The  National Weather Service has issued a Tornado WATCH for Central Texas, including Waco and McLennan County, Texas, effective until 9 p.m. CDT tonight (Thursday, May 9, 2024). A Tornado WATCH means that tornadoes – along with damaging winds and hail – are possible in and near the watch area.

Congratulations to the more than 3,500 students who have earned a Baylor degree this spring – including the more than 3,300 who will walk across the Ferrell Center stage as part of Commencement ceremonies this Friday and Saturday. 

When Stephanie Mendoza (BBA ’21) was in high school at Waco’s University High, she had no idea where she wanted to go to college, or what she wanted to do when she got there.

The first question seemed solved after she attended a two-week overnight camp at Baylor — but unfortunately, her family couldn’t make the finances work, and she headed to McLennan Community College instead. There, she discovered her way into Baylor: a full-ride transfer scholarship from the Waco Foundation, given to three top MCC students each year.

Every spring, the Baylor Family bids happy retirement to professors and staff who have dedicated their professional lives to the university and its students. It’s always a bittersweet mix — sadness in seeing them go, happiness for a well-deserved next step — but we wish them all well in the next phase of their lives.

Here, we honor some of the longest-serving and most recognizable professors who are retiring this year — men and women whose faces will be missed, but whose impact will not be forgotten:

Yesterday’s news about Harrington House‘s time coming to an end got us thinking back on the home’s history, as it has a long and winding connection with Baylor (dating back even before it came to be Baylor property).

The two-story Victorian home has stood since 1894 on Eighth Street, just across from where Collins Residence Hall stands today.

Baylor University students continue to earn highly competitive major fellowships and awards during a record-setting year in which they have earned the Fulbright, Goldwater, Critical Language and Churchill scholarships. Now students can add a Boren Scholarship, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF GRF) and the GEM Fellowship to the list.

Baylor University faculty members Julie Hoggarth, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology, and Jeffrey C. Petersen, Ph.D., professor of sport management, have been selected to receive the 2024 Centennial Professor Awards for summer research projects on the impact of drought on the Mayan collapse and the expansion of administrative staff within collegiate sports, respectively. 

Today is the National Day of Prayer, an annual day of observance designated by the U.S. Congress in which people are asked to “turn to God in prayer and meditation.”