Once the executive vice president of a security firm with 500 employees, political science Special Instructor Dr. John Tsukayama is one of the few members of the BYUH faculty who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Brian Houghton, dean of business and government, said, “He has a lot of integrity. When he signs his contract, he agrees to live by the Honor Code, so he keeps his mustache but shaves the beard. He doesn’t drink alcohol or coffee, not even at home.”
Caring for students
Leilah Mouna, a junior from Canada majoring in political science, said, “[Dr. Tsukayama] is a non-member like me, and he told us at the beginning of his class that he really respects the Honor Code. I thought it was interesting how even though he’s not a member, he has so much respect for it and encouraged us to respect and live by it as well.”
Houghton referenced Dean James “Jim” Lee’s David O. McKay lecture where he told a story about Tsukayama’s integrity. “He wanted to know if it would be okay for him to have one glass of champagne to toast his daughter at her wedding reception. I would never have known if he did this, yet his personal integrity would not allow him to do so without first asking.”
Tsukayama is personable and welcoming as a teacher said Mouna. As a transfer student, Mouna said she was uncertain about if she had made the right choice in coming to BYUH.
She said when Tsukayama shared his story about transferring between several universities and his long journey to finish his degree was comforting to her.
One of Tsukayama’s former students, Alexandra Athans, a senior from Laie majoring in intercultural peacebuilding, said Dr. Tsukayama is demanding. “If you aren’t disciplined, it’s very hard,” she shared.
Although he is demanding, Athans called him a gentle giant. She noted, “He just wants to make a difference. He also wants you to change. If you’re going to make a difference in the world, you have to change as well, and that’s what [he] tries to do.
“He sees the potential in his students,” said Mouna. She added because of this he pushes his students to reach that potential.
Tsukayama said he makes sure to tell students he supports the “prophetic mission of the university.” He said he wants to get students ready to go forth with enough knowledge about the world because it can be difficult to be able to go forth and serve, making peace in the world.
Business and background
Tsukayama said his journey to BYUH began in 2006 after he and his business partners sold their company, Safeguard Services. The company was a security and investigation company Tsukayama had been a part of for more than 20 years. After selling the company, he said he needed to decide what his next life chapter would be.
He decided he should finish his undergraduate degree and chose BYUH. Tsukayama said he received a warm welcome from the faculty when he arrived as a student.
Houghton first met Tsukayama when he was one of his students. Houghton said, “I would safely say he was one of the most outstanding students I ever had. He was always prepared and engaged. He was a delight.”
Following his graduation in 2007, he attended the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland to pursue a master’s degree as well as a Ph.D. While Tsukayama worked on his Ph.D., he and Houghton would meet on occasion to discuss his thesis. Houghton described Tsukayama as brilliant and called him a “deep thinker.”
When Houghton went on sabbatical in 2013, he invited Tsukayama to come back to BYUH to teach in his absence. He said because of his studies and life experience “no one was more qualified to teach [my classes] than John.”
Outside the classroom
In 2018, Tsukayama left the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, which promotes high ethical standards among public servants, to help his daughter and her husband take care of his granddaughter. “On Mondays and Fridays, I’m a personal servant to an 18-month-old,” Tsukayama laughed.
Also an author, Tsukayama will be publishing a book this month with research he did for his Ph.D. on the use of torture in counter terrorism by American forces. The book will be titled “By Any Means Necessary: Veterans Talk Torture on the War on Terror.”
He explained how, “I essentially located and interviewed 14 people who were involved as either perpetrators, observers or those who tried to stop torture.”
Citing research done from the 1960s to 1980s, Tsukayama said people who engaged in abuse towards prisoners would need someone from outside of the conflict to get them to stop. He pointed to the Stanford Prison Experiment as an example of this.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment conducted at Stanford University in August 1971, Saul Mcleod, a researcher for The University of Manchester’s Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology division explained in an online article for Simply Psychology. The experiment involved assigning 24 people to play as either a guard or a prisoner. The experiment was cut short “due to the emotional breakdowns of prisoners and excessive aggression of the guards,” Mcleod wrote.
“Those were short term experiments,” said Dr. Tsukayama. After speaking to people who had been deployed for a year at a time and involved in torture, Dr. Tsukayama described how, “It turns out the most heinous guys came to stop on their own.”
Athans said the book is about reconciliation. “You have these soldiers who in the moment feel they’re justified in participating in this torture and killings but then years later deeply regret their actions, saying ‘They’re people too. They have lives and children just like me.’”
The book is intense and deals with the topic of torture and the effects it has on those involved Athans explained. “It’s real people and real stories.” She said the realism in it makes it powerful.