{"id":18320,"date":"2016-05-28T20:16:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T20:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baylorproud.wpengine.com\/?p=18320"},"modified":"2016-05-28T20:16:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T20:16:16","slug":"what-it-means-to-be-baylorproud-even-in-disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2016\/05\/what-it-means-to-be-baylorproud-even-in-disappointment\/","title":{"rendered":"What it means to be BaylorProud, even in disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pat<\/p>\n

If this week’s Baylor news<\/a> has left you shaken, you’re not alone. How, you may wonder, can we ever be proud of Baylor when the university has fallen so far short of the standards it sets for itself?<\/p>\n

A little history… Almost nine years ago, this blog was started to show the many reasons why we can and\u00a0should\u00a0take pride in the Baylor family, and over the course of more than 2,000 posts, we’ve celebrated virtually every aspect of Baylor — the students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of this university who have\u00a0fulfilled the Baylor mission by\u00a0leading and serving in countless ways all across the world.<\/p>\n

And yes, we have certainly taken great pride in the university’s athletic accomplishments, from\u00a0team championships to\u00a0individual honors.<\/p>\n

So what does it mean to be “BaylorProud” when we find ourselves saddened and disappointed\u00a0in the events\u00a0outlined in the Pepper Hamilton documents?\u00a0From time to time over the years, people have noted the name of this blog and reminded us of Proverbs 16:18<\/a>\u00a0— loosely quoted, “Pride comes before a fall.” Can an individual be proud — of anything, but in this case, of Baylor — without it becoming arrogance?<\/p>\n

I believe so. I believe pride can easily become a vice\u00a0when it’s all about one’s own\u00a0greatness, but I don’t believe pride has<\/em> to be a vice. For instance, plenty of\u00a0parents are\u00a0proud of their\u00a0children in\u00a0beneficial, loving ways. But\u00a0if this blog has played any role in causing us to move from supportive pride\u00a0to boastful pride, then for that, I am truly sorry. What I hope we’ve been able to do, at least most of the time — and what I hope we can do moving forward — is to celebrate one another, as\u00a0Baylor family members, and the accomplishments of those across our university.<\/p>\n

Do we enjoy winning football games? Yes. Do we like seeing our university’s\u00a0good standing slashed in national news stories? No. But people have been brutally hurt, and\u00a0we owe\u00a0it to those brave victims who came forward (and to all our students) to\u00a0make sure this campus is safe for everyone, and that we have our priorities properly aligned.<\/p>\n

Baylor has a mission. It is our\u00a0“North Star,” and it must guide\u00a0all we do and be the standards against which all our efforts are aligned.\u00a0So that’s what I come back to today — our\u00a0mission statement. “The mission of Baylor University is to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community.”<\/p>\n

So let’s do that. In particular, let’s\u00a0be\u00a0that caring community. Let’s\u00a0come together and support our university — our family — as Baylor moves forward and has the opportunity to become a national leader in its approach to sexual assault prevention, response and care for those impacted.\u00a0And let’s start by praying — for university\u00a0leadership, and for one another — that we will stand for all those good things that Baylor has stood for since\u00a01845.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If this week’s Baylor news has left you shaken, you’re not alone. How, you may wonder, can we ever be proud of Baylor when the university has fallen so far short of the standards it sets for itself? A little history… Almost nine years ago, this blog was started to show the many reasons why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-student-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}