Lt. Gov. Henderson graduates from BYU. Here’s how she did it

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said she spent countless evenings and weekends reviewing her handwritten notes in her Spanish Fork home this year.

Between responding to the state’s burgeoning wildfires, the COVID-19 pandemic, flash floods in southern Utah and helping run the state government, Henderson had one other issue that kept her occupied.

She was studying for finals.

Amid a tumultuous year defined by natural disasters and a global health crisis, Henderson balanced her roles as lieutenant governor and college student at Brigham Young University. Now after years of university coursework, the former state senator can add college graduate to her slew of titles. After taking her final exam earlier this month, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history on Friday.

“It was this mountain that was in front of me that I needed to climb and there were times at the bottom of that mountain (when) I thought I’d never get to the top,” she said. “It’s really fulfilling and exciting and just humbling for me to be finally at the summit of that big mountain.”

Henderson first attended BYU at the age of 18, focusing her studies on political science. At the Provo campus, Henderson met her husband and they married the summer after her freshman year. She soon dropped out of school to work two jobs to help him get through physical therapy school.

Henderson’s life path is a common one many Utah women face, said Susan Madsen, founder and director of the Utah Women & Leadership Project at Utah State University. She said the lieutenant governor is a role model for other women who didn’t immediately finish their education in lieu of starting a family.

“She really sets a powerful example of how important it is for so many women in Utah who fit into that ‘some college, no degree’ or ‘no college’ (categories),” Madsen said of Henderson.

In Utah, mothers living with a child less than 5 years old is 51% less likely to be enrolled in college than other women, while the odds of a father not being enrolled in college is only 20% lower, according to a 2018 report by the Women in the Economy Commission, a group that increases public awareness about how economic factor impact Utah women.

Married men are more than 50% more likely to be enrolled in college, while married women are nearly 30% less likely to be attending postsecondary education, the study showed.

It’s also not unheard of for a state governor or lieutenant governor to make it to office without a college degree.

Former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who served as governor for 12 years, attended BYU but did not graduate. And as of February of this year, six lieutenant governors, including Henderson, did not mention a college degree in their biographies, according to an analysis by Ballotpedia. All Republicans, the list included the deputy executives of Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, West Virginia and South Dakota.

“Across a wide range of outcomes, we consistently find that college-educated leaders perform about the same as or worse than leaders with less formal education,” according to a study by political scientists Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu. “Politicians with college degrees do not tend to govern over more prosperous nations, do not pass more bills, do not tend to do better at the polls, and are no less likely to be corrupt.”

Henderson, now 47 years old, used to feel ashamed for not graduating.

“I had always been really embarrassed about the fact that I hadn’t finished school, hoping that people wouldn’t find out,” she said. “I would talk about it if people asked me but I was always kind of hoping it would never come up.” Eventually, her perspective shifted and Henderson was set on completing her education, wanting, she said, to set an example for her four daughters. It also didn’t sit well with her that she could be a state senator but not meet the college credit qualifications to be her own intern.

She’s also seen how her college studies have helped inform policy positions. A student of state history, Henderson said one bill that comes to mind is a 2020 law she sponsored which reduced penalties among consenting adults engaging in polygamy.

“One of my big pieces of legislation in 2020 … was dealing with polygamy and being able to understand the context of polygamy,” she explained.

While attending college, Henderson said it was difficult to find classes during time slots that worked for her schedule. But when the pandemic hit and classes went virtual, it became easier to keep up with her college coursework.

Henderson commended schools like Utah Valley University and Southern Utah University for opening child care centers for college students with kids and called for institutions to make it easier for nontraditional students like her to get a higher education.

“I‘ve loved seeing our state institutions really start to try to tackle some of these problems,” she said. “Identifying ways to do things differently, (allowing) more people to have access to opportunity is very important.”

When asked if she will go back to school to pursue another degree, Henderson laughed.

“It’s too soon,” she said. “I’m 47 years old. And I’ve got three more years — my term here as lieutenant governor — I don’t know what comes after that. I’ll tackle that when it comes.”