Filmmakers, CEOs and authors highlight notable 2018 Baylor campus visitors

Chances are, if you attended Baylor, you ended up attending a speech or presentation by someone pretty cool. After all, seven presidents have visited campus, as well as actors, authors, musicians, business leaders, scientists, theologians and leading academics (in addition to our own professors). As a nationally-recognized Christian research university, Baylor tends to attract great speakers and performers, meaning students don’t have to leave campus to learn from trailblazers, innovators and leaders in their fields.

In 2018, Baylor students were again treated to a smorgasbord of speakers in classes, forums, Chapel and more. Among this year’s top visitors:

• Renowned filmmaker Ken Burns headlined the Beall-Russell Lecture in October; a full house came to hear from the man behind the award-winning series The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz.
• The editor-in-chief of People magazine, Baylor alum Jess Cagle, BA ’87, spoke to Baylor journalism students about his experience in the industry in December.
• Baylor business students were visited by such guest lecturers as Ricky Dickson, BBA ’80, the president of Blue Bell Creamery, and Chip Gaines, BBA ’98, star of HGTV’s Fixer Upper and co-owner of all things Magnolia.
• Bob Goff, a leading Christian author known for Love Does and Everybody, Always interacted with students in three separate speeches on campus back in January.

Baylor has also welcomed groundbreaking doctors and mathematicians, and award-winning poets and reporters. Music lovers were treated to a wide array of performances on campus, including renowned trumpeter Chris Botti, who played with the Waco Symphony Orchestra.

Some names are well-known, while others are more familiar to people inside their field. Whatever the case, they belong to a diverse group of individuals kind enough to share of their time and talents as they provide students who hope to follow in their footsteps with information and inspiration.

What will 2019 bring? Time will tell, but history shows us another impressive roster of notable visitors awaits.

Sic ’em, visiting campus speakers and performers!