Ten Baylor University Faculty Members Selected for 2017-18 Baylor Fellows

Ten faculty members have been selected to serve as 2017-18 Baylor Fellows because of their excellence in teaching and desire to transform student thinking through innovation.

Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL) sponsors the fellowship program, which began in the fall of 2011. Selected faculty members receive a stipend of $1,845 in honor of Baylor’s founding and the title of “Baylor Fellow.”

Complementing ongoing initiatives at Baylor University, this year’s fellowship theme is forming Christian character in the classroom. Baylor Fellows have the freedom to choose their method for implementing the theme in their teaching. Each Baylor Fellow identifies one course to serve as their “incubator” or “lab” classroom. They then develop activities and assignments intended to address the fellowship theme. In accord with the best practices of evidence-based scholarship, the Fellows also develop means for assessing their projects.

The primary aim of the Baylor Fellows program is to recognize outstanding teachers across the disciplines and give them the opportunity to implement new teaching approaches to deepen student engagement with ideas and provide the transformational education that is Baylor’s first aspiration in its strategic vision.

A secondary program aim is to provide a forum in which Baylor Fellows can share their e orts, collaborate, hold one another accountable and forge interdisciplinary networks. Discussions are held monthly. All full-time faculty members, regardless of rank, are eligible to serve as Baylor Fellows.

The 2017-18 Baylor Fellows are:

Brooke Blevins, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, School of Education

Todd Buras, associate professor of philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences

Jacquelyn Duke, senior lecturer of biology, College of Arts and Sciences

Bridget Fuselier, professor of law, School of Law

Emily Hunter, associate professor of management, Hankamer School of Business

Elissa Madden, assistant professor, Diana R. Garland School of Social Work

Horace Maxile, assistant professor of academic studies, School of Music

Rebecca Meraz, clinical assistant professor, Louise Herrington School of Nursing

Andrew Meyer, assistant professor of health, human performance, and recreation, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences

Scott Moore, associate professor of Great Texts, Honors College

Baylor Film and Digital Media Faculty Win Audience Award at Festival

The lm “Blur Circle,” a collaborative e ort between two Baylor University professors, won the Audience Award for Best Feature Drama at the 2017 Woods Hole Film Festival in Woods Hole, Mass.

“Blur Circle” director Chris Hansen and writer/ producer Brian Elliott are both faculty members in Baylor’s department of film and digital media. Hansen is a professor and chair of the department; Elliott is a senior lecturer.

Several of their students served as members of the film’s production crew, rotating through different jobs and receiving advice from experienced professionals.

“There’s no way to really know if you want to work in the world of film production until you’ve actually done it. So, I think the students experiencing the creative energy and collaborative camaraderie that can occur on a lm set, while also enduring what inevitably end up being very long hours during very hot days over many weeks, gives them a window into what that life is like,” Elliott said.

“Blur Circle” tells the story of Jill Temple, a single mother who continues to search for her missing son two years after his disappearance. She relentlessly pursues every lead until meeting a man with a mysterious past who causes her to look at her life from a different perspective.

Baylor Establishes Center for Christian Philosophy

Baylor University’s department of philosophy and Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) recently announced the establishment of the Baylor Center for Christian Philosophy (BCCP).

The BCCP, composed of philosophy department faculty with a specialization in philosophy of religion and core members of related disciplines, will be housed officially in ISR. Many years in the making, the Baylor Center for Christian Philosophy is a joint e ort by the philosophy department, ISR and the Templeton Religion Trust.

The BCCP opening comes in conjunction with the announcement of a new relationship with the Templeton Religion Trust and the addition of two new core faculty members in philosophy of religion. Joining the department are Dr. Timothy O’Connor, distinguished professor and associate director, and Dr. Thomas M. Ward, assistant professor, both greatly respected by the philosophical community with strong research programs in Christian Philosophy. Dr. C. Stephen Evans, professor of philosophy and humanities at Baylor, will serve as the Center’s director.

The BCCP joins the eld of similar centers at the University of Notre Dame, Rutgers University and Biola University.

“Based on the stellar, cross-disciplinary faculty involved and their high research output, I am con dent the Baylor Center for Christian Philosophy will quickly become recognized as a national leader for producing important, thoughtful and relevant research informed by Baylor’s unique mission as a high-output research university with a distinctively Christian character,” said Dr. Rodney Stark, distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor and ISR co-director.

For more information about BCCP or upcoming events, email Trent_Dougherty@baylor.edu or visit bccp.baylorisr.org/.

Baylor Joins Award-winning KPMG Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics

In August 2017, Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business announced it is joining the KPMG Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics Program, a one-of-a-kind initiative that audit, tax and advisory rm KPMG LLP developed to prepare accounting students for the digital marketplace.

“This curriculum partnership with KPMG will help our students develop the skills needed to thrive as the accounting and tax professions change. By working with KPMG, we’ll be able to provide our students with real-world problems and scenarios so that they’re equipped from their very first day of work to make a significant contribution to their employers and to the profession,” said Terry S. Maness, DBA, dean of Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business.

Baylor’s inclusion is part of an expansion of the program that increases the number of participating schools from two to nine, and includes a tax component at one of the new schools in the program.

In August 2016, KPMG disrupted the education and recruiting experience for the audit profession by collaborating with the Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business and the Villanova School of Business to launch the KPMG Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics Program. Fifty- one students accepted to the program’s inaugural class will begin their studies at those two schools in the fall of 2017.

The program’s expansion to Baylor will focus on incorporating KPMG technology and proprietary audit tools into the school’s Master of Accounting curriculum, allowing KPMG to further broaden the scope of student education through technology investments.

Other schools joining the program include:

• Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business
• The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business
• The University of Mississippi’s Patterson School of Accountancy
• The University of Missouri’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business
• The University of Southern California, Leventhal School of Accounting
• Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business