Baylor University
Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas and affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baylor University is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state. Baylor's 735-acre main campus is located on the banks of the Brazos River in Waco.At the undergraduate level, students may choose from among 164 baccalaureate programs through the College of Arts and Sciences, Honors College, Hankamer School of Business, Louise Herrington School of Nursing and the Schools of Education, Engineering and Computer Science, and Music. At the graduate and professional levels, Baylor houses the Graduate School, Law School and George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Baylor offers 72 master's degree programs and 19 doctoral degree programs.
Baylor consistently attracts high-quality students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries. It ranks among the nation's top 1 percent in the number of freshman National Merit Scholars enrolled and is one of nine Texas colleges or universities and one of only 261 institutions in the country with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.
Baylor is a nationally acclaimed teaching institution and an emerging research community where the dissemination and discovery of knowledge are important. Many graduate professors are widely recognized in their specialized fields. While they have made their marks in research and scholarly or creative contributions, their commitment to teaching sets them apart from many other colleagues in graduate institutions throughout the nation.
Graduate students at Baylor experience the benefits of a major university large enough to offer superior academic programs and the opportunities inherent in a close-knit community. The University is committed to research and scholarship in a setting of collegiality and mutual exchange and to maintaining its nationally recognized record of competency in all professional programs.
Graduate classes at Baylor typically are small enough to allow the interaction between professor and student through discussion, testing of ideas and rigorous examination of research methodologies. Graduate students develop mentor relationships with graduate advisers as they conduct their research. The Baylor graduate experience is typified by this community experience of shared academic and research advances.
Facilities
Housed in the modern Baylor University Sciences Building, we are well equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation to support the research efforts of faculty and students. Recognizing that the science of the 21st century will be more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, the $103 million facility will equip students as leaders in solving future scientific challenges. The building reflects four themes that include fostering multidisciplinary science, encouraging an interactive science community, creating a culture of discovery and ensuring future flexibility.
The Sciences Building houses the life sciences (biology and neuroscience); the physical sciences (physics, chemistry and geology); and five multidisciplinary research/education centers on prehealth education, molecular biosciences, drug discovery, reservoir and water studies, and scientific analysis and computing. It includes 90 research laboratories, faculty offices, a 300-seat auditorium and a variety of classrooms. At the center of the facility is a four-story atrium with tables, couches and chairs that create an interactive science community and serve as a central gathering place for students and faculty.
Baylor takes a leading role in the use of technology in the educational environment and provides state-of-the-art computers and software for both research and instruction. Several UNIX and VMS computer systems are available to support research projects. Additionally, the University has approximately 4,500 computers with more than 350 located in five general access computer labs. A computer lab in the Marrs McLean Science Building is available for use by students within the department. All computers on campus are linked through a high-speed ethernet backbone, which is connected to the Internet. Specialized software such as Mathematica is available for student use.
The Department of Physics has a 2 MV Van de Graaff accelerator and laboratory for studies in atomic and molecular physics. This laboratory has more than $500,000 in capital equipment including a complete liquid nitrogen generating facility and three large magnet systems. For space physics research, students have access to several micron-size dust particle hyper-velocity accelerators, including light gas-gun, mass driver and plasma accelerators, which may be used independently or in tandem. The laboratory also contains equipment for insolation and meteorology studies, with the value of the facility and capital equipment exceeding $300,000.
The biological sciences program offers office space and access to computers to each graduate student. Special facilities include greenhouses, animal facilities, scanning and transmission electron microscopes, growth chambers, a complete mosquito research facility, an herbarium and instrumentation. Vehicles and boats are available for field research. Additional facilities include extensive library holdings, computer facilities, analytical instrumentation in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Environmental Studies and the Mayborn Museum Complex. Situated at the interface between the Eastern hardwoods ecotone and the Western prairies, the Central Texas area provides a particularly rich assortment of habitats for field studies.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry provides research laboratories, offices and auxiliary services such as electronics and machine shops and the chemistry/physics library. The library subscribes to all major chemical publications representing more than 300 current subscriptions. Online computer-assisted literature searching is readily available. The presence of a full complement of instrumentation enables each graduate research student to acquire hands-on experience with the most modern research equipment available.
The central libraries, special libraries and resource centers of Baylor house more than 2.1 million bound volumes, more than 1.9 million microforms and government document pieces, electronic resources, and thousands of audiovisual items, maps, charts and photographs. The central libraries include Moody Memorial Library and Jesse H. Jones Library and the special libraries include Armstrong Browning Library, The Texas Collection, Baylor Collections of Political Materials and the M.C. and Mattie Caston Law Library. Resource centers include the J.M. Dawson Church-State Research Center, the Learning Resource Center in the School of Education and the Learning Resource Center at the Louise Herrington School of Nursing in Dallas. Looking at the design and synthesis of small molecules which have the potential to serve as a useful cofactor for a DNA enzyme.
Baylor University Website
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Animal facilities Animal surgery suite and equipment Cold box Computer-controlled animal experimental environments Computer-controlled evoked potential equipment Electron beam gun system Electronic counting systems Electron microscopes Electrophoresis power supplies and beds EPR spectrometer Extensive library holdings Fluorescence spectrophotometer Gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer Greenhouses Growth chambers Herbarium Linear and biased amplifiers Liquid chromatographs Liquid nitrogen-generating facility Mettler microbalances Modern computer facilities Mosquito research facility Multichannel pulse-height analyzers NMR spectrometers |
Physiographic recording and biofeedback equipment Preamplifiers Preparative centrifuge Recording spectrophotometers Refrigerated centrifuge Residual gas analyzer Several vacuum and pressure-measuring instruments Scanning/transmission electron microscopes Scintillation counters Spectrophotometers Spherical-sector Auger electron spectrometer Three magnetic spectrometer systems with power Turbomolecular high-vacuum pump Two 18-inch-diameter scattering chambers Two, two million volt Van de Graaff accelerators Two vacuum bell jar systems with vacuum pumps Ultracentrifuge Various fume and radioactive hoods Various tissue preparation equipment (homogenizers, etc.) Vehicles and boats (for field research) X-ray diffraction equipment Zeiss research photomicroscope |
