Baylor 2012 « Baylor Proud

Points of Pride — Baylor 2012

May

2012

Baylor football, basketball, baseball set NCAA record for combined wins

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Athletics, Baylor 2012, Honors, Videos

Last summer, when it looked like the Big 12 Conference was about to fall apart and Baylor would be left scrambling for a new league, pundits across the nation said BU didn’t belong in a major conference. One year later, their songs have changed, thanks to Añodeloso — the Year of the Bear.

Are you among the 35,000 who have viewed this video in the past week?

Let’s put some numbers on the Year of the Bear… When you add up the 2011-12 records for Baylor football (10-3), men’s basketball (30-8) and women’s basketball (40-0), you get a combined mark of 80-11. Those 80 total wins are a new NCAA D-1 record; here are the top five:

Year     School     FB   MBB   WBB  Total wins  Combined record
2011-12  BAYLOR     10    30    40     80         80-11 (.879)
2008-09  UConn       8    31    39     78         78-10 (.886)
2007-08  Tennessee  10    31    36     77         77-11 (.875)
2010-11  UConn       8    32    36     76         76-16 (.826)
2006-07  Ohio St.   12    35    28     75         75-9 (.893)

But let’s take it even further. Baylor baseball’s win Friday over Kansas State improved the Big 12 champion Bears’ record to 44-13. Combine that mark with football and hoops for a “Big Four” total, and you get a record of 124-24 — setting a NCAA D-1 record for combined wins across those four sports.

Year     School    FB   MBB   WBB    BB  Total wins  Combined record
2011-12  BAYLOR    10    30    40    44     124        124-24 (.838)
2003-04  Texas     10    25    30    58     123        123-31 (.799)
1984-85  Oklahoma   9    31    23    55     118        118-29 (.803)
2008-09  Oklahoma  12    30    32    43     117        117-33 (.780)
2002-03  Texas     11    26    29    50     116        116-35 (.768)

With baseball ranked No. 6 in the country and only just entering the postseason, Baylor should be able to tack a few more victories onto that total before all is said and done. Add on Robert Griffin III’s Heisman and Brittney Griner’s consensus national player of the year honors — a combination only recorded one other time in the last 50-plus years — and this has truly been a year to remember.

Baylor is expected to be named one of 16 host sites when NCAA baseball regional locations are announced Sunday (and tickets are available now); the full 64-team bracket will be revealed Monday at 11 a.m. CT on ESPNU.

Sic ’em, Baylor athletics!

May

2012

Waco Tribune-Herald looks back at 10 years of ‘Baylor 2012′

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris

Baylor’s Class of 2012 has come and gone, and with its graduation from the university comes the end of an era. “Baylor 2012,” the ambitious (and at times, controversial) strategic plan set forth a decade, has reached its conclusion.

The vision included dozens of specific goals. Many were met; others hit unexpected obstacles, but there’s no disputing that it was a tremendous decade of progress for the university.

Earlier this month, the Waco Tribune-Herald ran an excellent, in-depth series of stories looking back at various parts of Baylor 2012. I strongly encourage you to read at least the introductory story; all seven features are linked below, along with some interesting bits pulled from each story:

(more…)

May

2012

Baylor We Are: Lifelong Friends

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris, Student life

East Village Residence Hall

As a freshman living on campus, I met and got to know the four guys who would, almost a decade later, be groomsmen in my wedding. The experience of living in such close community with other young men and women, all in the same stage of life, was a priceless part of my Baylor experience.

Over the past decade, Baylor has been very intentional about expanding that experience. In just over a year, Baylor will open its third new residential community in the last 10 years. North Village opened in 2004 and houses 600 students; Brooks Village opened in 2007 and is home to 700 students; and the new East Village (pictured above) will open in 2013 as home to 700 more students. (Click here to see more renderings of the new hall.)

Once East Village is complete, some 5,500 Baylor students will be living on campus — up 60% from a decade ago. When Baylor 2012 was launched, about 30% of students lived on campus; East Village will push that percentage into the mid 40s even as the student body has grown significantly during the same period.

But the Baylor 2012 goal of “creating a truly residential campus” involves more than just cramming beds into dorm rooms. It’s about facilitating life on campus, from academics to the social environment. The new “Pro Futuris” strategic vision aims to continue those efforts.

For instance, the addition of buildings like the McLane Student Life Center and significant renovations to popular student hangouts like the Bill Daniel Student Center (SUB) and Bobo Spiritual Life Center have helped those sites better serve students.

Kokernot Residence Hall was completely renovated to house Baylor’s Engaged Learning Groups. Residential Colleges and Living-Learning Centers offer opportunities in other residence halls for students to live among pockets of students from similar majors and programs. Nine faculty-in-residence now live full-time among students in five different halls (North Village, Memorial/Alexander, Kokernot, Allen/Dawson and Brooks), and every facility has a Truett Seminary student who lives among the students and serves as a resident chaplain.

Dining options have multiplied in recent years, thanks to North Village’s Seasons Sushi, Brooks Village’s Great Hall, Starbucks and Chili’s Too in the Dutton Parking Facility, Moe’s and Which Wich in the Baylor Sciences Building, and expanded offerings in the SUB (Ninfa’s, Chick-fil-a, Mooyah, Einstein Bros. and Quiznos). East Village will add another dining hall, a two-story structure that will include outdoor terrace dining and space for a retail bakery.

Such things all work together to improve the student experience, providing even more opportunities for students to build the lifelong friendships that are such an important part of college — especially at Baylor.

Sic ’em, students on campus!

May

2012

Baylor We Are: A Family

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris

The Baylor family If your mother is like mine, from the time you left home, she has urged you to call more often, write more often, visit more often. It’s not nagging; it’s because she loves you. (Parents, perhaps now you relate more to the mother than the child.)

“Alma mater” means “dear mother,” and given the way Baylor alumni interacts with the university and one another, it seems especially fitting here. There’s a reason we refer to ourselves as “the Baylor family.”

And like any mother, the university does its best to keep the family connected. As part of Vision 2012, Baylor leaders a decade ago placed an increased emphasis on “enhancing involvement of the entire Baylor family,” and that desire is repeated in Aspirational Statement Four of the draft strategic plan.

Thanks to the increased efforts of the last decade that continue today, the Class of 2012 graduates who walk the Ferrell Center stage this weekend will immediately have far more ways to stay in touch with Baylor than previous generations.

The Class of 2012 — and all alumni, as long as Baylor has updated contact information — will of course still receive traditional printed pieces in the mail. Baylor Magazine goes out to approximately 120,000 addresses every three months, carrying university and alumni news, and President Ken Starr sends his letters to the Baylor family throughout the year.

The Baylor Alumni Network takes Baylor on the road, holding regular gatherings and special events like watch parties and send-off gatherings across Texas, all over the country and even internationally.

And online, sites like baylor.edu/alumni, baylorbears.com, and (naturally) Baylor Proud join Facebook and Twitter in keeping alumni informed on happenings around campus and among the Baylor family.

To the Class of 2012: As you head out, keep in touch with your old alma mater. Come back every once in awhile — Homecoming is just six months away! — and drop us a line every now and then to keep us and your classmates up to speed on how life is treating you.

Sic ’em, Baylor family!

May

2012

Baylor We Are: Winning with Integrity

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Athletics, Baylor 2012, Honors, Pro Futuris

Kim Mulkey in City of Waco Baylor women's basketball parade

Rather than spin a lengthy narrative about Baylor’s athletic success in 2011-12, let’s just go straight to the facts:

80 combined wins across the “big three” sports (football, men’s and women’s basketball), the most of any school in NCAA history.
118 combined wins (and counting) across the “big four” (FB, MBB, WBB and baseball), rapidly approaching the record of 123 set by Texas in 2003-04.
Only the second school ever to win the Heisman Trophy and earn consensus national player of the year honors in basketball in one year.
14 of Baylor’s 19 varsity programs have already reached the postseason this year — matching the school record for the fourth straight year — and the other five are all on pace to join them. (Only twice in the history of the Big 12 has a school had all of its teams reach the postseason in the same year.)

And while this has clearly been the best year in Baylor athletic history, it didn’t come out of nowhere. Let’s look back over the last few years:

36 Big 12 titles since Ian McCaw was hired as Director of Athletics in September 2003 — third-most in the league behind only Texas and Texas A&M — across six sports (baseball, women’s basketball, equestrian, softball, and men’s and women’s tennis).
Three NCAA team championships in that same time span (men’s tennis in 2004, women’s basketball in 2005 and 2012) — the first three in school history.
Seven straight top-50 finishes in the NACDA Directors’ Cup (which recognizes success across all sports) and on track for likely the best finish in BU history this year.

Furthermore, Baylor’s student-athletes have done all this while also excelling off the field. Individual successes have abounded (like Robert Griffin III leaving Baylor with not only a Heisman but a nearly completed master’s degree, all in less than five years), as have team honors (like the eight Baylor programs recognized in the last six years for academically ranking among the top 10% in their sport). And that doesn’t even begin to consider the spiritual formation Baylor emphasizes (like the regular service opportunities and department-sponsored mission trips that go out several times each year).

Sic ’em, Baylor athletics!

Apr

2012

Baylor We Are: A Melting Pot

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris, Student life

Baylor students

The numbers bear it out: Baylor’s student body is more diverse than ever before.

Most noticeable are the changes in the student body’s mix of race/ethnicity, where Baylor’s undergraduate population has gone from 22% minority to 34.5% over the past decade. To give you some context, Baylor is now home to the second most diverse collection of students in the Big 12*; BU’s numbers are also higher than such peer institutions as Notre Dame, SMU and Wake Forest.

But such numbers aren’t the only way diversity plays out among students. Baylor students hail from 49 different states (all but Vermont) and 72 foreign countries (from Angola to Zimbabwe). And while 90% of students identify themselves with some form of Christianity, they represent about 30 different denominations.

Such variety adds to all areas of the educational experience, as students learn from one another both in and outside the classroom. It also prepares students for life in an increasingly global society.

Sic ’em, Baylor students!

* 2011-12 numbers: Texas 49.2%, Baylor 34.5%, Texas Tech 30.9%, Oklahoma 29.3%, Texas A&M 28.9%, Oklahoma State 25.2%, Kansas 22.4%, Kansas State 19.5%, Iowa State 18.2%, Missouri 17.3%. Also, TCU 24.8%, West Virginia 13.3%, Notre Dame 25.1%, SMU 32.3%, Wake Forest, 21.7%.

Apr

2012

Baylor We Are: World-Class Facilities

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris, Student life

It hasn’t been all that long since I was a student at Baylor, but when I walk the campus these days, I marvel at how many of the facilities students benefit from today have gone up since I graduated.

The one that stands out the most is the Baylor Sciences Building (pictured; click on image for larger version) — perhaps because it’s far and away the largest building ever built on our campus, and one you’ve probably driven by on your way down University Parks Drive to a Baylor sporting event. Opened in 2004, the BSB (as it’s known around campus) gives students and professors more than 500,000 square feet of classroom, lab and office space — almost four times the size of the law school, which was previously the largest building on campus.

The facility is home to the departments of biology, chemistry and biochemistry, environmental science, geology, physics, psychology and neuroscience, as well as offices for the ~~Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC)~~, biomedical studies, medical humanities, pre-health programs and pre-nursing. It also houses Baylor centers for analytical spectroscopy, spatial research, drug discovery, mass spectometry, molecular biosciences, and reservoir and aquatic systems research. (Got all that?)

And the BSB is far from the only new academic space Baylor students enjoy. The Paul L. Foster Success Center, housed in a drastically remodeled Sid Richardson Building, brought the university’s academic advisement and support offices as well as career counseling and services under one roof. Museum studies students and the Waco community at large enjoy the Mayborn Museum Complex. Graduate students have received new homes in the Baugh-Reynolds Campus of Truett Seminary and the Umphrey Law Center. And that doesn’t even begin to include unique classroom space in the newer residence halls.

Imperative VII of Baylor’s Vision 2012 called for the provision of outstanding academic facilities. With those mentioned above and other possible additions being discussed (including a new quadrangle and new business school), I look forward to what the Baylor campus of tomorrow holds for students of the future.

Sic ’em, BSB and all who have helped provide Baylor’s world-class facilities!

Apr

2012

Baylor We Are: Discovering New Truths

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris, Research

Baylor researchers Finding balance has always been important at Baylor. Think “Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana.” “Worldwide leadership and service.” “Faith and learning.” Equally important is “teaching and research.”

Baylor has a long history of great teachers, but in recent years the university has worked to bring its research efforts to a similar level. Baylor faculty contributions to major journals have more than doubled in the past decade. Total research expenditures (both from the university’s budget and external grants) have increased dramatically. And nothing testifies to Baylor’s emphasis on research more than the establishment of the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC).

A February report in the Waco Tribune-Herald noted that BRIC officials have heard from about 100 companies interested in partnering with the Baylor and Texas State Technical College researchers who will be working out of the new facility. Baylor programs will begin moving into BRIC by the beginning of 2013, if not sooner.

Last fall, Dr. Marlan Scully agreed to move his research on quantum optics, laser physics and bioengineering from Princeton to BRIC; other programs scheduled to move to BRIC include the Baylor Center for Spatial Research, the Hankamer School of Business’ Innovative Business Accelerator, the Baylor Institute for Air Science, Baylor’s Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics and Engineering Research, and TSTC’s technical training programs.

Why is such research important? Baylor’s draft strategic plan explains the answer under Aspirational Statement Two: “Baylor will be a place… where research discoveries illuminate solutions to significant challenges confronting our world and where creative endeavors reflect the breadth of God’s creation.”

Few universities recognized as having “high research activity” also have a Christian perspective; such an approach offers unique insights on issues ranging from health care and economics to human rights and social responsibility. Research into such areas allows our professors to remain on the cutting edge in their fields, gives undergraduate and graduate students hands-on opportunities in the discovery process, and contributes to finding solutions to some of the problems facing our world.

Sic ’em, Baylor researchers!

Previously on Baylor Proud:
* Forensics prof uses skills to bring closure to migrant families missing loved ones (Feb. 2012)
* Baylor research park moving forward with construction (Oct. 2011)
* Three Baylor students awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (May 2011)
* Baylor researchers, alumni spreading awareness of and seeking cure for PTSD (Nov. 2010)
* Baylor professors receive $1.46 million NIH grant for cancer research (June 2010)

Apr

2012

Baylor We Are: Student-Focused

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Academics, Baylor 2012, Pro Futuris, Student life

Baylor student-professor interaction Think back over your Baylor experience; chances are that a professor who made time for you played a key part in helping you along the way.

For generations, Baylor has been known as a place where students are names and faces, not numbers, and where most classes are taught by professors with experience, not TA’s or grad assistants. University leaders have long recognized that accessibility to professors — in the classroom and through open office hours — is an important part of the education experience.

Toward that end, over the past decade, Baylor has endeavored to improve its already small classes. Since 2002, the student-faculty ratio has shrunk from 18-to-1 to 14-to-1. Even when you factor in introductory courses in core subjects, less than 9% of undergraduate classes have 50-plus students; in fact, nearly 50% of undergraduate classes have fewer than 20 students.

“Establishing an environment where learning can flourish” was a key component of Vision 2012, and “further enhanc[ing] engagement between students and faculty” is a part of the draft strategic plan as well. Past, present and future, Baylor students have had, currently enjoy, and will continue to build relationships with their professors like few of their peers at other schools.

Sic ’em, Baylor profs!

Previously on Baylor Proud:
* Nation’s largest award for top teaching brings Michigan professor to Baylor (Jan. 2012)
* Bears take to Twitter to honor favorite Baylor profs during Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2011)
* Baylor resources and professors the keys for University Scholar’s early success in academia (Feb. 2011)
* What do students have to say about Baylor? (June 2009)
* More faculty moving onto campus to increase interaction with students (May 2008)

Mar

2012

Baylor We Are: Building On Our Legacy

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in Baylor 2012, Faith, Pro Futuris, Student life, Videos

Baylor Chapel For all the attention given to the results of Baylor’s Vision 2012 over the past decade, not everything about the university is new. In fact, in some areas, Baylor has really returned to its roots.

Baylor Chapel is a great example. Perhaps the university’s oldest tradition, Chapel has been a staple of the Baylor experience since the institution’s earliest days in Independence, Texas. But over the years, Chapel morphed from a worship experience to more of a lecture series, covering all sorts of subjects and performances. For many years, even the name changed, as the required course was called “Chapel-Forum.”

In recent years, however, Chapel — now back to its original name — has also returned to its original purpose. Mondays feature speakers, bands and other performers, all aimed at connecting spiritually with students; recent guests have included Christian artists like Gungor and Jill Phillips, authors Max Lucado and Brian McLaren, and alumni such as Pastor Chris Seay and WNBA All-Star Sophia Young. (FYI, you can click on any of those names to see video from that Chapel appearance.) Wednesdays are for worship, though throughout the semester that can take many forms, from traditional hymns and student choirs to more contemporary music.

Baylor’s dedication to its Christian heritage is clearly reaffirmed in Baylor’s draft strategic plan, and Baylor Chapel will remain a core piece of fulfilling the university’s “Pro Texana, Pro Ecclesia” motto.

Sic ’em, Chapel!

Previously on Baylor Proud:
* Baylor parents covering campus with prayer (Dec. 2010)
* Former Chapel worship leader passes first round of ‘American Idol’ cuts (Jan. 2010)
* Max Lucado among Spring Chapel guest speakers (May 2008)

Points of Pride — Baylor 2012

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