The Alumni Association was established in 1903 in a reorganization of the Brigham Young Academy Alumni Association, which had existed since 1893. During the years 1926-1938, it was generally known as the Associated Alumni of Brigham Young University. It has been an active member organization in the American Alumni Council since 1926. In 2009, the Alumni Association gave up its governing and fiduciary responsibilities and became an advisory body to the department of Alumni Relations.

The Joint Oral History Project conducted interviews with selected, retired Brigham Young University faculty, alumni, and other individuals who had extensive contact with the University. The interviews focused on the Brigham Young University community at the time of the interviewee's association with the University, but also covering the interviewee's life before coming and after leaving the university. The Joint Oral History Project was established to conduct oral history interviews about Brigham Young University.

Philip M. Flammer was born June 20, 1928, to Hans and Arizona Gibbons Flammer in St. Johns, Arizona. On July 13, 1954, he married Mildred May Wehrwein in Logan, Utah. Together they had four children. He received his BA at Utah State University, his MA from George Washington University, and his PhD from Yale University. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the United States Air Force where he served as a pilot and a professor at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Flammer was also a professor of history in addition to teaching religion courses at Brigham Young University, where he was awarded professor of the year in 1976. He died on August 20, 1999 in Orem, Utah.

Richard Douglas Poll was born on April 23, 1918 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Carl William Poll and Annie Rosella Swenson. He moved with his family to Fort Worth, Texas at the age of ten, and attended Texas Christian University (TCU). He graduated from TCU with his bachelor's in history in 1938, and completed a master's degree on a history topic in 1939. Following his graduation, he served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany and Canada. Poll then served in the United States Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945. Amidst the war he married Emogene Hill in the Salt Lake Temple.

After World War II Poll returned to school, earning his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. He then joined the history faculty at Brigham Young University (BYU), and served as department chair from 1955 to 1958. During his time at the university he founded a chapter of the American Association of University Professors in 1959, and worked with the Honors Program. He came into conflict with the university administration, however, and resigned his position in 1969. He was then became vice president at Western Illinois University (WIU) until 1975, when he returned to teaching history. After retiring from WIU in 1983 he returned to teach classes at BYU. Poll died on April 27, 1994 in Provo, Utah.