Carl Hernandez III became the first vice president for belonging June 2022. He leads the university’s efforts to develop and implement a mission-aligned strategic approach to building a community of belonging at BYU and assisting the university to achieve the lofty objectives of the BYU Statement on Belonging.
Hernandez is a law professor at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School and has taught constitutional litigation, community lawyering, fundamental lawyering skills, and clinical courses for legislation, criminal prosecution and defense, immigration, government practice and nonprofit practice.
Hernandez founded the BYU Community Legal Clinic, which provides pro bono legal services to the poor, immigrants, refugees, and other underserved populations and he has served as its director since 2017.
Hernandez credits a visit to his family by two missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with changing his life at 14. He went on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees and then a Juris Doctor from BYU. He was the 2019 recipient of the BYU Karl G. Maeser Professional Faculty Excellence Award and the J. Reuben Clark Professor of the Year Award in 2018.