Presidential Perspective - October 17, 2024

October 17, 2024

Baylor Students, Faculty, Staff and Parents:

Homecoming is next week, and I could not be more excited to celebrate with our students and, most importantly, welcome our Baylor alumni back home. We’ve always claimed that Baylor hosted the first collegiate “homecoming” 115 years ago, but this fact has continually been up for debate with several other schools such as the University of Missouri, University of Illinois, University of Michigan and Northern Illinois University.

An article published just yesterday by ESPN should put the claims of others to rest:

“What’s not in dispute, however, is that in 1909 Baylor hosted a “Home-Coming” weekend that featured all the elements that remain important today. It took months of planning and included a pep rally, a bonfire, a parade and, of course, a football game, in which Baylor defeated TCU, 6-3.

“If history wants to remember the first, official homecoming game in college football, all the evidence suggests this was it.

“An 82-page university document was published in January 1910 and went into great detail to memorialize everything that took place.

“‘The purpose of the Home-Coming was to give an opportunity for the joyful meeting of former student friends, an occasion when old classmates could again feel the warm hand-clasp of their fellows, recall old memories and associations, and catch the Baylor spirit again,’ it said.”

So go ahead and start making your Homecoming plans as we commemorate all that makes Baylor such a special place. And STUDENTS – Don’t forget Dinner at the Livingstones on Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. in front of Allbritton House!

Some updates for this week:

  • PROSPECTIVE STUDENT PREMIERE: This Saturday the entire Baylor campus community in Waco will host more than 4,000 prospective students and families for the first on-campus Fall Premiere since 2019. Guests will have the opportunity to take a campus tour, meet with academic departments, learn about the admissions process, tour residence halls and enjoy exciting activations and live performances. Please join me in showing our guests a warm welcome as they consider Baylor for their academic endeavors and as their future home. 
  • THE COMMON GOOD: The Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture, hosted by our Institute for Faith and Learning, is underway through Saturday with a focus on Renewing and Reimagining Institutions for the Common Good. More than 240 significant scholarly and public voices from across the country are on our campus to explore the ways in which varied institutions – whether educational, ecclesial or political – can restore trust, serve their purposes and advance the common good. On Friday evening, I’m thrilled to join University of Notre Dame President Emeritus John I. Jenkins and new CCCU President David Hoag for a presidential panel discussion, moderated by new IFL director Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, about the challenges and opportunities in Christian higher education. The full Symposium schedule is available on the IFL website.
  • FACULTY AND STAFF CHAPEL REMINDER: Don’t forget the fall Faculty and Staff Chapel service will be tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Powell Chapel at Truett Seminary. Our guests will be Rev. Aaron Zimmerman and St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. Launched two years ago as an outcome from the Spiritual Wellbeing Task Force, Faculty and Staff Chapel brings a guest pastor and/or congregation to our campus to lead us in a time of worship. I hope to see you there.
  • SUPPORT UNITED WAY: Baylor proudly supports the United Way, and we are grateful for the initiatives it supports in Waco and McLennan County. This year the United Way of Waco and McLennan County is celebrating a century of service to our local community. In honor of this milestone, Baylor has named our annual United Way Campaign “100 for 100.” Our goal is to raise $100,000 to support United Way’s efforts to provide our neighbors in need critical resources such as childcare access, educational outreach programs, workforce training, food pantries and more. Visit our campaign website to learn more about the United Way and to make a pledge.
  • TV/FILM HONOR: One of our Film and Digital Media professors will be honored next week in Hollywood with one of the top honors offered by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). Corey Carbonara, Ph.D., will receive the 2024 Presidential Proclamation, recognizing his excellence in mentoring students and his continued efforts to challenge the film and TV industry to advance into new frontiers of media production technology. For decades, Dr. Carbonara and his Baylor FDM colleague Dr. Michael Korpi, along with their students, have been on the leading edge of new technologies from their early work with high-definition cinema to today’s research on a new wideband color innovation called Full Color Range that can accurately transport and display all the vivid colors humans can perceive. Congratulations, Dr. Carbonara!
  • READERS MEET THE AUTHOR: Provost Nancy Brickhouse and I look forward to the kickoff of this year’s Readers Meet the Author series next Tuesday at noon in the Schumacher Flex Commons on the first floor of Moody Memorial Library and online via Zoom webinar. Religion professor Elizabeth Flowers, Ph.D., will lead a conversation with Elesha J. Coffman, Ph.D., professor of history, about her new book, “Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith,” which examines the influence of Christianity on U.S. history through the lens of 13 key events that span 400 years. Readers Meet the Author events, which feature single-authored works by Baylor faculty, will be held throughout the academic year, and I encourage you to join us for this series of collegial conversations that encourage shared reflection and dialogue in the Baylor community and beyond.
  • BIO-WASTE INTO CLEAN ENERGY: Mechanical engineering professor Lulin Jiang, Ph.D., and her research team have unveiled a breakthrough in ultra-clean biofuel technology with a revolutionary Swirl Burst injector that achieves near-zero emissions and high-combustion efficiency with glycerol/methanol biofuel blends. Published in the high-impact journal Fuel, the Baylor engineers demonstrated that by transforming bio-waste into clean energy, they can offer a solution for the biofuel industry that is cost-effective, promotes energy resilience and significantly reduces harmful emissions. Dr. Jiang and her team are at the forefront of this technology breakthrough as members of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious National Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, which helps researchers commercialize their innovative technologies like the Swirl Burst, and as partners with the City of Waco on an NSF Civic Innovation Challenge project to develop climate-smart, waste-to-energy fuel combustion technology at the Waco landfill. 

The First Gent and I are looking forward to Baylor Theatre’s production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” which runs through Sunday. We’ll be there Saturday night at Jones Theatre. Tickets are available here.

Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.
President


PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Students throwing a frisbee back and forth in temperate Texas fall.

I always chuckle when I see the “12 Seasons of Texas” meme pop up on social media. Just a reminder that this time of year is called “False Fall,” but the cooler temperatures have certainly been refreshing and have brought our students outdoors.