Baylor Presidential Inaugural Ceremony Set for Sept. 15

WACO, Texas -- The inaugural ceremony for Baylor University President Robert B. Sloan Jr. will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, in Waco Hall on the Baylor campus.
Sloan, 46, became the 12th president of the 150-year-old institution on June 1, succeeding Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds, who became chancellor.
The inaugural ceremony, which is free and open to the public, will begin with a processional by Dr. Joyce Jones, professor of organ, The Joyce O. Bowden Professor of Music and Organist-in-Residence at Baylor.
Her music will serve as a backdrop inside Waco Hall for the Inaugural Procession. The procession will be led by Mary Kemendo Sendon, an associate member of the Baylor Retired Professors Center, who will serve as bearer of the official University mace. The mace is carried in formal processions by a distinguished emeritus professor to symbolize Baylor's debt to the faculty of the immediate past.
Others in the procession include Sloan and members of his presidential party, representatives of other academic institutions and learned societies, members of the Baylor faculty and Baylor regents.
The Baylor University Golden Wave Band will provide processional music outdoors from Burleson Quadrangle, where the procession will begin near Old Main, the first building constructed on the Waco campus.
The procession will continue past Pat Neff Hall, the traditional site of the office of the Baylor president. It will continue from Pat Neff Hall down Founders Mall, past the statue of Judge R.E.B. Baylor -- one of the founders and the University's namesake -- ending up in Waco Hall.
There, the Inaugural Procession will be greeted with a "Fanfare for Brass" performed by the Baylor Brass Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Richard Willis, the Mable & L.N. Yeager Distinguished Professor of Music and Composer-in-Residence at Baylor.
The invocation will be given by Dr. Phyllis S. Karns, dean of the Baylor School of Nursing, followed by greetings from J. Robert Sheehy Sr., mayor of Waco; J. Kent Newsom,
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president of the Baylor Alumni Association; Collin Cox, student body president; Kathleen Branstetter, Staff Council chair; and Dr. Donald D. Schmeltekopf, provost and vice president for academic affairs.
The inaugural address will be given by Robert L. Reid, Distinguished Professor of History and a University Master Teacher. Reid is a leading authority on Baylor history and serves as the unofficial guide for historic walking tours of Baylor.
Two choral anthems will be performed by 180 voices of Baylor's A Cappella and Concert Choirs. Dr. Donald L. Bailey, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Music, will conduct one of the anthems, and Wesley Gilliland, assistant professor of choral music and assistant dean of the Baylor School of Music, will conduct the other. The combined choirs also will perform the "Baylor Blessing," a tribute to Baylor composed and authored by Wacoans Kurt Kaiser and Katy Stokes.
Ann V. Miller, professor of English and a University Master Teacher, will bring remarks on "Remembrance of Things Past."
The investiture of Sloan to the office of president will feature the presentation of a specially designed presidential medallion to Sloan and a responsive reading of a litany commissioned to commemorate the inaugural event.
The prayer of investiture will be offered by Dr. William M. Pinson Jr., executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Following a scripture reading by Dr. Ruth Ann Foster, assistant professor of Christian Scriptures, Sloan will give an inaugural response.
The benediction will be offered by Dr. Scott Walker, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Waco.
Open seating for the ceremony will be available in Waco Hall, with overflow seating available with closed-circuit viewing, as needed.
Following the inaugural ceremony, a reception will be held in Burleson Quadrangle. In case of inclement weather, the reception will be moved to the Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center.
For more information about the inaugural ceremony, call (817) 755-3810.