President Dallin H. Oaks left his imprint on the University. He continued the building program of his predecessor with the enlargement of the bookstore, construction of the Law School (authorized during the Wilkinson Administration), and erection of a new library addition equal in size to the original structure. He also witnessed the construction by the Church of the Language Training Mission near the University and announced a drive for funds to construct a large graduate school of management. Of more importance, he accelerated the intellectual renaissance of the faculty and strived for perfection of performance in all areas of the University.
Elder Oaks was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1984. "BYU is more than a university in the conventional sense. Its domain spans the limit of human experience, spiritual as well as physical . . . It is concerned with teaching the fundamentals of spiritual and secular knowledge. This is the nature of the challenge to the university. This is the task I see you performing better than any other educational institution in the world."—Dallin H. Oaks