• Teacher shares Baylor pride with first graders

    Heidi Hansen and students

    While in Waco for Homecoming 2009, recent Baylor graduate Heidi Hansen, BSEd ’00, picked up a few extra copies of the Baylor Proud: Welcome Home! piece that was distributed around campus — not for herself, but to share with the first graders she teaches at Matzke Elementary in northwest Houston. A year later, after some of those students came by her room to do the “Sic ’em, Bears!” cheer for her, she made sure to pick up some more at Homecoming 2010 for this year’s class.

    She and three other Baylor alumni teaching in Cypress-Fairbanks I.S.D. did just that, taking extra copies of the publication — which includes not just information about Baylor but coloring and activity pages for kids and a pull-out poster — back to their classrooms to help teach students about college and Baylor. Later in the fall, Hansen shared with us the above picture of her students with their booklets (note the raised bear claws!) as well as the following letter from a parent:

    “Thank you for talking to [my son] about college. The other weekend … he started to tell me where he was going to college. I smiled (the educator I am) and asked, “Really? Where?” He replied that he was headed to Baylor to be a bear. He told me he was going to play football first, then do computer stuff like his daddy. … He started to show me the ‘claw’ and chanted something like “sic ’em bears.” … He continued over the turkey break to share where he was going to college, and my family was so impressed that my 6 year old was talking about his future already and even knew the mascot and chant. I tell you this because YOU impacted my son and encouraged what we as parents talk about for his future. Our motto this year for the district is College and Career Ready; thank you for helping him get there.”

    Sic ’em, Baylor teachers!