Baylor and U.S. Army celebrate 60 years of academic partnership

In talking with Baylor folks, it seems very few know of the university’s long partnership with the U.S. Army. Located at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, the Army-Baylor Graduate Program in Health and Business Administration offers seven master’s and doctoral programs, the oldest of which celebrated its 60th anniversary earlier this month.

Baylor University president Ken Starr and Major General David Rubenstein, MHA ’89, commander of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School, were on hand June 17 to celebrate Baylor’s six decades of academic partnership with the U.S. Army. Since 1951, students at Fort Sam Houston have participated in a master’s program in healthcare administration before going on to serve in military hospitals and clinics at home and abroad.

This program is consistently ranked among the nation’s best healthcare management programs by U.S. News and World Report; in the most recent listing, released in March, the collaboration ranked No. 11 out of more than 200 similar programs, its highest ranking ever.

At the June 17 reception, President Starr — who grew up in the shadow of Fort Sam Houston — recognized and applauded the 52 men and women who had just completed 12 months of intensive coursework and had taken comprehensive oral exams earlier in the day. The second phase of the two-year degree program involves a year-long internship in an array of military and civilian healthcare institutions around the globe.

Gen. Rubenstein — a 1989 graduate of the Army-Baylor program — implored students to remain true to the values acquired in their respective branches of service by utilizing the education received from Baylor to facilitate patient care.  From soldiers in combat, to families at home, to veterans at the end of their lives, “all along the way, there are members of the Baylor community taught here at Fort Sam Houston either touching the patient or setting the framework of success for that patient’s healthcare,” Rubenstein noted.

Sic ’em, Army-Baylor collaborators!