Baylor Arts & Sciences Fall 2019

Fall 2019

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Class ACT

Arts & Sciences student Lauren Cox is making an impact both on and off the basketball court

>> Historic Recognition for Baylor >> New Ways to Get Students into Research >> Baylor’s Phi Beta Kappa Chapter >> A Great 100 Years for Arts & Sciences

FROM DEAN NORDT

L

ooking at the list of former deans of the College of Arts & Sciences published in this issue of the A&S magazine, I am reminded of how long I have been dean.

I have been blessed beyond belief to have served in this important capacity for 14 years.

I have been reflecting on this and Baylor’s more recent history during my time as an administrator.

When I accepted the deanship in 2005, I said I would only do the job for five years, so I guess this qualifies as poor time management! However, I am proud to have served in such an impactful role for so long. At the same time, I don’t want to overstay my welcome either, like the 40-year-old designated hitter who can no longer hit a fastball. Change for the sake of change is not good, but at some point change is beneficial because with it comes new ideas and ways of doing things.

It is a healthy process.

I think about this a lot — how many more times can I reinvent myself, pull myself up, do it all over again and with all eight cylinders still firing? I have always said that I would do this job as long as it was more important than something else I could be doing. The fact that I am still here means being dean must be very important.

I have also been thinking back to what has happened at Baylor during the past two decades or so. I arrived here in 1996 — 23 years ago — and it is stunning how much Baylor has changed since then in its goals and aspirations (Vision 2012 > Pro Futuris > Illuminate), its students (more of them, and even smarter), its faculty and staff (more of

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them too, and better than me) and its facilities (off the charts). Baylor would be nearly unrecognizable to anyone who had not visited campus since they graduated 15 or 20 years ago.

It is amazing to me how many great students want to attend Baylor today. As we broaden our vision to become a major Christian research university, I think these students and their parents know how much we still emphasize teaching as we pursue research. Baylor is the ‘one of a kind’ institution that truly integrates mission, teaching and research. I challenge you to name another university doing this now.

When I made the decision to join the faculty at Baylor, it really wasn’t because it was a Christian university. I didn’t even realize that a Christian mission was an integral part of its fabric. Looking back now, I know that part of the attraction for me was indeed that Baylor was a Christian university — but I just didn’t see it at the time. I get it now, and mightily so. It is the entirety of the uniqueness of what we do that gets me out of bed in the morning. Christians change sometimes, too, and we have multiple viewpoints on a variety of issues, but at heart we believe in the central tenets of our faith. Actually, we are Judeo-Christian, which makes sense, taking the long view.

I’ve seen two major athletic controversies during my time at Baylor, both of which still bewilder me. But here’s the thing — name any other institution experiencing similar problems (and there are many examples) that has responded in the constructive, principled way Baylor has. That makes us unique, and how we respond to controversy as a Christian

university is at the core of our being. We are all fallen, but we know how to right the ship following moral and ethical principles steeped in our faith.

But still, the positives have far outweighed any negatives during my time at Baylor. For a prospective student to walk the hallways of our state-of-the-art science building, see faculty teaching in a lecture hall, observe undergraduates and faculty working on an experiment in a research lab, meet current students who have just won Fulbright Scholarships, and then look across campus and see a chapel — well, this place is special. No wonder more students want to come here than we could ever possibly matriculate.

Baylor has indeed transformed itself during the past 20 years, and whereas change creates angst, if the change is right and managed well, you are the better for it. Baylor, despite all of the back and forth among various constituencies on the merits of taking this or that pathway, has come out on the other end in a place that was difficult to imagine a few years ago. We followed the guiding light and it worked. We have much to be thankful for.

DR. LEE NORDT DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

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News & Notes

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A Class Act

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Ladybugs, Crawdads and Snails

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An Honorable Venture

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Finding HARVEY

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Community-Minded Research

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Career Counseling 2.0

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Our Back Pages

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No Ordinary Class Project

Students are working to put Baylor on the National Historic Register

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Updates on faculty, staff, students and alumni

rts & Sciences student Lauren Cox is making an A impact both on and off the basketball court

hese Arts & Sciences undergrads are sharing their love T of research with a new generation

or more than 40 years, Baylor’s Phi Beta Kappa F chapter has recognized outstanding achievement

aylor photographer Robbie Rogers has solved a B 60-year-old mystery in gospel music

ommitted to using her research to benefit the C common good, Dr. Sarah Dolan pursues service through scholarship

aylor’s new Career Center engages students with B resources to help achieve their career goals

The College of Arts & Sciences celebrates its centennial

Q&A

Baylor biologists discuss an innovative new course that lets students take a “deep dive” into research

Baylor Arts & Sciences is a publication of the Baylor College of Arts & Sciences that shares news of interest with the Baylor Family. As the University’s oldest and largest academic unit, the College of Arts & Sciences is a community of 25 academic departments dedicated to the discovery and dissemination of knowledge. It is the foundation upon which all Baylor students’ educational experiences are built.

Fall 2019

Baylor Arts & Sciences is produced for the College of Arts & Sciences

by Baylor’s Division of Marketing and Communications.

PRESIDENT Linda A. Livingstone, PhD | PROVOST Nancy Brickhouse, PhD DEAN, COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES Lee Nordt, PhD | ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Kim Kellison, PhD ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR SCIENCES Kenneth T. Wilkins, PhD EDITOR Randy Fiedler | CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Bob Darden, Courtney Doucet, Julie Engebretson, Jeff Hampton, Derek Smith, Kevin Tankersley PHOTOGRAPHY Matthew Minard, Robert Rogers ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Clayton Thompson, Scott Toby | DIRECTORS OF DEVELOPMENT Kelli Edmond, Clayton Ellis, Jim Shepelwich One Bear Place #97344 | Waco, TX 76798 | AS_Magazine@baylor.edu | www.baylor.edu/artsandsciences/

This fall, those Baylor University freshmen and incoming transfer students seeking the BA, BS, BFA or BSAS degrees offered by the College of Arts & Sciences are following a new unified core curriculum. The new unified core provides students with much more flexibility in course selection and degree plans, with 16 to 30 more hours available to take additional electives, or to successfully complete more second majors, minors and certificates.

The new core also has more common courses than the previous core and calls for multidisciplinary and upper-level courses.

The new Office of Engaged Learning in the College of Arts & Sciences opened on June 1, directed by Dr. Andy Hogue, associate dean of engaged learning. The Office of Engaged Learning continues and expands on previous efforts by the College to provide students with superior learning opportunities outside the classroom. These include undergraduate research opportunities, professional internships, civic engagement opportunities and assistance in competing for prestigious national and international scholarships.

One of the highest priority capital improvement projects in Baylor’s $1.1 billion Give Light philanthropic campaign is the renovation and restoration of the 65-year-old Tidwell Bible Building. On April 25, Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone, PhD, announced that The Sunderland Foundation of Overland Park, Kansas, has given a lead gift of $15 million that will provide significant support for the project. “We are deeply grateful for The Sunderland Foundation’s transformational gift that will restore a truly historic and important building on our campus for future generations,” Livingstone said.

Opening Oct. 5 after a $1.2 million renovation, the new Backyard Ecology Hall long-term exhibit area in Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex offers visitors an introduction to local ecosystems. It’s designed to provide hands-on learning experiences through exhibits that have interactive walls, climbable honeycomb and microscopes, while also making solid connections to current research being done at Baylor.

If you assumed that Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project is only concerned with preserving great music, you’d be wrong. Now, project founder Robert Darden, a professor of journalism, public relations and new media and former Billboard gospel music editor, is working with his team to restore and preserve recorded sermons from black preachers in addition to gospel music.

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Dr. Susan P. Bratton, professor of environmental science, is the inaugural recipient of the new Elizabeth Vardaman Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduates, presented annually to Arts & Sciences faculty who excel at helping undergraduate students learn outside the classroom.

The awards are officially nicknamed “Betsys” after their namesake, Professor Elizabeth Vardaman, former associate dean for engaged learning in the College of Arts & Sciences, who retired in the spring of 2019 after 38 years at Baylor.

Three Arts & Sciences faculty members are among those honored by Baylor University with Outstanding Faculty Awards. Dr. John Wood (left), The Robert A. Welch Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and CPRIT Scholar in Research, received the Tenured Scholarship Award; Dr. Lauren Poor (center), senior lecturer in history and director of the Arts & Sciences Core, received the Non-Tenure Track Teaching Award; and Dr. James SoRelle, professor and undergraduate program director of history, received the Tenured Teaching Award.

Dr. Sarah Ford, professor of English and coordinator of the Beall Poetry Festival, is one of two Baylor faculty members to be named a 2019 Centennial Professor. Created by Baylor’s Centennial Class of 1945, the Centennial Professor awards provide funding for tenured professors to enable them to do more in-depth research in their respective fields.

Dr. Bryan Brooks, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science and Biomedical Studies, was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a professional association in the United Kingdom whose goal is to advance excellence in the chemical sciences. He also received Recipharm’s 2018 International Environmental Award, presented for the best environmental practice or innovation within the pharmacy and healthcare industries or academia.

Dr. George Cobb, professor and chair of environmental science, was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) for his outstanding leadership and science.

SETAC is a global professional society of individuals and institutions engaged in the study, analysis and solution of environmental problems, the management and regulation of natural resources, environmental education and research and development.

Dr. Amanda Hering, associate professor of statistics, won the 2019 Abdel ElShaarawi Early Investigator’s Award from the International Environmetrics Society (TIES) for “significant and outstanding contributions to the environmental statistical and quantitative research as proved by the number and quality of publications in the statistical literature.”

Dr. Steven Forman, professor of geosciences, received the 2019 Farouk El-Baz Desert Research Award from the Geological Society of America (GSA). The international award for research excellence is given each year for an outstanding body of work in the field of desert research.

Four Arts & Sciences students are among the eight Baylor students who received prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards, including awards for international graduate study and as English Teaching Assistants (ETA) in classrooms worldwide. The Arts & Sciences recipients are: Lauren Barnes, a senior international studies major (Fulbright ETA to Taiwan); Kaitlyn Gibbens, a senior German and communication major (Fulbright ETA to Germany); Abby Miller, a 2016 graduate in history and English (Fulbright ETA to Colombia); and Clay Parham, a senior international studies major (Fulbright ETA to Germany).

Baylor students Micheal Munson, a junior University Scholar, and Ben Sepanski, a junior mathematics major, were awarded Goldwater Scholarships from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program. The Goldwater Scholarship is one of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships given in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics.

MUNSON

SEPANSKI

Congratulations to Spring 2019 Arts & Sciences graduates Catherine Arndt and Garrett Williams, who were selected to participate in the 2019 National Science Foundation Research Fellowship Program. This is a prestigious annual program that gives outstanding students in the STEM fields financial support to pursue research-based graduate degrees.

Two Arts & Sciences doctoral students spent their summer in Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex as part of the Bryce C. Brown Research Fellowship. Religion PhD candidate Kazuyuki Hayashi and environmental science PhD candidate Farzaneh Mansouri did original research in the collections held within the museum. Hayashi studied engravings on precious stones and cuneiform inscriptions to learn more about their language and origins, while Mansouri analyzed whalebones in the museum’s collection to learn about changes in whale ecosystems and food web relationships.

HAYASHI

MANSOURI

For the seventh summer in a row, a group of Baylor Arts & Sciences students completed the National School of Tropical Medicine Summer Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The undergraduates spent two weeks becoming familiar with the fields of tropical medicine and public health. The diseases they studied, including hookworm and Chagas disease, afflict hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people. The Institute gives students the chance to work with leaders in the field such as Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at BCM and University Professor of Biology at Baylor.

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John McClain (BA ’75), who is in his 43rd year as a sportswriter for the Houston Chronicle, is among the eight media representatives selected for induction into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco this year.

McClain has covered Houston’s National Football League teams, the Oilers and the Texans, for the last 40 years, and is past president of the Pro Football Writers of America.

PHOTO CREDIT SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY 2016

Retired military chaplain Norris Burkes (BA’79), who writes a syndicated column on spirituality and humanitarian causes, received the 2019 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The award was presented by Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, the great granddaughter of humorist Will Rogers.

CURRALL

BULLARD

Two Baylor Arts & Sciences alumni have recently been chosen for top leadership positions in higher education.

Dr. Steve Currall (BA ’82), previously the provost at Southern Methodist University, is the new president of the University of South Florida in Tampa, while Dr. Scott Bullard (PhD ’09) has become the 11th president of Pfeiffer University in Misenheimer, North Carolina.

Austin surgeon Dr. David C. Fleeger (BS ’81) is the new president of the Texas Medical Association (TMA). “I am honored and humbled to be chosen to ultimately serve as the voice of the strongest medical association in the country,” he said. Dr. Fleeger is a board-certified colon and rectal surgeon and managing partner of his seven-member group practice.

Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson, an associate professor of English at John Brown University who earned her doctorate at Baylor (PhD ’09), was named the winner of the 2019 Hiett Prize by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

The Hiett Prize honors young humanities scholars whose work shows extraordinary promise.

Noted economist Dr. Ray Perryman (BS ’74), founder and president of the Waco-based Perryman Group, received the Chairman’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in Economic Development from the International Economic Development Council.

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BY KEVIN TANKERSLEY

Baylor Arts & Sciences student Lauren Cox is making an impact both on and off the basketball court

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f you follow Baylor University athletics at all, you know Lauren Cox. She is a senior on the Baylor women’s basketball team and was one of the standouts last season when the Lady Bears won their third national championship with an 82-81 victory over Notre Dame. That titanic struggle added a large dose of drama for Baylor when Cox left the game with a knee injury with 1:22 left in the third quarter, and the team rallied to win as Cox cheered them on from the sideline.

After the season was over, Cox earned the 2018-19 Big 12 Female Sportsperson of the Year award, sharing it with the Kansas State University women’s rowing team.

Cox also has become a role model and spokesperson for the more than 30 million people in the United States who, like her, live with diabetes.

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age seven, she is able to play basketball with the disease because she wears a glucose monitor on her arm and an insulin pump on her hip when she’s on the court. 

VARYING THE GAME PLAN

And while Cox might not demonstrate that outgoing, vocal leadership in class, it’s her diligent work effort that has earned her numerous academic awards, including being named first team Academic All-District by the College Sports Information Directors of America and first team Academic All-Big 12.

At this year’s Final Four, Cox also was given the NCAA Elite 90 Award, which “recognizes the top GPA of a student-athlete at the NCAA Championships for their respective sport,” the athletic department said in a news release in April. So far in her Baylor career, Cox has garnered more than 20 academic and athletic awards — including four gold medals with USA Basketball — with her senior season still to come.

There’s yet another role that Cox plays at Baylor — that of a communication major in the College of Arts & Sciences. But Lauren Cox the student isn’t much different from Lauren Cox the basketball player. Dedicated. Hardworking. Always paying attention to what’s going on around her.

There is one major variance, however. In class, Cox doesn’t say much, and she owns up to that.

“Yeah, I’m more of a quiet person until I get to know you,” she said. “It kind of depends on who I’m with. If I have some friends or teammates in class, I’ll speak up a little more because I just know some people in the class.”

Things change, however, when she’s in the gym.

“It’s actually completely different in basketball,” she said. “I’m one of the talkers on the court. I’m always talking at practice. I’m CLASSROOM KUDOS a vocal leader in practice and anything that Cox’s professors in the Department of has to do with basketball. I’m the complete Communication are quick to commend her opposite of what I am in the classroom. It’s performance in their classes. kind of weird, but it’s just how I am.”

“Lauren, both times she took my classes, she Lady Bears head coach Kim Mulkey rec- sat in the back and she was somewhat reserved, ognizes Cox’s leadership, and mentioned it but she would contribute probably three or frequently during Baylor’s time at the Final four times every single class period,” said Dr. Four this past season.

Jane Damron, senior lecturer in communication.

“She’s the heart and soul of our team,” “My classrooms are pretty interactive. I’ll talk Mulkey said after the Lady Bears won the about a concept and then I’ll say, ‘OK, why is national championship on April 7. “She’s our this? What do we think about this? What are leader, people. She’s our leader.” some real life examples of this? How does this

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work out?’ And they’re kind of wrestling with the theories and also seeing applications. And I always loved hearing from Lauren because she’d always pipe up from the back and she’d have some very insightful, well-supported, well-grounded comment, giving her thoughts about the scholarly concepts.”

Cox understands why Damron received the 2019 Collins Outstanding Professor Award, an honor voted on each year by the senior class.

“She’s really deserving of that just because she’s just so relatable and she knows how to teach you the information to where you’ll enjoy it and want to actually go to her class,” Cox said.

Lauren Cox being present in his class is one of the things that also impressed John Cunningham, senior lecturer in communication.

“She’s there every day, which is great to me,” Cunningham said. “That’s half the battle for any student, just being there and being present every day and not just sitting there looking at her phone the whole time. She’s a great student. Not just in my class, but across the board. In our department, I don’t know how anyone could find a bad thing to say about her.”

To Kim Mulkey, Lauren Cox as a student of basketball is just as important as Lauren Cox the player.

“First of all, you better know what you’re teaching, because Lauren Cox understands

the game. She sees the game through the eyes of a coach,” Mulkey said. “I have so much confidence in her that sometimes during the game, I’ll look at her and say, ‘What do you think? You’re out there on the floor. You have a feel for it. Tell me.’ And she’ll say, ‘We need to run this,’ or ‘We need to run that.’ That’s when you know a coach has the upmost confidence in a kid.”

LOOKING AHEAD Cox is on schedule to graduate in May 2020, and plans to pursue a professional basketball career. She enters her senior season as one of the top two players in the country, according to ESPN, and will likely battle the University of Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu for national player of the year honors.

When her pro career comes to an end, Cox said she would likely get into basketball broadcasting or commentating, a job where she can “also have my Type 1 diabetes platform…just to kind of keep doing what I’m doing here at Baylor, showing people that they can do whatever they want. Just try to be an inspiration for them and show them that I’m playing sports at an elite level. And you can do that too. Whether you want to play sports, whether you want to be a writer and actor or anything like that, you can still do it regardless of having diabetes.”

In “Diabetes Didn’t Keep Me From Being Active,” a first-person article that Cox wrote for Champions’ TriBUne at BaylorBears.com, she talked about receiving her diabetes diagnosis on Sept. 15, 2005.

“I went from being a normal 7-year-old kid to now having numerous responsibilities, like checking my blood sugar, counting carbs and taking insulin,” Cox wrote. “This is one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from being the active kid that I was and still am today.

“It’s just tough sometimes just because it’s so unpredictable,” she wrote. “I have adrenaline to think about, stress to think about that can affect it. Like if I have a final coming up that I’m really stressed about, that can affect my blood sugar. If we have a big game that’s coming up, that can affect my blood sugar. It’s just tough to predict what’s going to happen because it’s always changing.”

Cox now wears a continuous glucose monitor on her upper arm and an insulin pump on her hip.

“It monitors my blood sugar and it can communicate with my insulin pump that I also wear during games,” she said. “If my blood sugar is going too high, it’ll automatically give me insulin. And if it’s going too low, it’ll suspend my insulin so I can come back up.”

This past July, Cox was one of the leaders in sports, television and film who joined youth delegates from across the United States and five countries invited to meet with members of Congress and their staff to talk about what life with Type 1 diabetes is like and what they can do to support those with diabetes.

“[Diabetes] is one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from being the active kid that I was and still am today.”

LAUREN COX Cox also spent her summer undergoing rehabilitation from the knee injury she suffered in the national championship game. She is now one of two seniors on the 2019-2020 Lady Bears team, and said there’s obviously going to be added pressure this season as Baylor begins play as the defending national champions.

“The coaches told us the other day, ‘Why can’t y’all do it again?” We lost two important parts of our team last year (in graduating seniors Chloe Jackson and Kalani Brown), but we have some great returners. We have the freshmen who got some experience last year. And (Coach Mulkey) said, ‘Why can’t you all do it again?’ That’s our plan for this year. We’re going to do everything we can to do that.” 

Ordinary

No Class Project A class of archaeology students has been working to get Baylor University the national recognition its long and distinguished history deserves

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BY JEFF HAMPTON

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emember when you built a diorama for your grade school history project? Or in high school when you wrote a paper about a historic event? Well, imagine being a college student who is asked to help place the site of your school’s founding in the National Register of Historic Places. That’s exactly what a Baylor University archaeology research class did in the spring of 2019.

Baylor at Independence has become familiar to incoming freshmen since 2001 when a visit to the site with its iconic stone columns was added to Line Camp orientation. They learn that Independence was the birthplace of Baylor in 1845 and its home until 1886, when a poor economy and declining population prompted change. The men’s campus moved north to merge with Waco University and retained the name 

Baylor University, while the female department relocated to Belton as Baylor Female College and, in time, became the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

This rich history was on the mind of Carol Macaulay-Jameson, a senior lecturer in anthropology, in 2017 while studying artifacts from Independence at Baylor’s Mayborn Museum.

She wondered if the old campuses were on the National Register and was surprised to learn they were not.

“So I thought, ‘Well heck, I’m going to do it,’” she said.

GETTING THE GO-AHEAD The National Register of Historic Places is the official listing of America’s historic structures, sites and objects worthy of preservation. Since its establishment in 1966, more than 90,000 properties have made the list.

director of The Texas Collection at Baylor. Fisher, assigned physical features to investigate on the who oversees the University’s properties at two campuses. On Feb. 1 –– by coincidence, Independence and has conducted significant the 174th anniversary of Baylor ’s foundresearch on the sites, was all in. ing — Fisher took her class to Independence “The idea of Baylor students helping to to measure and photograph those features, preserve the original site of their school, and and the students spent the remainder of the legacy of students and their accomplish- the semester gathering information for the ments at Baylor being preserved by fellow nomination narrative that focuses on social students 174 years later, is a wonderful picture history, education and archaeology. of students helping students through time,” “Baylor history is so intertwined with Texas Fisher said. “It also fit nicely into our mission history,” Macaulay-Jameson said, noting that at The Texas Collection — to collect, preserve the Texas Declaration of Independence was and provide access to materials documenting signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos — just the history, heritage and culture of Texas for 15 miles from Independence — while Baylor the Baylor community and the public. And was chartered by the Republic of Texas, and it also fits neatly into two of the pillars of figures such as Sam Houston lived in and Illuminate, Baylor’s strategic plan — research moved through the area. What’s more, she said, and undergraduate education. With all these “the trustees at Baylor were not just concerned connections, I was thrilled to have a chance to about their University but were instrumental work on it with Professor Macaulay.” in getting public education started in Texas.”

WHAT THEY LEARNED

The nomination process is stringent enough by itself, but Macaulay’s plan to get Baylor accepted had its own hurdles. She needed permission to create a research course focused solely on the nomination, and she needed to recruit students.

“I had in mind five undergraduate students whom I met through teaching,” MacaulayJameson said. “They’re very smart, very motivated and like doing this sort of thing. I sent them emails and said, ‘Hey, would you like to take part in this class? It’s going to be a six-hour class. Can you fit this into your schedule?’ And they all said yes.”

The plan also needed support from Paul Fisher, processing archivist and assistant

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STUDENTS GET TO WORK The planning and approvals –– including from Mary Hardin-Baylor, which jointly owns the female campus site with Baylor –– took 18 months to secure. The work done by MacaulayJameson’s students officially started on the first day of class in January 2019.

“We began with taking an online course on Baylor’s history at Independence, compiled

by The Texas Collection, and read two books on the history of Baylor at Independence.

The online course was excellent,” MacaulayJameson said.

Next, the students reviewed the nomination process, agreed on the criteria outlined in the National Register’s “how-to” manual, and were

These facts and more are highlighted in the details gathered and compiled by the students from the archives of The Texas Collection.

Bradie Dean, a senior anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and a minor in history, focused on the female campus and the roots of coeducation in the South.

“It has been especially informative to learn more about the differing opinions on the subject, even among Baylor faculty, and the rules and policies they established in order to protect the idea of coeducation when it was under fire from various sources,” Dean said. “It really gave me a clearer picture of the culture of the 19th Century South and how quickly things were changing.”

Cole Sutton, a Spring 2019 graduate who studied anthropology, classics and theology as a University Scholar, said his research on Baylor at Independence had a similar emphasis.

“I was reading theology that had been published by people I had never heard of from the mid-1800s, and it was some pretty incredible information in a lot of ways,” he said. “Getting to see that window back into another world, seeing the differences and similarities between my reality and that in which those people lived and thought was probably the most interesting part.”

Macaulay’s students also learned more about the research process and how history is curated.

“The most challenging part of this research has been collaboration as a team,” said Sarah Jones, a senior University Scholar. “Everyone

“What has been most satisfying for me is knowing that the work I’m doing is hopefully going to make a difference in how well Baylor’s heritage in Independence is preserved in the future."

LIBBY FERAY entered the research with different skill sets, which are incredibly useful, but as we divided up the research, there was always the difficulty of knowing that you might run into valuable information that another member of the team might need but never find. Communication has been a vital aspect of this project.”

Trey Lyon, a senior majoring in both anthropology and history, said the project has given him more respect for the “process” of history.

“Whenever a student reaches for a history book, I don’t think they understand just how much work has gone into that process.

Countless hours of searching for sources, trips to the archives, compiling and writing all went into a single book. The finished product is so easy to underestimate,” Lyon said.

Libby Feray, a senior University Scholar, said, “What has been most satisfying for me is knowing that the work I’m doing is hopefully

going to make a difference in how well Baylor’s heritage in Independence is preserved in the future. I’m happy to get to use skills I’ve learned during my time at Baylor to give back to the University in this way.”

As a seasoned archivist, Fisher confirmed that the students’ work has expanded the story of Baylor at Independence.

FACING PAGE AND UPPER LEFT: BAYLOR ANTHROPOLOGY STUDENTS EXAMINE THE INDEPENDENCE SITE AND ARTIFACTS FOUND THERE

“Once they got going on their research, even after only a few weeks, they were bringing up things that I had never heard before.

Their research skills, backgrounds in history and anthropology, and interest and growing knowledge in this subject have been invaluable to this project,” Fisher said.

The National Register is maintained by the U.S. National Park Service with nominations shepherded through historic preservation officers in each state. The nominations for the former male and female Baylor campuses in Independence are scheduled to go before the State Board of Review in January 2020.

If approved, the state historic preservation officer will then decide whether to proceed with National Register nominations.

And what about Baylor in Waco — especially the early campus at Burleson Quadrangle — which also has never been nominated for the National Register?

“That would be a really neat project, too,” Macaulay-Jameson said. “It would be a big project. Maybe I’ll have an opportunity someday in the future to do this again.” 

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BY COURTNEY DOUCET

Baylor undergraduates are sharing their love for science and research with a new generation of students

“We are there to help them through the process, but we try not to tell them all the answers. We’re teaching them how to solve problems.”

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Dr. Marty Harvill

In an innovative new course at Baylor, undergraduate biology students are strengthening their own research skills by teaching local grade school students how to design and complete science experiments.

During the spring 2019 semester, the Science Leadership class taught by Dr. Marty Harvill, senior lecturer in biology, took on a new character. For the first time, Harvill had his students expand their knowledge of biology research by teaching it to others — in this case, five classes of students, one each from Grades 3 through 7, in Waco’s Midway Independent School District.

Harvill had been teaching the Science Leadership course with a different curriculum for a while before meeting Courtney Jerkins, coordinator of elementary science and social studies for Midway ISD, at an educational outreach meeting. When Jerkins told him about the need for Midway students to have more hands-on activities

involving science research, Harvill got the idea to modify his course and involve his biology students in teaching their younger counterparts.

“All the students in the Science Leadership course had completed a research project in one of my other courses, so they had a good understanding of how this process was going to go,” Harvill said. “However, teaching part of the research process was new to them. I gave them some general guidelines to follow for teaching these younger grades. We had a lot of trial and error in the first two or three weeks, but my students had the freedom to figure out the best way to solve each of their problems.” 

FACING PAGE AND UPPER LEFT: BAYLOR ANTHROPOLOGY STUDENTS EXAMINE THE INDEPENDENCE SITE AND ARTIFACTS FOUND THERE. MIDWAY ISD STUDENTS LEARN FROM BAYLOR FACULTY DURING A BAYLOR SCIENCES BUILDING TOUR

CREATING PROJECTS At the start of the 14-week course, each of the five Midway classes was given a list of 10 organisms — ranging from worms and snails to beetles and crawfish — and asked to choose one to study. Then, the 19 Baylor undergraduates enrolled in the course were assigned to different Midway grade-level research groups.

Harvill said the Midway students were also given a list of variables that could be measured, such as temperature, weight and light exposure, and asked to choose which ones they would use to study their organism.

“My students would then ask them, ‘How are we going to test for this particular variable?’

For example, if the Midway students chose to look at weight, what would they use to measure weight? What exactly would be the procedure to measure the organism? And would there be other things that would be important for them to measure?,” Harvill said.

Once the parameters were agreed upon, Baylor spent about $200 per Midway class to send them the things they would need to conduct experiments, including lab materials and the organisms themselves. The Midway students then planned out and performed experiments on the organisms at their schools, as Baylor students observed and offered counsel at a distance via a videoconferencing system known as Zoom.

“The beauty of this project is that we are there to help them through the process, but we try not to tell them all the answers,” Harvill said. “We’re teaching them how to solve problems. We try to lead them by the use of questions to figure out the answers so that they have ownership of their project. It’s their project, not ours, so they are much more motivated to complete it.”

As her part of the course, Baylor junior biology major Megan Vo worked with seventh grade students from Midway Middle School.

Their project focused on finding the effects

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of high temperature, low temperature and room temperature on the weight and length of crawfish.

“I’ve learned so much. Being able to see the ability of the students, especially the seventh graders, they’ve been amazing,” Vo said. “They’ve exceeded any expectation that we’ve had of them. We’ve learned from them as much as they’ve learned from us, I think.”

Shawn Horan, teacher of the Midway seventh graders, said she saw the course as a great opportunity for both Midway and Baylor students.

“My students were able to participate in a real research study and collaborate with Baylor students, which they were very excited about.

The Baylor students got the chance to teach and lead our students through the activity, and I think this helped them understand how to share their knowledge of scientific research,” Horan said. “I thought the undergraduates did a great job with my students.

They had a difficult task of collaborating via

videoconference. They learned some things that did and did not work, and they adjusted to try to keep my students’ attention and teach them the best they can.”

Research projects done by other Midway classes included “Effects of Light Exposure on Lady Beetle Survival” by Debbie Strouse’s third grade class at Hewitt Elementary School; the study of bread mold growth in breads sprayed with salt water by Nicole Grygar’s fourth grade class at Woodway Elementary; “The Effect of Different Nutrients on the Mass and Length of Eisenia Fetida (Worms)”

by Morgan Castillo’s fifth grade class at Woodgate Intermediate; and “The Effects of Sound Waves on Snail Reproduction” by Elizabeth Fox’s sixth grade class at River Valley Intermediate. Each class performed several trials and went through a thorough scientific method of establishing methods and materials, collecting data and results and coming up with a discussion and conclusions.

“This experience taught me a lot and I learned to think like a scientist.”

Natalie McGrath

Student at Woodway Elementary

SHARING DISCOVERIES Once the experiments were completed, the Baylor students taught the Midway students the next step — how to compile their findings and present them on a research poster just as scientists and Baylor students do at the conclusion of their own research. On the afternoon of April 26, 2019, the Midway students and their teachers arrived at the Baylor Sciences Building, where they toured various science labs and then got the chance to present their completed research to a large group. The Midway students used the research posters they had made to give five-minute presentations on what they had discovered.

“It was great how excited they were to see their completed posters on the large projector screen,” Harvill said. “The best thing was watching the excitement of my students as they watched their Midway students’ reactions. I told my undergraduates, ‘That is the way I felt when you completed your first research posters.’”

Natalie McGrath, the fourth grade daughter of Dr. Thomas McGrath, senior lecturer and undergraduate program director in chemistry and biochemistry at Baylor, was one of the students who helped present the research done by Nicole Grygar’s fourth grade class at Woodway Elementary.

“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” Natalie said. “It gave me the chance to interact with people on a different level in science.

The project gave me the opportunity to use my mind in new ways following the scientific method. This experience taught me a lot and I learned to think like a scientist.” 

BOTH PAGES: MIDWAY ISD STUDENTS INVESTIGATE SCIENCE LABS DURING THEIR VISIT TO BAYLOR

UPDATE:

EXPANDING THE SCOPE In fall 2019, Harvill has expanded the scope of the Science Leadership course to include not only five classes from Midway ISD schools, but three classes from the Waco Independent School District and one from nearby China Spring ISD. “After we perfect this course locally, we want to take it to other schools in other states as well,” Harvill said. “In fact, I just got back from a mission trip to Belize, and I’ve talked to a school down there and I’m going to try to run a similar course with them in the spring of 2020. Wherever there is an internet connection that will allow for videoconferencing, we want to try and go there.”

(AT LEFT) MEMBERS OF THE FIRST STUDENT INITIATES OF BAYLOR’S PHI BETA KAPPA CHAPTER IN THE 1977 ROUNDUP

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For more than 40 years, Baylor’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society has recognized outstanding achievement and championed the liberal arts

BY JULIE ENGEBRETSON

An Honorable Venture W

orking to become an R1 research institution, a classification given by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Baylor already shares much in common with many of the nation’s top schools. As just one example, Baylor is among the 10 percent of U.S. colleges and universities to shelter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa — the oldest and most prestigious academic honor society in the United States.

“It’s the granddaddy of all honor societies,” Baylor associate professor of history and PBK member Julie DeGraffenried, PhD, told a gathering of campus Phi Beta Kappa initiates in April 2016. “I realize there are dozens of honor societies now. This one, however, is special.

It’s the honor society that all the other honor societies are imitating.”

Since its founding in 1776 at the College of William & Mary, Phi Beta Kappa has grown to include 286 total chapters housed on college and university campuses across the country, including the Zeta of Texas chapter at Baylor University. Nationwide, only one college senior in 100 is invited to join the organization each year. By their academic merit, these students exemplify an uncommon breadth of intellectual interests, a depth of knowledge and an enduring commitment to liberal arts education. The Greek letters themselves declare the society’s motto: “Love of learning is the guide of life.” 

“Phi Beta Kappa is a mark of distinction signaling a person who is not only intelligent but trained to asked good questions.”

Dr. Alden Smith

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“At Baylor, we aim to induct eight percent of each graduating class from the College of Arts & Sciences, from among University Scholars and from some Baylor Business Fellows who’ve taken enough liberal arts courses to be considered,” said Dr. Adrienne Harris, associate professor of Russian and current Baylor chapter president.

The Zeta of Texas chapter boasts almost 80 active members. These are current Baylor faculty and staff, who work to promote the liberal arts, whether through informal conversations with students or sponsored events such as the annual Albaugh Lectures. Endowed in the late 1970s, the Roy B. Albaugh Phi Beta Kappa Lectureship has brought to campus a distinguished list of scientists, writers, artists and thinkers including consumer advocate Ralph Nader, historian and former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer Francis Crick, and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors John Updike and Marilynne Robinson.

ZETA BEGINNINGS The story of how Baylor came to have a Phi Beta Kappa chapter is one of great patience and persistence.

Soon after Dr. Henry L. Robinson came to Baylor to chair what was then the French and Italian department in 1948, he began the long crusade toward installing a PBK chapter. The national association only accepts a few new chapters every three years at its triennial meetings. Robinson and a small committee of four or five Baylor faculty who were Phi Beta Kappa members endured the application process five times — in 1952, 1964, 1967, 1970 and 1973 — before succeeding with the sixth application in 1976.

Dr. Wallace Daniel, a former dean of Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences and a former Baylor history department chair, was one of 12 charter members of the Zeta of Texas chapter.

“Dr. Robinson was so convinced that Baylor deserved to and must shelter a chapter and he was relentless in pursuing that dream of his,” Daniel said. “And after several failures by 1974, he called the committee together once more and insisted we had a better chance the next time around.”

For one thing, Daniel said Baylor by 1976 had hired several more faculty who were Phi Beta Kappa members, including then University President Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds.

“In addition to being a Phi Beta Kappa member himself, Reynolds also added greatly to the funding of Moody Memorial Library, which aided the successful application,” Daniel said.

“Further, the 1976 application, which was nearly 120 pages in length, made the strong argument that Baylor’s courses in religion and theology were highly academic and rigorous in nature, and not proselytizing. This had been of some concern to the national association previously.”

By the time the Zeta of Texas chapter was finally installed on April 12, 1977, Dr. Robinson had retired, and Dr. Bruce Cresson, now a professor emeritus of religion, served as the first chapter president. Seventeen days later, the first-ever initiation ceremony was held, welcoming 26 undergraduate initiates into Phi Beta Kappa.

Among those graduating Baylor seniors was a 22-year-old Dr. Viola Osborn.

“Dr. Daniel was my Russian history professor, and he convinced me that of all the honor societies that might want me, Phi Beta Kappa was the one to join,” said Osborn, who

currently serves as director of information analysis and planning for the College of Arts & Sciences. “My parents also knew how important Phi Beta Kappa was.”

ENSURING A LEGACY Dr. Alden Smith, professor of classics, Master Teacher and associate dean of the Honors College, estimates that as many as one quarter of undergraduates who come to Baylor know about the PBK chapter on campus.

“Certainly three quarters of Honors College students choose Baylor because Phi Beta Kappa is here, and they do aspire to that distinction,” said Smith, a past chapter president.

Since the mid-1990s, however, a number of sources including The Wall Street Journal and The Chronicle of Higher Education have noted shrinking numbers of Phi Beta Kappa initiates across the United States. One possible reason, according to local and national Phi Beta Kappa officers, is the expansion of chapters to large, state schools which enroll more firstgeneration college students — a demographic less likely to have heard of the honor society.

In their classrooms and in conversation with students, Baylor’s Zeta of Texas chapter members are intentionally vocal about the honor society, doing their part to inform students unfamiliar with Phi Beta Kappa about this prestigious distinction and its academic requirements. Baylor’s chapter pays for each initiate’s membership fee, and chapter leaders make every effort to invite to membership those students who are historically underrepresented, including minority and firstgeneration college students who have met the requirements set forth by the national association.

In addition to sponsoring events such as the Albaugh Lectures, Phi Beta Kappa gives back to Baylor by sponsoring four student scholarships every year — including the “Cresson Scholarship” to help fund study abroad opportunities, the Wallace Daniel Award for undergraduate writing and a scholarship rewarding excellence in Spanish.

Despite these efforts at Baylor to communicate the value of PBK and make joining the chapter more affordable, Smith said it’s possible that some might feel threatened by any organization that honors excellence.

“People who want everything to be the same may say that Phi Beta Kappa is an elitist thing. When you’re talking about anything merit-based, it’s possible to make that argument. But the fact is, we live in a society that recognizes and rewards excellence. And, I think the real question ought to be about inherent value. Phi Beta Kappa is a mark of distinction signaling a person who is not only intelligent but trained to asked good questions,” Smith said, noting that his own Phi Beta Kappa membership helped him get hired at Baylor.

As a first-generation college student herself, Harris says she nearly declined her own invitation to membership when she was a senior at Purdue University 20 years ago.

“When I received the letter, I didn’t understand what an honor it was, and it seemed like this organization was just asking me for $50,” Harris said. “But a professor of mine overheard a conversation I was having with some classmates about it, and on the spot, he offered to pay my membership fee for me. That he was willing to do this for me underscored the importance of Phi Beta Kappa.”  PRESIDENT LINDA LIVINGSTONE ATTENDED BAYLOR’S FALL 2017 PHI BETA KAPPA INITIATION

Baylor researcher Robbie Rogers has solved a perplexing 60-year old mystery in gospel music

BY ROBERT F. DARDEN

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I

n the late 1950s and early 1960s, gospel ENTER THE MYSTERIOUS HARVEY albums all looked alike. Black and At first, Lubinsky issued Savoy product white photos of the artists in front of with generic album jacket art. Suddenly, in stage curtains. Generic photographs 1961, something changed. Savoy LP covof churches or serene landscapes. ers exploded with color and a mad, surreal Religious-themed clip art. Sometimes the array of Christian iconography that looked album jacket featured only the album’s title as if Salvador Dali had had a conversion at and the artist’s name. a snake handler church in the hollers above Despite being the foundation of all American Pigeon Forge, Tennessee — jet-powered Roman popular music, gospel music occupied a minor numerals swooping towards monolithic stones, niche in the recorded music universe. A handful golden crowns floating over massive flying of secular labels not only sold the most records, crosses, while small, golden humanoids caper they controlled most of the distribution and on a barren landscape, more alien figures radio airplay, sticking with classical music, big worshiping a tilting cross that dripped a band swing, patriotic music, crooners, and single locomotive-size drop of blood — and movie and Broadway soundtracks. hundreds more! Nearly all of these paintings That left little room for the feisty entre- have a single artist’s name somewhere on the preneurs who believed there was a market front: “HARVEY.” for the smaller genres of rock ‘n’ roll, ethnic For the next few years, HARVEY paintmusic, country (from hillbilly to Western ings appeared regularly on Savoy LP jackets Swing) and gospel.

— sometimes two-thirds of all Savoy releases That changed — a little — in the late 1950s in a year featured HARVEYs. In 1965, the when Herman Lubinsky founded Savoy Records frequency slowed until the last known cover in Newark, N.J. The tight-fisted Lubinsky is best was released in 1970. And that was it. No known today for releasing essential jazz, hop more HARVEYs. and hard-bop records by Charlie Parker, Sun For decades, the identity of the mysteriRa and Miles Davis. Savoy’s separate gospel ous artist HARVEY confounded the gospel line featured the Rev. James Cleveland, the music business. A host of names were tossed Ward Singers, the Dorothy Norwood Singers out — and promptly shot down — as the artand many more. Gospel didn’t sell a lot, but ist behind the signature. An entire web page it sold consistently. Under Lubinsky, Savoy (www.harveyalbums.com), created by gospel became the first gospel label to nationally historian and collector John Glassburner, became market the product. ground zero for all HARVEY speculation and featured a gallery for known HARVEY covers.

A number of historians, gospel artists and even other painters tried to solve the mystery.

SOLVING THE MYSTERY That’s the way it remained until 2018, when Robbie Rogers, director of Baylor photography and video productions, who was then in the early stages of his American Studies master’s degree studies at the University, one day nonchalantly entered the HARVEY Zone through Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project.

“Harvey is a total accident in my life,” Rogers said. “This collection found me more than I found it.”

Always visually oriented, Rogers received a grant through the Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections Teaching Fellowships to investigate the use of album jacket visuals

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“Suddenly…LP covers exploded with color and a mad, surreal array of Christian iconography that looked as if Salvador Dali had had a conversion at a snake handler church…”

ROBBIE ROGERS

for the “Writing for Media Markets” journalism class he was teaching. As Rogers looked through the collection’s thousands of LPs with the assistance of Eric Ames, assistant director for marketing and communications for ITS and Libraries, certain covers stood out.

“I was just moved by this work,” Rogers said.

“It absorbed me. I oversimplify everything, and Harvey took Christian iconography to more levels of oversimplification.”

Rogers began a deeper look inot the life HARVEY WILLIAMS (HARVEY) of the mysterious Harvey as he began his “I find it interesting that someone who never master’s thesis. Comments across Harveyrelated websites offered clues into Harvey’s discussed religion and wasn’t a fan of gospel identity. “This is no mystery. This is my father.” music could produce such spiritually evocative “The ‘mysterious’ Harvey is no mystery to me. artwork,” said Margo in her blog entry “The He was my older brother. I remember the very colorful Harvey.” “Clearly, there was a album covers (some of them).” Intrigued by side of Harvey we saw but didn’t recognize.”

The arrangement apparently pleased everythe comments, Rogers took to social media, cross-referencing and validating names, before one. Fueled in part by Harvey’s extraordinary locating Harvey’s sister, Margo Lee Williams. technicolor covers for the Gospel Harmonettes, Margo confirmed that her brother had lived the Davis Sisters, the Roberta Martin Singers in Queens with his son, Keith Williams, and and others, Savoy firmly established itself as had worked as a riveter at night while also gospel’s most powerful label.

Lubinsky (or his gospel music team of the selling paintings in street fairs.

With the help of art historian Meg Parrish, Rev. Lawrence Roberts or Fred Mendelson) Margo’s memories of her brother, Harvey would apparently randomly assign Harvey’s Williams, studying at the Student Art League latest painting to the next album in the Savoy disof New York years before were confirmed — tribution queue. Sometimes the covers matched and even Harvey’s art school transcript was the content, but usually not. Occasionally, the located. It showed that Harvey’s primary art would enhance the content.

Someone at the Savoy team did assign a professor was noted surrealist Ernest Fiene, and that Harvey took the same class from Fiene Harvey painting of Jesus in a small boat in a 19 times. Later, Harvey began teaching classes storm to the release by Rev. Cleveland and the on Saturdays at the Student Art League — he First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey’s even brought Margo to his classes to meet “Angelic Choir,” Peace Be Still. According to Marovich (who is writing a book on the album), students from time to time.

Keith and Margo slowly filled in the blanks. Peace Be Still, released during the period It seems Harvey was something of an eccen- of mourning following the assassination of tric, who was careless with money and rarely President John F. Kennedy, would become attended church — and the artist filled his small one of the most beloved and best-selling LPs of all time in the gospel market. apartment with nudes done in Fiene’s class.

Meanwhile, Keith Williams said that he At some point — yet to be determined — Harvey met Herman Lubinsky of Savoy and his father were “literally starving artists.”

Records, and thus began one of the strangest Harvey dodged bill collectors and instead partnerships in gospel. Once a month, Harvey spent the money on lavish parties for his (sometimes accompanied by Keith) would friends. According to Keith, his father would visit the Savoy offices and sell Lubinsky a sometimes retreat to the painting corner of half-dozen religious-themed paintings at $25 their crowded apartment where he kept his per painting. No commissions, no advance easel and paints. Keith would sit and watch. notice or instruction, no nothing. Harvey Suddenly, as the paint began to flow, his father would “go to another place.” painted; Lubinsky bought.

Then one day, Harvey quit painting — neither Margo nor Keith know why. He simply stopped. And the mystery of HARVEY began.

Though he had been a regular exhibitor at art galleries and even won a Ceceile Award for his works, Harvey died virtually unknown and unrecognized. The small plaque in a modest Long Island cemetery reads: “Harvey Williams, PVT US ARMY, WORLD WAR II, SEP 12 1927, JAN 24 1987.” A simple cross is the only decoration.

HONORING A LEGACY Today, most used gospel albums from the early 1960s cost in the $15-$20 range. But on eBay and other music auction sites, a HARVEY cover usually can only be had for $100 or more.

Rogers himself has purchased numerous HARVEY LPs, still mesmerized by the man’s strange juxtaposition of faith and fantasy. As word of Harvey Williams has spread, radio stations, podcasts, gospel historians, blogs and web pages have highlighted the true identity of the mysterious Harvey.

Margo, the Williams family historian, even maintains her own blog where she documents familial connections, including personal information about Harvey. She has only located a couple of photographs of her brother, and Rogers has continued to stay in touch with the family as they slowly piece together information on the artist’s life.

Neither Margo nor Keith know what became of Harvey’s paintings. Once the family realized that their Harvey had become a sensation, they reached out to everyone they could — looking for any answers to the outcome of the paintings. Since then, Margo and Keith have been in contact with individuals who had previously purchased paintings by Harvey, as well as form a relationship with Glassburner.

With materials drawn from Baylor's Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, and informed by the work of Rogers, the University Libraries opened a special exhibit of HARVEY’s paintings on Sept. 12 with the family of Harvey Williams in attendance.

Margo concludes her blog entry on Harvey with a sentiment that seems to be the driving force behind all those involved with the project, writing, “I’m thrilled to know that his work will not end in oblivion.” 

Community-Minded Research

BY DEREK SMITH

F

or Dr. Sarah Dolan, research is felt most deeply in the context of community. Dolan’s nationallyrecognized research has aided communities, both in Central Texas and beyond, since she came to Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences in 2007. An associate professor of psychology, Dolan often finds research leading her away from campus borders and into places where people experience trauma. Her approach is distinct. Dolan often helps those who help others, such as firemen, soldiers or other psychologists, which leads to meaningful insights and research that is magnified.

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Named by the American Psychological Assocation as one of 30 Citizen Psychologists, Dr. Sarah Dolan was drawn to Baylor University because of value placed on faculty using their expertise to transform the community

“I was raised with a sense that you have an obligation to give back,” Dolan says. “That’s one of the reasons I came to Baylor. It’s a place where you can really take your expertise as an academic researcher and impact the community around you.”

Whether that community is literal — a city like West, Texas — or a less-rigidly defined group of people who share common experiences or life-stages, they’ll inevitably experience challenging moments. In the spaces between those moments, Dolan blends a mix of researchbased expertise and human empathy to help people find the skills and the strength to cope.

HELPING WEST HEAL Generations of travelers to Baylor have made the city of West, Texas, a regular stop on their way to or from campus. A tightlyknit town of 3,000 people, West has long been renowned among Texans for its Czech heritage and delicious baked goods. On April 17, 2013, the world came to know the community for a different reason.

That evening, the West Fertilizer Plant caught fire and exploded. Located perilously close to scores of homes and the local high school, the disaster claimed 15 lives, injured

“You can help so many people through research, and I'm thrilled that research is more of a primary focus here at Baylor.”

hundreds and destroyed dozens of homes. Its ENHANCED ASSESSMENTS impact was most acutely felt by firefighters, More recently, Dolan served a different police officers, emergency workers and their type of community — young people bound by families. Among the roll of those killed in the trauma, and the mental health professionals blast were 12 first responders. As they sought who serve them. to serve their hometown amidst its darkest Earlier this year, Dolan received a $3 million moment, many of them were trying to process grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental the loss of colleagues and friends, as well as Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) their own homes in the area. to help refine and improve the process of In the aftermath of the tragedy, Dolan and assessing children as they process trauma. The Baylor colleagues formed a volunteer crisis fruit of her work will be the development and DR. SARAH DOLAN intervention team to provide free assistance implementation of new assessment methods to West residents as they coped. Partnering to help clinicians more accurately pinpoint the with Dr. James Ellor, from Baylor’s Diana R. needs of children between the ages of 8 and 16.

Garland School of Social Work, she met with “Very few people are focusing on devel- A RESEARCH FOCUS people wherever needed. In fire stations, oping best practices for assessment,” Dolan Such projects tell only part of the story private homes, makeshift trailers and more, says. “It’s encouraging and heartening that of a career-long pattern of service through first responders came to find assistance as they SAMHSA is investing in this project, to scholarship. Dolan also partners with the Waco processed their own psychological needs. One train clinicians in ways that will spread best Veterans Affairs (VA) Center for Excellence, first responder described their work as noth- practices nationally outside the university assisting returning veterans with the unique ing short of “rescuing the rescuers,” enabling academic setting and into everyday settings pressures they face. Through her work on the them to harness the strength they needed to that impact the community.”

Texas Psychological Association’s Disaster serve amidst the sadness.

Along with her collaborators, Dr. Stacy Response Network, she’s helped individuals Their time wasn’t limited to first respond- Ryan-Pettes, assistant professor of psychol- after natural disasters like hurricanes, fires ers; other West residents also found a listening ogy and neuroscience at Baylor, and Dr. Jeff and more. The people she serves aren’t the ear and wise counsel as they met with Dolan Wherry, associate professor of psychiatry only ones who notice. and her colleagues. Partnering with state and at the University of Texas at Tyler, Dolan Last winter, Dolan was named by the local agencies, the Baylor team would learn of is developing evidence-based assessments American Psychological Association (APA) as individuals needing psychological assistance (EBA) to help clinicians make the most of one of just 30 “citizen psychologists” nationally. and would go wherever needed. Through the all-important step before treatment. It’s According to the APA, citizen psychologists hundreds of hours and hundreds of counseling common in counseling to move quickly to “serve as leaders in their various communisessions, Dolan noticed a vital trait emerging treatment, but a deliberate assessment can ties and..contribute to improving people’s within the people of West. help clinicians recognize underlying issues lives.” The honor is particularly meaningful “I learned that, even in disaster, people sometimes missed through uniform assessment. to someone who has long seen research and are very resilient,” Dolan says. “I saw people “Quick, inexpensive assessments sometimes scholarship as a direct way to help others. discover that trauma doesn’t have to be a miss critical things in the process,” Dolan says.

"That's very special and a symbol that I've permanent scar on their soul and they’re “You might be missing that a child has suicidal been able to come here to Baylor and make going to recover.” thoughts because those questions are not being a positive impact on the community as a Dolan and Ellor collated the experiences asked in a standard assessment. You could research-based psychologist who cares about into published research and community part- miss that they’re depressed. By just focusing people and their wellbeing,” Dolan says. nerships. The research focused on how clergy on the trauma, which is important, you could The words “research-based” are important can partner with psychologists to engage their exclude other things that are going on that are to Dolan, who realized in college that, through spiritual needs, scholarship that advanced treatable and are very important to the kids.” research, she could help more people than if understanding of the role of religious beliefs in More than 800 clinicians will participate in she focused on one-on-one counseling. That healing. The explosion also revealed the impor- the training over the next five years, providing conviction leads to excitement when she thinks tance of preparation before a traumatic event, them with new tools to measure the individu- about Baylor’s increased research focus through which has led to lasting change. Through the alized issues a child with trauma could face. Illuminate, Baylor’s strategic plan, and the creation of the Psychological Intervention Team Further research will follow up with those aspiration to become an R1/Tier 1 university. within the McLennan County Reserve Corps, trained to determine which assessments were “You can help so many people through Dolan, Ellor and other educators continue to most effective research, and I'm thrilled that research is more partner with individuals in the community “The faster we get children to the right of a primary focus here at Baylor,” Dolan says. who serve across a variety of disciplines in treatment,” Dolan says, “the faster they’re “With everyone paddling in the same direction, times of crisis. There, they provide behavioral going to get better and get back on a healthy I think Baylor is in a really great position to health training that imbues other leaders with developmental trajectory.” impact an even larger segment of the comthe skills to help others cope. munity, and it's exciting to be a part.” 

Career Counseling 2.0

BY JULIE CARLSON

Baylor’s new Career Center is proactively engaging students with resources to help them achieve their career goals

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W

hen students earn their degrees from Baylor, they hope to step immediately into the workplace or pursue postgraduate education (and their parents fervently share this dream). Thanks to the new Baylor University Career Center, finding that perfect job or academic path post-graduation begins during freshman year and is a technology-driven, streamlined process that is proactive and intentional in its approach.

During spring 2019, the Hankamer School of Business Department of Career Management and the Office of Career and Professional Development merged to create a unified center on campus. The new Baylor University Career Center is organized to provide every student with the opportunity to achieve their career potential, regardless of classification or major.

“There was a strategic need to provide enhanced career support to our students,” said Ken Buckley, assistant dean of career management in the Career Center. “The consolidation and focus will allow greater attention to be placed on each student’s respective career needs. Our strategy and methods will allow our team of career professionals to ensure every student is given the resources and support to achieve their career dreams.” 

REACHING OUT

for every major on campus. It’s a much more Baylor’s previous career development robust model.”

Emily Dalak, who earned a BBA from Baylor model relied heavily on students to make contact with the office. Now, a team of Career in December 2018, serves as a Career Success Success Professionals, also known as career Professional, but she began her journey with coaches, reaches out to students. These staff the Career Center as a student employee.

“The Career Center is a huge support members are assigned to different majors within Baylor and interact directly with employers system for the Baylor student body, and it was also a support system for me,” she said. to support placement opportunities.

“We are taking a different approach and “Many of the staff members became my mengoing out to the students,” said Shelby Cefaratti, tors and guided me throughout my years marketing communications coordinator for as a student. Much of the success I gained the Career Center. “So if you are a journalism in my work experience was because of my major, you are going to have a Career Success mentors’ guidance.”

Professional who works with you. You will have someone dedicated to finding jobs for Baylor journalism students, to getting them THE TECHNOLOGY ADVANTAGE on the right track, to helping them build out The Baylor University Career Center is their résumés to bringing employers in for achieving engagement through exciting job on-campus interviews. That attention goes resources, much of it technology-driven.

“Technology is quite simply a force multiplier for our office,” Buckley said. “We have some of the top, leading-edge career success platforms on the market. When we talk to our peers at top-ranked universities, they are always envious of our technology capabilities.

We have some of the best career discovery, résumé development, interview preparation, alumni networking and career success platforms that we are proud to say provide our students with a significant edge against their peers at other universities.”

The online platform Handshake is one of those tools offered that students can use. Launched in 2014, Handshake is the ultimate career network and recruiting platform for students.

Even freshmen can start using Handshake to build their résumés and to network. Other Handshake resources include the ability to schedule appointments within the Career

You have to go to students and engage them wherever they are. And you have to consistently bring value, along with a deep sense of caring and commitment for their career success.

KEN BUCKLEY

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Center and to learn about on-campus interviews and other events. Employers recruit Baylor students for full-time and part-time positions, as well as for internships, through Handshake.

“These employers, which range from Fortune 500 companies to local businesses, want to hire Baylor students specifically,” Cefaratti said. “We vet each employer to determine if they meet with Baylor’s ideals and mission and if they will be a good fit for our students.” There are now more than 18,000 employers and 6,000 jobs and internships posted in Handshake.

“We have received rave reviews over the way we support our employers and recruiters,” Buckley said. “Many on our team held leadership roles in a wide array of industries and, in those capacities, have led, hired and developed talent in highly competitive environments. This knowledge allows us to work at a different level to prepare our students. Simply put, we understand what most employers are looking for and do our best to help prepare our students accordingly.”

The Career Center has other sophisticated job search tools available to students. For example, Jobscan allows students to upload their résumés and cover letters along with the targeted job description, and the technology will provide students with information on how well their documents match that job description.

EXPLORING THE OPTIONS Cefaratti said one of most exciting events that engaged Baylor students was the giant Career Day the Center hosted in September, which attracted hundreds of employers.

“Instead of there being a business career fair or a science career fair, with Career Day we have one day that includes three fairs — one for business and the humanities, one for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields and one for non-profit/ government. This allows students to explore so many opportunities,” Cefaratti said. “For example, if a student has a communication degree, he or she can take that in many different directions. There are interviews available and employers also collect résumés.

We encourage students to go to Career Day even just to network. I think it has had a big effect around campus.”

The Career Center is offering more professional development classes, many geared for Arts & Sciences students. These include PRD 2101, a one-hour course that focuses on résumé writing, presenting oneself on paper and in person, and interviewing skills. The Center will work closer with faculty and staff on outreach and hopes to create more partnerships with faculty and staff to reach students.

“Baylor University and its students are known for the quality and integrity of their character,” Buckley said. “Many employers comment on the fact that not only can you tell when you interview a Baylor student compared to other universities, but if you hire them they will normally be the person who steadily moves up the organization and stays with the company.“ But even with the new technology and special events, Cefaratti believes personal touch is the core of the Career Center. She said working directly with students can be better in identifying potential careers than some of the popular personality inventories, and job shadowing and internships can be stronger tools in determining direction.

Dalak’s role as a Career Success Professional showcases the personal attention Baylor students receive.

“Some of my favorite appointments are the mock interviews with students,” she said. “For example, let’s say a student has an interview coming up. That student would send me the job description that they applied to and the résumé that they used for that application. I would review both pieces then create customized questions that they would most likely experience in that interview. Many times, students will come back and tell me that they were asked most of the questions that we went over in our appointment, which is exactly my goal.”

Buckley agreed that student engagement is the Career Center’s top priority.

“You have to go to students and engage them wherever they are,” he said. “And you have to consistently bring value, along with a deep sense of caring and commitment for their career success, as well as a willingness to customize your support to meet them where they are in their career development.” 

We understand what most employers are looking for and do our best to help prepare our students accordingly.

KEN BUCKLEY

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Q&A:

Expanding the Field Baylor’s biology department has made providing research opportunities at all levels a priority. In this Q&A, Randy Fiedler, director of marketing and communications for A&S, talked with Dr. Dwayne Simmons, biology chair and The Cornelia Marschall Smith Endowed Professor in Biology, Dr. Thad Scott, associate professor of biology, and Dr. Jacquelyn Duke, senior lecturer in biology, about an innovative new course designed to give undergraduates a “deep dive” into research.

Dr. Simmons, has Illuminate, Baylor’s strategic plan that supports the goal of the University achieving R1/ T1 classification as a top research university, changed the way the biology department thinks about its overall goals?

Simmons: Well, we have always wanted to increase the amount of research we’re doing in the department. I feel we can have increased research productivity, provide our undergraduate students with opportunities to work with world class scientists, and ideally have all of our faculty engaged in some kind of research activity, whether it’s with graduate students and/or undergraduate students.

This way, I think everybody wins. 

DR. DWAYNE SIMMONS

“In our department, we have extremely motivated and talented instructional faculty who want to be engaged with students. That produces a great combination."

DR. DWAYNE SIMMONS It seems as though there’s been a shift over the years toward getting more undergraduates involved in research. Is that correct?

Simmons: Without question I would say that’s been a global trend. In the last 20 years, R1 institutions have realized that you can actually have undergraduates do some high-quality research. It’s not going to be at the same level

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as that done by a graduate student, but they can produce a product that is extremely good.

Undergraduates can make contributions to research, but the question is, do you have the resources, facilities and wherewithal to facilitate that? In our department, we have extremely motivated and talented instructional faculty who want to be engaged with students. That produces a great combination.

Dr. Scott and Dr. Duke, do you agree that there’s value in getting undergraduates involved in research?

Scott: Yes. The traditional way of teaching through lectures or even active learning techniques in the classroom tends to train students in memorization, but it isn’t actually transformative in a student’s experience.

Research enables learning through action and typically results in greater investment by the students in their own learning.

Duke: My philosophy is that as educators we’re facilitators of learning. I don’t like to see us as teachers who are simply transmitting knowledge, but as guides who are putting students in the driver’s seat. Having students contribute to the intellectual task of asking questions, designing experimental protocols, analyzing and discussing their outcomes,

and ultimately placing their work into the larger body of scientific knowledge is the quickest way to facilitate student-driven learning in science.

Simmons: I’d like to add that you learn science by doing science. I didn’t really start to understand what science was all about until I started doing research — going into a relatively narrow topic and taking what I call a “deep dive” approach. You realize that a lot of things you read in a textbook are either oversimplifications or things the authors got wrong. You come to understand that science is all about discovery, and that’s why we have paired our graduate faculty, who concentrate on research, with our instructional faculty, who concentrate on teaching, to work with students and help them learn truly how to do what science is all about.

You all agree that students can benefit from working with faculty members to do research.

But do the faculty members benefit from this arrangement as well?

Duke: Absolutely. Working together, it’s very invigorating the way we play off of each other’s talents, passions and interests.

We are both scientists, but with contrasting specialties within the discipline. Whereas I

Scott: At my previous institution, I helped am a teaching-focused faculty member, Dr. class, “Aquatic Systems Research,” that Scott’s major focus at Baylor is as a researching promised to give them a “deep dive” into run a National Science Foundation-funded scientist. This was the impetus for us design- doing original science research. Let’s start at “Research Experience for Undergraduates” ing a team-taught research endeavor, because the beginning. How did the idea come up for program. It was a summer program where we felt that together we could create a unique you, Dr. Scott — a research faculty member students would be in our laboratories for about opportunity for our students. Teaching-focused –– and you, Dr. Duke — an instructional six weeks. Although I enjoyed that work, I faculty members have limited resources for faculty member –– to team up and create was unfulfilled after each year because that  research at Baylor, so having this collaboration this new kind of course?

Scott: The idea came from Dr. Simmons. where I bring my teaching expertise to the project, while Dr. Scott provides an innovative He and I arrived at Baylor in the same semester, research expertise, is a win for the students and one of the items in his long-term vision for the department was possibly developing teams and a rewarding endeavor for the two of us Scott: Pairing with Dr. Duke has been of research graduate faculty and instructional immeasurably valuable to me. As a research- faculty to do something like this. Dr. Duke focused faculty member, I find it challenging to and I started talking about it one evening. It invest significant time in teaching innovation. planted a seed in my mind, and then about Dr. Duke and these undergraduate students a year and a half ago Dr. Duke and I got to have transformed my approach to teaching talking more seriously about it.

Duke: We knew each other from our graduand exposed me to more effective ways for students to learn science. I’m now trying to ate school days. So, having a history made us implement these more creative approaches comfortable with one another and the whole thing developed rather naturally. Because of to teaching in my other classes. our shared interest in aquatic ecology and As you well know, in the fall of 2018 the our complementary ways of engaging with biology department here took a chance students — research versus teaching — I was on an out-of-the-box idea and recruited really drawn to the idea of this dual approach undergraduates for a two-semester-long to learning science.

“As educators we’re facilitators of learning. I don’t like to see us as teachers who are simply transmitting knowledge, but as guides who are putting students in the driver’s seat."

DR. JACQUELYN DUKE

DR. THAD SCOTT

DR. JACQUELYN DUKE

wasn’t enough time for students to really learn anything. Dr. Duke and I agreed that we’ve got to do a very involved process, which led to plans for a two-semester research course.

Over a full academic year, we would have the students not only do research — learning how to generate hypotheses and collect data — but also we’d teach them how to communicate their findings in the various forms that scientists use to communicate research. That is really what separates our approach from most other undergraduate research experiences.

Simmons: Individually, neither faculty member could have taught this course on their own at the level they achieved together, given the two-pronged faculty line we have at Baylor— research-focused versus teachingfocused. I don’t know if this pairing is unique in the country, but there are not very many institutions that are doing this kind of thing.

I’m interested in just what the eight students in this inaugural research class did over two semesters. Can you give me a better idea of what they studied, and what steps were involved?

Scott: I’m an aquatic microbiologist, so we were studying the bacteria that live in lakes.

We were interested in how microorganisms

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interact with their chemical environment, and specifically how they were influencing the nitrogen cycling between the atmosphere, lake water and lake sediments. We did some simple experiments to understand how the growth of certain microorganisms can be flexible. When you and I take a breath, our bodies absorb oxygen into our bloodstream so that it can be utilized by our organs, tissues and cells. That’s what keeps us alive. But, there are microorganisms that can breathe other ways.

We studied microorganisms in lakes that can breathe nitrates instead of oxygen, and how the growth of those microorganisms affects the nitrogen cycle in lakes.

Duke: We took the students out the very first day to Waco Creek to collect data with the intent to immerse them immediately in the process of science. In addition to intensive field work, spanning two additional lakes, the students also read a lot of scientific journals — we gave them more than 16 primary journal articles — and eventually they started finding their own sources and leading the dialogues.

By the end of the first semester the students had completed data processing and statistical analyses. Over the break we added another reading list and in the spring semester we began with how to communicate their outcomes.

“Research enables learning through action, and typically results in greater investment by the students in their own learning.”

DR. THAD SCOTT

There were three science communication components — the oral communication they were going to have with their peers (fellow scientists in the field), the written communication through a manuscript submission and a non-scientifically focused communication with the public. In addition to presenting at Baylor’s Scholars Week, the students in the class traveled to and presented their findings at an international water conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, giving both talks and posters.

For the public engagement component, they developed and implemented teaching modules for non-biology majors, and together with that cohort of students they developed and led a community outreach project in collaboration with the Mayborn Museum.

Scott: Many undergraduate research experiences have students generate some data, analyze it and then do a poster or oral presentation — maybe even write a little paper about what they’ve done. Because we had more time, our students had the full experience of writing a peer-reviewed manuscript for publication, which is really difficult to do.

Everything that built to that point was the scientific method in action. They were learning by doing. I think it gave them a really full and realistic experience of what scientists do every day. Plus, a publication will look great on their résumés.

DR. SCOTT AND DR. DUKE WITH STUDENTS IN THE AQUATIC SYSTEMS RESEARCH CLASS

Now that it’s behind them, what feedback did you get with your students about the course?

Duke: They said they learned that it’s one thing to just hear about science and how it is done, but it’s a whole different experience to actually get to be a participant in science, to be a contributor. What they love, too, is the feeling that they’re not just doing this to learn a skill set, but they’re doing it to contribute to the body of knowledge. Our students are now very well aware of the research gaps in the field they spent two semesters working in, and the fact that questions still remain.

They feel proud to be filling one of those gaps and contributing to the construction of scientific knowledge.

Is this course being offered again during the 2019-2020 academic year?

Scott: Yes. This year we’ve moved to a different topic — harmful algal blooms, which are a problem for water quality in a lot of places in the world, including right here in the United States. The city of Toledo, Ohio, lost their water supply a couple of years ago for about 10 days over a harmful algal bloom. My graduate students, postdocs, collaborators and I have a

grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the environmental conditions that cause these blooms to occur, and what makes them toxic. So, Dr. Duke and I carved out a piece of that research for our undergraduate class.

This year’s group is studying how climate change may be increasing the frequency and magnitude of harmful algal blooms so that we can recommend management strategies that will minimize the impact on human health.

Will the biology department be able to build on this success and offer this course to more students in the future?

Simmons: I think we will be able to cycle this continuously. I’m hoping that we’re going to get additional pairings where our faculty will think, yeah, I want to do this too. But it’s always going to be a resource-intensive and people-intensive course, and it’s never going to be scalable to a mass level. But it’s exciting, and the benefits go way beyond the actual faculty and students that are participating.

Scott: If we could have three or four or more of these pairings, with 10 or 12 students in each class, we’d be reaching as many as 50 students in a year. That means maybe at least

20 percent of our biology majors would have the potential to have this learning experience.

Will student research remain a priority in the department in the future?

Simmons: Definitely. Our long-range goal is that by the time our biology students graduate, we want at least 75 percent of those students to have had at least one significant deep dive research experience, so that they come out of Baylor knowing what discovery is — whether that’s done in a classroom setting or through an apprenticeship experience where it’s more individual. These students will come out being great advocates of science and science literacy.

Duke: I’m very interested in addressing scientific illiteracy in the public arena, so one of the things I would love for our students to graduate from Baylor with is the ability to be better advocates for science by learning how to communicate science, not only with their peers, but also with the public. Endeavors like this facilitate proficient, confident communicators of science through the shared journey of discovery. 

Our Back Pages

Baylor’s Arts & Sciences Centennial

BY RANDY FIEDLER

The College of Arts & Sciences — the largest academic unit of Baylor University with 475 full-time faculty and more than 6,600 students — is celebrating its centennial this year.

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The fields of study contained within 25 departments within the current College of Arts & Sciences, including English, foreign languages, religion, political science, the fine arts, history, mathematics and the sciences, made up almost all of Baylor University’s curriculum in its first decades.

Just before the observance of Baylor’s 75th anniversary with the celebration of its Diamond Jubilee in 1920, the Baylor Board of Trustees decided to formalize a new, more modern academic structure for the University.

On March 21, 1919, trustees divided the University into six academic units — the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Fine Arts, the College of Medicine, the College of

The last three Baylor Arts & Sciences deans (L to R): Drs. Lee Nordt, Wallace Daniel and William Cooper

DEANS OF THE BAYLOR UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES Samuel Riley Spencer 1919-1924 William Sims Allen 1924-1934 Edward Newlon Jones 1934-1942 David Andrew Weaver 1942-1944 James P. Cornette 1945-1947 Monroe S. Carroll 1947-1955 George M. Smith 1955-1974 John S. Belew 1974-1979 William G. Toland 1979-1987 William F. Cooper 1987-1996 Wallace L. Daniel 1996-2005 Lee C. Nordt 2005-present

Pharmacy, the College of Dentistry and the School of Education.

Under this new alignment, the College of Fine Arts housed the disciplines of choral and instrumental music as well as public speaking and expression. The remaining disciplines that were not included within the fields of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy or education were placed in the College of Arts & Sciences. This arrangement lasted for two years until 1921 when Baylor trustees dissolved the College of Fine Arts and created the School of Music and Fine Arts, with courses in public speaking and expression transferred to the College of Arts & Sciences.

A DOZEN DEANS Samuel Riley Spencer, a physics professor, served as the first dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. The 11 deans that have followed him included Dr. William Sims Allen, who served as Baylor’s acting president for a year following the death of Dr. Samuel Palmer Brooks in 1931. Four Arts & Sciences deans have left that job at Baylor to accept the presidency of other universities, while three other deans went on to become the provost of Baylor or another university.

Dr. George M. Smith, who served as Arts & Sciences dean from 1955 to 1974, has the longest tenure with 19 years at dean. The current Arts & Sciences dean, Dr. Lee C. Nordt, is the second-longest-serving dean with 14 years leading the College.

ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHTS As Baylor’s largest academic unit with the most departments, the College of Arts & Sciences has been in the forefront of many academic milestones during its 100 years of formal operation. It granted Baylor’s first PhD degree — in chemistry — in 1954, and when the University awarded its first PhD degree to a woman the following year, that degree — in biology— also was in Arts & Sciences.

Two Arts & Sciences professors — Robert Reid in history and Ann Miller in English — were the first Baylor faculty members to be given the designation of Master Teachers by the University in September 1982. The majority of distinguished teaching awards presented at Baylor each year, including the Collins Outstanding Professor Award and the Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year Award, have been won by Arts & Science faculty. Students receiving degrees from the College of Arts & Sciences are the majority of Baylor recipients of prestigious international scholarships such as the Marshall, Truman and Fulbright.

The College of Arts & Sciences has produced a diverse and talented group of alumni over the past century that have excelled internationally in fields including religion and Christian ministry, law and social justice, healthcare, business, education, arts and entertainment, politics and scientific discovery. Baylor Arts & Sciences graduates include two Texas governors — Price Daniel and Ann Richards — and three Baylor presidents — Judge Abner McCall, Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds and Dr. Robert B. Sloan Jr. 

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES One Bear Place #97344 Waco, Texas 76798-7344

GREEN & GOLD

Baylor Theatre’s 2019-2020 season includes a sixth show and will be divided into a gold series and a green series. The gold series denotes the production size and design complexity that audience members are used to seeing from Baylor Theatre. The green series productions will be minimalistic to train students to strengthen creativity and equip them for real-world skills to work in smaller professional theatres where they may take on other production 12 / BAYLOR ARTS & SCIENCES and promotional tasks as well as act.