's been just an incredible experience,” he says. “I learned so much about how BYU Continuing Education promotes learning everywhere in the world. We have students in nearly 100 countries taking BYU courses that have been developed by course designers and amazing BYU faculty. A BYU educational experience is available in many places that I had not realized before. Students are having BYU learning experiences in a variety of different ways, even though they are not here on BYU campus.”
Benefiting Students and the World
After three years in BYU Continuing Education, Houseman was hired to replace Forste as the International Vice President. As he looks back on the winding path of his career—from research abroad to extension education in Missouri to meeting people from around the world in Brazil to dealing with international logistics in the Missionary Department—he says, “I see how so many different pieces of my experience have come together to prepare me for this opportunity to be the International Vice President. I’m excited about what I get to do now because it combines all of these pieces of my prior work. And I’m excited to find the BYU flavor in all of that. Learning how our faculty are doing things internationally in the BYU way will be exciting. I’m looking forward to that.”
One exciting part of this position, he says, is being able to engage with students. “That's something I've always been interested in,” he says. “That's why I went into teaching. I feel like the student experience is so critical. We want to make sure that it’s always top of mind.” He’s interested in the ways that students can create “covenant communities as they go abroad and work together and study together and benefit the world together.”
He’s also excited to work with “amazing, talented faculty,” stating, “I want them to be able to unleash their full scholarly knowledge, and at the same time feel confident that they can lean fully into their discipleship, helping students see how those two come together at BYU.”
Asked about his vision for BYU’s international endeavors, he says, “My vision is to benefit the world through inspiring learning and service internationally. I know our students benefit when they have these international experiences; there's no question about that. But I also hope that we benefit the world when we go abroad—how can we have an inspiring learning experience that is also a benefit to the places we're visiting? As we seek to have inspiring learning benefit the world, we are fulfilling the mission of BYU.”
He concludes, “I couldn't feel more blessed by the Lord or more grateful for this opportunity to work with the Kennedy Center, with our international study programs, and with Performing Arts Management, in addition to continuing to work with BYU Continuing Education. I'm excited to be a part of all these international programs at BYU.”