But at least by one measure Boerio-Goates is anything but typical for BYU. On Sundays, she won’t be found at sacrament meeting. She goes to mass.

Since 1982, Boerio-Goates has been a professor of chemistry at BYU, and while she shares many of the same values as her fellow co-workers, she does not share their faith. About 5 percent of Brigham Young University’s 1,600 faculty members practice other religions or none at all.

Because her husband is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Boerio-Goates said she may have been spared most of the potential culture shock when she arrived at BYU. And while her experience at the church-run university has been mostly positive — she’s been asked to give Catholic perspectives on issues like prayer, and her inbox filled up with about 100 letters of condolences when Pope John Paul II died in 2005 — there are reminders that she is the minority.

“There are still occasionally time to time when the missionaries will come by or when a retired colleague in my department will lean over to somebody else and say, ‘Has Julie Goates joined the church yetfi’ And those are hurtful because in some ways I feel like I’ve worked very hard to try to show that I’m a decent person regardless of where I go to church on Sunday.”

But Boerio-Goates said she wouldn’t take back the last 24 years. When she and her husband took positions at BYU, the religious chasm was not her first concern. She was more interested in getting tenure without sacrificing her family, as the young couple knew could be the case at major research universities.

“We thought BYU would have a family perspective and would have some sense of balance and that we wouldn’t have to sell our souls to the devil to get tenure,” she said.

BYU also was close to her husband’s parents, and the university was a good fit for her professionally, she said. Ultimately the choice has helped strengthen her own religious beliefs, she said.

“When you’re a minority, you have to come to grips with what you believe and whether you believe it strongly enough to continue to be a minority,” Boerio-Goates said.

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said non-members are hired in three circumstances: When the faculty member would be considered a “visitor,” meaning they have a temporary appointment; when the university has the opportunity to hire a “world-class scholar whose life and aspirations are compatible with the university’s honor code and mission”; and when a thorough search has yielded no qualified LDS candidates.

Boerio-Goates tells her students on the first day of class that she is Catholic.

“I say, ‘I’m going to come out of the closet,’ ” she said. “And there’s just this stunned silence, like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s she doingfi’ Then when I tell them I’m Catholic, I’m not sure whether the response is more or less surprised than if I’d said what they thought I was going to say.”

If Jack Sites’s students ask, he’ll tell them he doesn’t practice any religion. The professor of integrative biology at BYU said he came to the university mostly for professional reasons, but he considers himself conservative on many issues and shares BYU’s family focus. “I don’t think I could have had a better career had I gone somewhere else.”

In 24 years, Sites said he has nearly never been approached about his lack of religion, and he finds it easy enough to abide by BYU’s requirement that professors not speak out against church teachings.

“Non-members, none of us ever go near that subject,” he said. “We’re terrified of stuff like that — at least I am.”

He has, on occasion, raised concerns with administrators over directions taken by the Board of Trustees — made up of church leaders — but he said he finds plenty of freedom to teach about evolution and other scientific matters that might be questioned by LDS students. “It’s been easier here, I think, in fact than it would be at a lot of state schools.”

And while Sites said he sometimes worries that BYU misses out on the best candidates for some jobs because of religious preference, he can at least appreciate the reasoning.

“It’s the school of the LDS Church,” he said. “It’s their money and their students. All else being equal, if there’s two candidates, the LDS candidate will get the nod every time.”

Jenkins said non-LDS faculty members bring value to the university much like their LDS colleagues.

“They can also make a substantial contribution to our religious mission,” she said. “Those who share in the university’s mission, as a collective whole, are always greater than one individual.”

Eric Sevy, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, said he doesn’t look at Boerio-Goates any differently because of her religion.

“Ultimately I think Julie believes in the mission of BYU as much as anybody,” he said. “I believe her religion brings in similar ideas that meet the role of BYU.”

Boerio-Goates said although her experience of BYU may not be typical, she has managed for more than two decades to find fulfillment of her own there.

“I think there are different reasons why I’m happy here than, say, my LDS colleagues, but I think we agree on most things,” she said. “One of the reasons it appeals to me strongly is you’re committed to something that’s larger than yourself.”

Anna Chang-Yen can be reached at 344-2549 or annac@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.