Academics « Baylor Proud

Points of Pride — Academics

Jun

2013

Baylor football pairs on-field success with Big 12-leading academic score

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Athletics, Honors

Art Briles and Nick Florence

It’s been a good 12 months for head coach Art Briles’ Baylor football program: a third-straight bowl appearance (and a blowout victory there), a new stadium going up along the Brazos, one alum named NFL rookie of the year, another named to the College Football Hall of Fame.

But why stop there? Most recently, it was announced that Baylor football tops the Big 12 Conference in Academic Progress Rate (APR), a measurement used by the NCAA to track student-athlete academic progress. Last season’s squad featured 17 Academic All-Big 12 selections, including quarterback Nick Florence, who was also named to the 2012 Capital One Academic All-America first team.

Florence was one of four Baylor Academic All-Americans this year, joining baseball’s Kolt Browder and soccer’s Dana Larsen and Lisa Sliwinski. Over the past four years, Baylor has produced 18 Academic All-Americans, the most of any Big 12 school.

Sic ’em, Baylor football and Baylor athletics!

Jun

2013

Baylor engineering students’ creativity leads to devices for veterans and disabled

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Research, Service, Student life

Baylor students serve veterans I love these stories of Baylor students putting what they learn in the classroom to work serving others…

Over the past year, 19 Baylor engineering students worked with nursing and engineering students at the University of Detroit-Mercy to design, build and deliver devices that met specific needs of three disabled veterans; a fourth team worked to develop a car seat that would be easier on disabled mothers. The yearlong projects were sponsored by the Kern Family Foundation to promote teamwork between universities and to encourage an entrepreneurial mindset among engineering students.

Last month, some of the Baylor students got to travel to Detroit and deliver their products to the veterans in person. Those projects included a pressure-sensing cushion that alerts a paraplegic person to change positions to prevent ulcers, a bed mattress with an automatic bedpan, and a specialized walker.

The Baylor engineering students contributing to the projects include May 2013 graduates Cason Cole, Tara Davis, Ray Dudgeon, Christopher Duncan, Trevor Hogoboom, Lauren Hurley, Gabrielle Lalou, Miles Landry, Jared Milhoan, Blake Niccum, Katie Pyron, Adam Rogg, Paige Slavik, Stephen Warner and Kelby Villarreal, and seniors Rob Jochetz, Kyle Martin, Arryss Mills and Rebekah Pflieger.

Sic ’em, Baylor engineering!

Jun

2013

Largest gift in Baylor history to support new b-school building and Baylor Stadium

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Alumni, Pro Futuris

Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation

Baylor’s planned new business school building got an incredible boost Tuesday when the university announced a $35 million gift from Paul L. Foster, BBA ’79, that will support both the new facility and Baylor Stadium. The gift is the largest from a living alumnus in Baylor history.

Foster’s deep Baptist roots brought him to Baylor in the mid 1970s as a premed student. He eventually moved over to business, where he would earn an accounting degree. Dr. Terry Maness, BA ’71, MS ’72 — now dean of the Hankamer School of Business — was then a young assistant professor at Baylor, as well as Foster’s fraternity sponsor. The two became friends, forming a relationship that has now lasted more than 30 years.

[READ MORE: Baylor press release || Waco Tribune-Herald story || Baylor Magazine feature on Foster from last fall]

After Baylor, Foster began a career in oil refining; he formed his current company, Western Refining, in 1997. Over the years, he and his wife, Alejandra, have been committed to supporting education. In 2006, his lead gift led to the creation of Baylor’s Paul L. Foster Success Center, which brought together under one roof an assortment of departments such as academic advisement, tutoring and career counseling. A year later, he donated $50 million to help create the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in his hometown of El Paso.

He has also served on the Hankamer Board of Advisors and as a member of the University of Texas System Board of Regents. In honor of this recent gift, the new business school building — to be built near the McLane Student Life Center, across the street from the new East Village — will be named the Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation.

“Like so many other graduates, the education I received at Baylor prepared me for personal and professional success,” said Foster. “That’s why Alejandra and I couldn’t be more pleased to come alongside the university to support the new building for Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, which will provide a transformational and innovative education for Baylor business students, and Baylor Stadium, which will benefit the university and the Waco community for generations to come.”

Sic ’em, Paul Foster!

May

2013

Fulbright honorees credit Baylor profs for fueling their successes

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Honors, Student life

Baylor Fulbright winners 2013 Four Baylor Bears were selected this spring to receive the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, bringing the total number of Baylor recipients since 2001 to 36.

This year’s honorees are:

Leigh Ann Ganzar, BS ’11 in biology and a master’s candidate in community health education, who was selected for the English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Brazil.
Randall Fowler, BA ’12 in religion and communication from Abilene, Texas, who was selected for the English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Jordan.
Taylor Kohn, a senior University Scholar from Wichita, Kan., who will pursue a masters of philosophy in instrumentation at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Brent Salter, a senior international studies and journalism major from Bulverde, Texas, who was selected for the English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Moldova.

All four spoke glowingly of their Baylor experiences, and of their professors in particular. Here’s just one example, from Ganzar:

“I owe much of the selection for a Fulbright scholarship to Baylor faculty, and I am very thankful to be surrounded by such a wonderful community. Dean Elizabeth Vardaman was so supportive and encouraging during the entire process; this would not have been possible without her. Dr. Kirsten Escobar spent many hours with me refining and pouring over every detail of my essays, and I am very grateful for her dedication. Dr. Eva Doyle is not only the Master of Public Health program director as well as an outstanding mentor during the last year and a half, but she and her husband, Dr. Robert Doyle in biology, were the Baylor in Brazil program directors. As role models to the students they took on the trip, they encouraged growth and sparked passion within us all. The support and guidance that Dr. Renee Umstattd-Meyer (HHPR) has given me has also been an important influence during my graduate program. Finally, though I never had Dr. Blair Browning (communication) as a professor, he and his wife have been mentors, role models and family to me throughout my time at Baylor.”

To read more on each of the honorees, where they’re headed, and what they had to say about their time at Baylor, click their names above.

Sic ’em, Fulbright honorees!

May

2013

Mayborn Museum Complex welcomes its 1 millionth visitor

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Photo Galleries

Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex opened in 2004, bringing together three previously separate entities – the Strecker Museum, Ollie Mae Moen Discovery Center, and the Gov. Bill and Vara Daniel Historic Village — onto one site, just across University Parks Drive from the Wiethorn Visitors Center.

On their own, the three attractions totalled about 50,000 visitors a year; it was estimated that uniting the three attractions could perhaps draw twice as many annual visitors. In fact, it’s done even better; on May 8 — exactly two weeks shy of nine years from its public opening — the Mayborn Museum Complex welcomed its 1 millionth visitor. [See photos here and here.]

A second-grade class from Rosebud-Lott ISD (30 miles south of Waco) put the Mayborn over the million-visitor mark; the children were welcomed with a banner signed by museum staff and Baylor officials (including President Ken Starr), goodie bags from the museum store, and commemorative t-shirts that read, “I’m one in a million at the Mayborn Museum!”

Schoolchildren make up a large portion of the Mayborn Museum Complex’s audience, though visitors of all ages can find something worth investigating. The Mayborn focuses on the natural science and cultural history of Central Texas, with walk-in dioramas (including one on the Waco Mammoth Site) and exploration stations for geology, paleontology, archaeology and natural history. Seventeen themed discovery rooms encourage hands-on learning for all ages. The museum complex also serves as a learning laboratory for Baylor students in the Department of Museum Studies as well as many other disciplines across campus.

Sic ’em, Mayborn!

May

2013

Commencement 2013 continues a Baylor tradition older than most in Texas

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Photo Galleries, Student life

At Baylor, commencement honors every individual, as each graduate walks the stage and hears her or her name called, one by one. (How many universities of Baylor’s size still provide such recognition?) But the event itself means something more to the collective.

“By assembling together, you affirm your membership in the Baylor family through cap and gown, through music, through singing ‘That Good Old Baylor Line,’” said President Ken Starr in his commencement address. “You remember by gathering here with those who encouraged and supported you on your Baylor journey, your dear family and loved ones. But even more than family and loved ones, you made this journey — which we celebrate today — with friends.” [Click here to read the entire speech, and here to see photos from graduation.]

Yes, the Baylor experience is about gaining knowledge that will help you in your career. But it’s also about growing as a person, gaining insight that will help you in life, and about forming friendships with people who will walk with you not just for four years in Waco, but for the rest of your life.

Stay in touch, Baylor graduates — with your friends, with the professors who mentored you, and with your alma mater. Share the good news of your life — new jobs, weddings, kids, etc. — with your now-former classmates (perhaps by submitting a class note to Baylor Magazine). And don’t forget to update your contact information as you move along so you can continue to be kept up-to-date on what’s going on here at Baylor and among your new fellow alumni as you all march “forever down the years.”

Wherever life may take you, Class of 2013 — sic ’em, as new Baylor graduates!

May

2013

Baylor professors of the year represent business, English and religion

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Honors

Baylor Professors of the Year: Thomasson, Garrett and Bellinger

Each year, Baylor honors three professors with major awards based on slightly varying criteria.

The senior class annually votes to determine the Collins Outstanding Professor Award. For the seventh time in the last 10 years, the Collins Award winner is also a Baylor graduate; this year’s recipient is Tim Thomasson, BBA ’91, MBA ’92, a professor of accounting and business law in the Hankamer School of Business. Thomasson spent 17 years in the field before coming back to Baylor in 2006.

Dr. Greg Garrett, a Baylor English professor in the College of Arts & Sciences since 1989, was named the 2013 Baylor Centennial Professor. Funded by the Centennial Class of 1945, each year the award provides financial support to aide one professor with a specific project. Garrett, a prolific writer, will use the award to further work on his next book, Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Literature and Culture, which will examine our culture’s views of life after death over the centuries.

Another longtime Baylor professor, Dr. William Bellinger Jr., is the 2013 Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year. The award honors a professor who “makes a superlative contribution to the learning environment at Baylor,” based on teaching, research and service. Bellinger has taught religion at Baylor since 1984 and served as department chair since 2006. Known for his sense of humor and robust laugh, Bellinger’s academic focus is on the worship texts of the Old Testament.

Sic ’em, Baylor professors!

May

2013

Baylor names finalists for 2014 Cherry Award, the nation’s largest teaching award

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Honors

Cherry Award Finalists 2014 More than two decades after its creation, Baylor University’s Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching remains the only national award (and the single largest monetary award) presented by a college or university to an individual for great teaching. Every two years, it brings one of the nation’s top college professors to teach at Baylor for a semester.

The most recent Cherry Award winner, Dr. Brian Coppola, is just wrapping up his tenure at Baylor after having spent the spring teaching organic chemistry in residence here. Last month, the finalists for the 2014 Cherry Award were announced:

Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar, Curator’s Teaching Professor of Physics, University of Missouri. A native of India, Chandrasekhar has taught at Missouri since 1978, earning recognition for her teaching from groups such as the National Science Foundation and the Missouri Governor’s office. Her hands-on physics programs for students in grades 5-12 and summer institutes for K-12 teachers have received several awards.
Dr. Joan Breton Connelly, Professor of Classics and Art History, New York University. Since 1990, Connelly has directed NYU’s Yeronisos Island Excavations and Field School in Cyprus; in 2002, she was honored by the Cyprus government for her contribution to the exploration and preservation of Cypriot cultural heritage. She also was appointed by President George W. Bush to a U.S. Department of State advisory committee, serving from 2003-11.
Dr. Michael K. Salemi, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Salemi has taught at UNC since 1976, earning multiple awards for economics education from such groups as the Southern Economic Association, the National Council on Economic Education and the Association of Economic Educators. He chaired the American Economic Association’s Committee on Economics Education from 1994-2000 and served as president of the Society of Economics Educators in 2004.

Each finalist will lecture at Baylor this fall as well as a Cherry Award lecture on their own campuses sometime in the next year. The winning professor will be announced next spring and will teach in residence at Baylor during the fall 2014 or spring 2015 semesters.

Sic ’em, Cherry Award finalists, and to Robert Cherry Foster, whose estate gift has made this award possible!

May

2013

Engineering students build robots that ‘mind the gap’

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Just for Fun, Videos

The challenge: Build a robot that can traverse an 8-inch gap, but that at start and finish is no taller, wider or deeper than 12 inches.

Last week, a group of Baylor students nearing completion of Engineering Design I (EGR 3380) put their semester projects to the test. Some of the robot vehicles flew; some built their own “bridges;” some unfolded to add length, then refolded after crossing the gap. Each took a different approach. Most worked; a few didn’t. But every student had fun and learned in the process. Here’s a short video showcasing their efforts:

Sic ’em, Baylor engineering students!

You might also like:
* Students design 400-square-foot housing for use following natural disasters (Jan. 2013)
* Engineering students take on new challenge in Baja SAE competition (Oct. 2012)
* Engineering grads earn attention for eye-controlled Super Mario play (Oct. 2010)

Apr

2013

Bloomberg BusinessWeek includes Baylor entrepreneurship program among nation’s top 5

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Honors

Baylor Entrepreneurship products If you want to start your own business, there are few places in the country better to train than Baylor University.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek earlier this month ranked Baylor’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program No. 3 in the country and tops in the state of Texas, echoing the results of recent Princeton Review/Entrepreneurship Magazine listings which have included Baylor among the nation’s top five each of the last four years.

[Read more about how the Hankamer School of Business prepares entrepreneurship students for success in this feature from the Spring 2013 issue of Baylor Magazine.]

The new results are based on feedback from students at 124 different business schools nationwide. Baylor was the only university south of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of the Mississippi to crack the top five, joining such schools as Cornell and Syracuse.

One of the oldest and most respected entrepreneurship programs in the country, Baylor entrepreneurship continues to come up with new offerings for students, including the recently announced business incubator partnerships in Waco and Addison, Texas.

Sic ’em, Baylor entrepreneurship!

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