Presidential Perspective - October 20, 2022
Baylor Students, Faculty, Staff and Parents:
We ushered in cooler temperatures earlier this week, just in time for our 113th anniversary of Homecoming on the Baylor campus. But you know how Texas weather is – high temperatures will be back in the upper 80s over the weekend, so plan accordingly!
Baylor is home to the oldest collegiate Homecoming celebration. At our first Homecoming in 1909, the Baylor Family gathered at a worship service, and we were blessed to carry on that tradition Monday with worship and prayer led by Vertical Ministries in Powell Chapel at Truett Seminary.
Another of my favorite Homecoming traditions is inviting all 20,000 Baylor students to our front lawn at Allbritton House for Dinner with the Livingstones! Students, thank you for sharing a meal with the First Gent and me, courtesy of Waco’s favorite food trucks. We love getting to know our students. It’s such a blessing to be together in community as Baylor Bears and – in the spirit of Homecoming – as members of that Good Old Baylor Line.
Much more is ahead for this special week in the life of Baylor, with tonight’s first of four Pigskin Revue performances, as well as Mass Meeting at the Ferrell Center. First-year students, you don’t want to miss Mass Meeting as we welcome you to Baylor Homecoming, retell the story of the Immortal Ten – and how that speaks to our responsibility to care for and value one another today – and present the Eternal Flame. As alumni return to their alma mater, Friday night is full of events, including the 50-year class reunion, dozens of department receptions, the Multicultural Affairs/Baylor Alumni Alliances reception, Singspiration, the Royal & Pure Homecoming Stroll-Off, Extravaganza, Bonfire and Pep Rally. You can find all the event details on the Baylor Homecoming website.
On Saturday, Brad and I will be up bright and early for the nation’s oldest and largest collegiate Homecoming Parade, which begins at 7 a.m. in Downtown Waco and arrives on campus around 7:30 a.m. Led by the Golden Wave Marching Band, the parade will feature more than 120 entries, including 15 floats, 14 balloons and so much more. If you are not able to be there in person, the parade will be broadcast live on KCEN-TV Ch. 6, thanks to the generous support of the Sadie Jo Black Family Foundation. It also will be livestreamed – you can find all the “Ways to Watch” here.
It's been a while since we had a home football game, so let’s fill up McLane Stadium with the Green and Gold and cheer on our Baylor Bears at 11 a.m. vs. the Kansas Jayhawks.
Some additional updates for the week:
- National Cybersecurity Awareness Month presents our community with an opportunity to brush up on the basics of staying safe online. Our BearAware website provides helpful guidance and features this year’s “celebrity fails” public awareness campaign you may have seen around campus. Faculty and staff were notified Monday about a brief training course in Ignite that is required to maintain our cybersecurity insurance policy. Let’s #BeCyberSmart and protect the University's vital information resources and our own personal data. Be sure to report any suspicious messages or online activity you encounter on campus to abuse@baylor.edu.
- A $2.5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation will bring together an interdisciplinary team of Baylor researchers with theologians to incorporate the methods and insights of the psychological sciences as they tackle the complex problems of human flourishing. The three-year project – led by principal investigator Devan Stahl, Ph.D., assistant professor of religion and a theological bioethicist, and Sarah Schnitker, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology – is called “Illuminating Theological Inquiry and Christian Ethics Through Training in Psychological Science” and will focus on theological questions relevant within psychological research, such as in the areas of suffering, virtue development and aesthetics.
- Baylor’s Board of Regents includes three Alumni-Elected Regents who are nominated and elected by our graduates. Nominations for Alumni-Elected Regent are open through Nov. 30 and may be made by any alumna/alumnus who submits a nomination supported by the signatures of at least 50 other Baylor graduates. In addition, nominations submitted by official advisory and advocacy boards and groups associated with the University will be accepted. The election will be conducted in May 2023.
- Calling all Baylor Alumni to join the expedition as we search for Bears in the Wild! Led by Chet Garner (J.D. ’06), host of the popular TV show “The Daytripper,” we are tracking Baylor Alumni nationwide to connect back to the University. But to do that, you have to know how to identify Baylor Bears in their natural habitats, as well as what to do when you’ve found one. Learn more at baylor.edu/alumni.
- Beginning Jan. 1, 2023, Baylor’s Institute for Oral History will become the new home of the Oral History Association, the principal membership organization for people committed to the value of oral history. An interdisciplinary research department within Baylor Libraries, the Institute for Oral History is a longtime leader in this field, recording and archiving oral histories for more than half a century and fostering oral history practice through its workshops and widely used oral history style guide. We welcome OHA to Baylor and congratulate our own Stephen Sloan, Ph.D., associate professor of history, who will serve as executive director of the national organization, and Steven Sielaff, who will serve as assistant director.
It’s a great week to be a Baylor Bear!
Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.
President
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
The First Gent and I may have been in a few selfies on Tuesday as we welcomed students to have “Dinner with the Livingstones” on the front lawn of Allbritton House. The weather was spectacular, the food trucks were serving up Waco’s favorites and the company of thousands of students was invigorating!