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Brigham Young University-Idaho recently gained its first female vice president, but it has a long way to go to catch up with its much larger sister school in Utah.

The flagship campus of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had women in veep roles for years and, it turns out, even contemplated female candidates for its top post.

Earlier this month, BYU-Idaho announced the appointment of Amy LaBaugh as student life veep, a move celebrated widely by LDS feminists and earning much praise for the Mormon-owned campus in Rexburg.

In Provo, though, BYU has had a female vice president for 16 years and other women administrators almost from its 19th-century founding.

Susa Young Gates (one of LDS Church President Brigham Young's daughters) was the first female member of the BYU Board of Regents, according to school spokesman Todd Hollingshead, serving from 1891 to 1933.

Carolyn J. Rasmus was appointed in 1979 as the first female member of the BYU President's Council, the group of officials running university. In 2000, Janet S. Scharman was named BYU's first female vice president.

Under current BYU President Kevin J. Worthen, two of the school's six vice presidents are women — Scharman, in charge of student life, and Sandra Rogers, as international veep.

Scharman also headed Worthen's Advisory Council on Campus Response to Sexual Assault, which recently proposed widespread changes to BYU's approach to reporting and responding to allegations of assault.

Carri Jenkins, assistant to the president for university communications, is among the 10 administrators on the President's Council.

Before Worthen took BYU's reins in 2014, the Mormon school evaluated any number of women for the job, Hollingshead says. "The search committee, appointed by the university's board of trustees [including several LDS apostles], considered many outstanding, well-qualified individuals including internal and external candidates, both men and women, from academe and industry."

At the time of his selection, Worthen was advancement vice president on the President's Council. If that was a steppingstone to the top job, at least two to three women are now in the mix for the future.

Peggy Fletcher Stack