News

Like so many other things this fall, COVID-19 has brought many changes to Baylor Homecoming – the oldest collegiate homecoming in the nation – which we will celebrate next week, Oct. 15-17.

This month Baylor joins 179 of our fellow members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities in the celebration of Christian Higher Education Month, which was established by the U.S. Congress in 2003.

Our Illuminate vision – for Baylor to be recognized as a Tier 1/Research 1 university while holding firm to our Christian mission and Baptist heritage –requires a team effort to achieve. Tomorrow is National Research Administrator Day, a day set aside to celebrate the dedicated individuals who advance research in universities across the country.

As Baylor’s Virtual Family Weekend approaches in just a few days, I write with gratitude for your partnership and support. Although the COVID-19 pandemic requires that we present this year’s events quite differently than we have in the past, our goal is the same as it has been since the first Family Weekend in 1960: to help families of Baylor students become better acquainted with the University and its beloved traditions.

As we finish up our fourth week of the fall semester, I’d like to thank you all – students, faculty and staff – for your diligence and perseverance as we launched into a time of many unknowns. Because of your hard work, I am excited to share three noteworthy updates.

Please be assured that Baylor stands strong in support of our country, the American flag and in remembering the lives lost through such an impactful display.

Baylor is currently experiencing a decrease in the number of active COVID-19 cases.

Let me extend my sincerest appreciation for all of your efforts to date in the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19 on our campus.

As we reach the end of the second week of the fall semester, I want to commend all of you for your continued wearing of facemasks, practicing social distancing and following University guidelines and policies during this unique time of COVID-19.

As I wrap up the week here in my office in Pat Neff Hall – while watching back-packed students walk across our beautiful campus – several of you have reached out and asked: "How did the first week of the fall semester go?"

On behalf of the Baylor Family, I thank you for the innumerable ways your congregation nurtures and challenges students during this formative season in their lives.

I truly appreciate your efforts as we have all come together as the Baylor Family in the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19 at the start of the semester. I am pleased to see so many facemasks – some are quite creative and fashionable – as well as your efforts to practice social distancing across the campus.

The first day of our fall semester has finally arrived! We are excited to begin what is going to be a truly remarkable year.

From my early career as an assistant professor at Baylor to now as the University’s President, the start of a new semester always brings much joy and excitement as I reflect on our students and the promise of the future. Of course, this fall semester brings added significance as Monday culminates hours upon hours of planning and preparation by our administration, faculty and staff to welcome students back to campus in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baylor University has extensively planned and
prepared for the arrival of your students this fall with the goal of providing a safe and healthy on-campus educational experience in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In only a few days, we will have the great joy of welcoming back to our campus the thousands of men and women who call Baylor University home as students. This Monday, the first official day of class for the fall semester, is a day for which all of us have been yearning and diligently preparing for months.

While many of the fall preparations I have discussed over the past few weeks may seem mostly technical or operational in nature, I want to take a moment to call our collective attention to a core tenet of the mission of Baylor University, especially in the midst of a pandemic -- creating a caring Christian community.

Welcome home! As you move into residence halls and off-campus housing this week in preparation for classes to begin in 7 short days, know that your faculty and staff couldn’t be more excited to have you home.

Today I want to focus on the importance of creating a plan for yourself – including changes to your daily routine, creating an action plan in the event of suspected exposure or a positive test result and precautions we can all take to mitigate risks to ourselves and others around us.

With yesterday’s announcement of decisions related to the upcoming football season – including a revised schedule and McLane Stadium at 25% capacity for the season – we have begun to update Baylor’s plans for other beloved campus traditions this fall. New dates have been set for Family Weekend (Sept. 25-26) and Homecoming (Oct. 16-17).

Today, I’d like to detail several components of our health services strategy, with information on daily health checks, identifying symptoms of COVID-19, what to do if a student feels sick this fall and changes in our typical health-related operations.

Today, I’d like to discuss our Family First campaign to help mitigate the risk of COVID-19 to our campus and the Waco community. With some 18,000 members of the Baylor Family arriving in Waco over the next two weeks, this campaign will help ground our choices in a commitment to putting others before ourselves and keeping Family First.

Today, I’d like to offer some details of what on-campus living will be like for our students residing in any of the University’s numerous housing options.

I am continually inspired by the creativity, resourcefulness and innovation of Baylor’s dedicated faculty. While these qualities are always evident in our faculty teaching and scholarship, I’ve seen them emerge in fresh and exciting ways as Baylor faculty have worked over the summer to enhance our ability to teach online with excellence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each day through next week, I am crafting an email that spotlights a major area of our University-wide planning efforts in response to COVID-19 as we look toward the start of the fall semester on Aug. 24.

Today, I’d like to offer you a glimpse of what you can expect when you enter any of our numerous dining establishments – an essential aspect of the traditional, on-campus Baylor experience that students will encounter this fall.

Today, I’d like to share an extraordinary addition to our campus-wide effort to maintain social distancing while creating safe opportunities for our students to have a Baylor-quality educational experience this fall.

Today, I’d like to share with you more details of the extensive planning and precautionary measures – particularly relating to cleaning and sanitization – we are implementing across our campus to both prepare for your arrival and provide the best opportunity to keep all of our Baylor Family healthy and well once we are all back together.

Thank you for your attention to last Thursday’s announcement and this week’s follow-up instructions regarding Baylor’s mandatory COVID-19 testing program in preparation for the fall semester.

Ensuring every student confirms a negative test before returning to our campus is a key strategy in allowing a successful in-person start and completion of our fall semester.

Be sure to check your mailboxes as we get closer to the fall semester. In the weeks ahead, we will start mailing mandatory COVID-19 test kits to all students, faculty and staff.

WACO, Texas (July 17, 2020) – The Baylor University Board of Regents gathered virtually Thursday and Friday for its quarterly regular meeting to discuss and receive updates on numerous items, including the University’s plans for the fall semester in light of COVID-19 and the launch of the Commission on Historic Campus Representations.

For the next two days, Baylor’s Board of Regents will host its quarterly meeting via Zoom. Since mid-March, the Board has been conducting periodic meetings virtually due to COVID-19, and through this technology, we’ve been able to participate in rich, productive conversations regarding Baylor’s mitigation efforts related to the virus, as well as our plans for the fall semester.

Baylor University today announced the cancellation of in-person graduation ceremonies honoring August 2020 graduates Aug. 14-15 due to a surge in cases and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 across Texas and the nation. In its place, the University will host a virtual ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 15, to honor its May and August graduates.

Starting off with some good news this week: You may recall that in December, one of our beloved black bears, Lady, underwent a first-of-its-kind treatment, called Tomotherapy, for a thymoma in her chest. Last month, Lady underwent a check-up from her veterinary team who came to visit her in Waco. The team took images of Lady’s chest and have reported that the Tomotherapy treatment is successfully managing the size of the mass – it has not grown.

What will Baylor University’s fall semester look like?

Many years ago, Baylor University made a strong commitment to reflect the racial diversity of God’s creation among our students, faculty and staff. Through various task forces, the President's Diversity Council and other initiatives, significant progress has been made in several areas, including admissions, faculty hiring and our campus climate, to name a few. Yet we recognize we must do more as Baylor strives to be a caring Christian community for all of our students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends.

We continue to closely monitor the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases in the Greater Waco area. In conversations with our local public health and government officials, there is a strong collective commitment to taking appropriate mitigating measures and keeping our community safe during this pandemic.

Thank you for your resilience and support during the past few months as Baylor University joined higher education institutions and communities around the world in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the spring semester behind us and our online Summer of Discovery academic sessions in full swing, we now turn our eyes to the fall.

Thank you for your resilience and support during the past few months as Baylor University joined higher education institutions and communities around the world in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the spring semester behind us and our online Summer of Discovery academic sessions in full swing, we now turn our eyes to the fall.

I want to open this week’s email by recognizing and celebrating our faculty. As I’ve mentioned previously, our faculty stepped up significantly in the spring as we quickly switched to online course delivery due to COVID-19.

Please join Baylor University President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.
for a webinar-style Baylor Conversation Series event - "Our Responsibility as Christians to Elevate Conversations on Race, Peacemaking and Conciliation."

Now is not the time for us to become complacent regarding COVID-19. We are starting to see an uptick in the number of positive cases in the Greater Waco area coupled with a growing percentage of positive tests, in addition to increasing hospitalizations related to COVID-19 across the state.

I can certainly sense the enthusiasm and anticipation for the beginning of the fall semester on our campus Aug. 24. At the same time, I also understand the frustration and angst many of you have experienced regarding fall schedules.

I am so excited to welcome you back to campus this fall as we return to on-campus educational instruction. I have missed our students so much.

As we all know, COVID-19 has caused many disruptions to our normal lives. In fact, I’ve said on many occasions that we are planning for a “new normal” as we look ahead toward the fall semester. Today I am excited to announce that we plan to hold our August commencement ceremonies in-person at McLane Stadium.

The events of the past few weeks have filled me with great sorrow over the senseless and inexcusable killing of George Floyd and in remembrance of the terrible deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and too many other black men, women and children. We have once again seen our country’s deep divide over race, justice and inequality come to light.

My heart is broken as I join with our Baylor students, faculty, staff and alumni in deep grief and prayer over the pain, fear, anger and injustice caused by disturbing events of racism and violence in our nation.

Baylor’s new Summer of Discovery is in full swing, as we’ve completed the May minimester and the Summer I session begins on Tuesday, June 2, through July 7. All told, we are expecting Baylor’s largest summer enrollment in at least 20 years as we continue course instruction via online delivery due to COVID-19.

As the state of Texas continues to re-open more and more businesses and other community services each week, we are receiving an increasing number of questions as to how these decisions affect the University.