Presidential Perspective - March 20, 2025

Baylor Students, Faculty, Staff and Parents:

NCAA March Madness is here, and for the 10th time in the past 11 postseasons, both the Baylor men’s and women’s basketball teams are going dancing! Our women’s team will begin tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. against No. 13 seed Grand Canyon, and as a No. 4 seed, they will host at the Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion for the first time in history. Tickets are on sale now for all games at the Foster, but they’re going fast. Baylor students can get in for FREE by showing their student ID at the ticket window one hour before tip-off. The Baylor men will start their NCAA Tournament run tomorrow as well in Raleigh, N.C., at 11:15 a.m. on CBS. The Bears are a No. 9 seed and will play eighth-seeded Mississippi State. This is the men’s sixth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance – a school record.

Don’t forget Baylor students are encouraged to come out to the Hurd Center at 11 a.m. on Friday to watch the men’s team on the big screens before heading over to Foster Pavilion to support the women’s team. We’ll have food trucks available outside the Hurd Center for a snack in between games.

As former Division 1 basketball student-athletes (and big fans of Baylor Athletics), the First Gent and I will be among the green-and-gold fans cheering on our Bears this weekend. I know many of you will be there with us since Athletics has brought the Baylor Family together and has served as a front porch to the University for decades. Alongside our Christian mission, academic excellence and dynamic on-campus student engagement, our participation in college athletics at the highest level is an invaluable component of our ability to attract and retain outstanding students and to serve the community and the surrounding world. So, to kick off this big sports weekend for Baylor, I’ll offer the first, “Sic ’em, Bears!”

Here are some updates for this week:

• COLLINS OUTSTANDING PROFESSOR: Baylor is nationally recognized for outstanding undergraduate teaching, and this year, our senior class has selected Don Carpenter, B.B.A. '81, M.S., CPA, clinical associate professor of accounting and business law, as the 2025 Collins Outstanding Professor. This annual award recognizes and honors outstanding teachers at Baylor, with Professor Carpenter receiving an award of $10,000 and recognition in University publications. He also will give a special lecture April 14 at 4 p.m. at Moody Memorial Library on “Tulip Bulbs and Squirrel Pelts: What Creates Value,” using examples from the world of fine art, history and financial engineering to explore the backstory of “value.”
• OUTSTANDING FACULTY AWARDS: Congratulations to this year’s recipients of Outstanding Faculty Awards, which honor the best all-around professors for their teaching, scholarship and contributions to the academic community. This designation represents a singular honor for Baylor faculty since the recognition comes from their colleagues. This year’s Outstanding Faculty are:
  • Tenured Teaching Award: Keith Richards, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing, and Tony L. Talbert, Ed.D., professor of qualitative research and social-cultural studies education;
  • Tenure-Track Teaching Award: David W. Montgomery, D.M.A., associate professor of music education;
  • Non-Tenure-Track Teaching Award: Paul E. Anderson, J.D., clinical associate professor of finance; Jason D. Whitt, Ph.D., senior lecturer of the Medical Humanities in the Honors Program; and Clay Butler, Ph.D., senior lecturer of English;
  • Tenured Scholarship: Paul Allison, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering and founding director of the Point-of-Need Innovations (PONI) Center; Sarah Mire, J.D., associate professor of educational psychology and faculty affiliate with the Baylor Center for Development Disabilities; and Marius Mitrea, Ph.D., professor of mathematics;
  • Tenure-Track Scholarship: Christopher Brett Jaeger, J.D., Ph.D., associate professor of law; and
  • Significant Contributions to the Academic Community: Sandi Cooper, Ph.D., professor of mathematics education and associate dean for undergraduate education.
• BAYLOR 101 WEBINAR: Last fall we launched Baylor in Deeds, the new strategic plan that will guide the University through 2030 as Baylor seeks to cement its status as the preeminent Christian research university with a global perspective and biblical calling. Baylor in Deeds will be the focus of this spring’s Baylor 101 webinar, and Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., will provide an update on implementation of the plan, including how college, school and other unit-level plans feed into Baylor in Deeds. The one-hour Zoom session is scheduled for Wednesday, March 26, at 11 a.m. All faculty and staff are encouraged to participate, and you will receive an email the day before the session with the Zoom link. If you cannot make it on Wednesday, the webinar will be available for on-demand viewing.
• FORREST FRANK CONCERT TICKETS: Limited tickets are still available to see Baylor alum Forrest Frank in concert at Foster Pavilion on April 22. Following the massive success of his 2024 national tour, the GRAMMY-nominee and double Dove Award-winning artistwill bring his 2025 Child Of God Tour Part 2 to Baylor – and our first concert at Foster Pavilion – in a few short weeks. Opening for Frank is Claire Leslie, a singer-songwriter and worship leader from San Antonio. Leslie’s music has rapidly gained popularity on social media, where she tells stories from her life experiences and faith journey through a colorful, alternative pop sound. This is an exciting opportunity for Baylor and the City of Waco that also provides new revenue streams for the University. Expect to see more concert announcements soon!
• MEN'S AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT SUMMITS: Over the past two weeks, Baylor hosted the annual Waco ISD Men’s and Women’s Empowerment Summits at the Hurd Center, bringing a combined 400 middle and high school students to spend a day on campus. The students were specifically selected for their academic excellence, and they experienced a first-hand look at the advantages of a Baylor education through breakout sessions, STEM demonstrations led by Baylor faculty and staff and more. These special events aim to empower young men and women by building relationships, teaching practical skills and opening pathways to success.
• GREAT COLLEGES SURVEY: Baylor works diligently to be a stellar employer that reflects our Christian mission, and since 2011, Baylor has been named a Great Colleges to Work For® based on faculty and staff responses to a related survey.This week faculty and staff should have received an email from ModernThink with details for this year’s survey. The Great Colleges program is designed to measure employee experiences and to recognize higher education institutions that have great workplace engagement. Your participation and honest feedback are critical to the assessment process since summarized findings are shared with the Administration, and those are used to inform our workplace programs and services. The confidentiality of your response will remain protected. If you have any questions about this survey, please contact askHR at (254) 710-2000 or askHR@baylor.edu, or visit Great Colleges To Work For Program website.

Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.
President 

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

With all the gusty wind we’ve had lately in Waco, “Let’s go … fly a kite!” This is one of my favorite songs from the original Mary Poppins movie, which was the first movie I ever saw at a theater. And it was a drive-in!