Jesse Knight Building
Built in 1960
Jesse Knight Building: Where We Began (1960)
The Jesse Knight Building (JKB), completed in 1960, was originally constructed to house BYU’s College of Commerce during a time of major campus growth. Designed by William Rowe Smith and Fred W. Needham, and built by Okland Construction Company, the four- story, 78,687-square-foot structure featured Harvard-style case study classrooms and amphitheater lecture halls. Its L-shaped design and half-floors, added during a 1966 expansion, made it one of the more uniquely laid-out buildings on campus. It was named after Jesse Knight, a generous early benefactor whose mining fortune helped sustain BYU through its financially precarious early decades. Often called the “patron saint” of BYU, Knight funded salaries, equipment, and several key buildings during a time when the university operated without Church funding.
Jesse Knight Building: Where We Are Now
After the business school relocated to the Tanner Building in the 1980s, the Jesse Knight Building became home to BYU’s College of Humanities. Today, it serves multiple functions, housing BYU Police, Human Resources Development, computer labs, writing centers, and many large classrooms used for general education. With its central location and spacious lecture halls, most students at BYU will have a class in the JKB at some point. It also supports BYU’s strong language-learning environment, with many foreign language courses held here. Reflecting BYU’s global reach, 128 languages are spoken on campus, 62 are taught regularly, and around 65% of students speak a second language, making the Jesse Knight Building an integral space for both communication and community.