Transcript

Derek Smith:

Hello, and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week, we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education, research, and student life. I'm Derek Smith. And our guest today is Brian Raines. Dr. Raines, serves as professor of mathematics and associate dean for research and strategic planning in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences. He's also a member of Baylor's Board of Regents as a faculty Regent. As a research mathematician, Dr. Raines travels extensively to work with collaborators in the UK, Italy, Croatia, New Zealand, and he's published articles and research journals as Advances In Mathematics and Algebraic and Geometric Topology. He joined the Baylor faculty in 2002. Dr. Raines, thanks so much for joining. It's great to have you on the program today.

Brian Raines:

Thank you. I'm really, really honored to be here.

Derek Smith:

Well, as we described there, you wear many different hats and we're going to dive into those individually. But I'm curious first broadly, what is it that you enjoy most about serving students? Not just students, but your fellow faculty in these roles? What sort of drives all of that?

Brian Raines:

Well I can tell you, I derive so much pleasure from working with students. I was a low income first generation student when I started college back in the nineties. And some of my professors really gave so much of their time to me. And I really transformed through the process of getting a college degree, going to college, getting an education. I had a few professors. I majored in both English and mathematics. I started as an English major actually thinking I would go on maybe to law school or something like that. But when I got into my mathematics classes, I took calculus sort as a challenge course for me. Absolutely loved did. Took the same professor for calculus too. I didn't go to Baylor, I went to a different college. But my math professor from that freshman year course, and my English professor stayed with me my whole time in college. And they worked with me, they talked to me, they mentored me. And as a result, my life and my children's life is completely different than it would've been. And I think about that all the time. I think about those people and how much of an impact they've had on me and on my family now, as a result of that. And I want to be that person as much as I can for my students. I really love teaching freshmen in the fall. I'm not doing it this fall unfortunately, I'm working primarily with graduate students this fall. But I love being that first guy, that freshmen who come to campus get to have for a class. And I try to get to know my students, work closely with them. And it gives me so much joy to be able to do that. You also asked about serving faculty. So I have for the last several years served as sort of a representative both on faculty senate, as an associate dean, now on the Board of Regents. And that's another thing I really, I really value highly. The faculty role is such a unique role in American culture. Worldwide, it's a unique role. Places of higher education are very, very special. I really see my role as both representing faculty as well as I can, but also helping the university to flourish. I really want the university to do well, because of what we provide. I mean, it all goes back to what we provide to students. So the stronger the university is, the more we can help students. That's kind of the way I view the whole picture there.

Derek Smith:

What drew you to Baylor in 2002?

Brian Raines:

That's a good question. So I was in grad school and I did grad school overseas. I went to Oxford and while I was in grad school, I went to a national meeting of mathematicians called the American Mathematical Society Joint Meetings. And it's held every year in January. So I went to this big meeting. And back in those days, your main way of applying for jobs would be go to these meetings, and all the schools hiring would have a little folder, and you could put your resume in a folder. And I wasn't even planning on applying for a job that year. I was thinking I'd stay at Oxford for a little bit longer, but I saw Baylor was hiring. I grew up in Houston, so I knew Baylor. And I thought, well, what the heck? I typed up a resume real fast, dropped it in the folder. And they called me and met with then chair of the department, a wonderful man named Ed Oxford. I really liked what I heard. And they invited me to come to Waco for an interview. And he said, before you come, I want you to read the university's mission statement, their document on their strategic plan, which was called Baylor 2012. This was in the year 2002, or no, it was 2001. I was hired in '02, but I was interviewed in '01. And I read this document, and I thought, this is incredible. I really would love to be part of this. So I came to interview and a long story short, they made me an offer. I came as a green assistant professor and worked my way through the various ranks. But I was part of that big cohort that was hired in '01 and '02 to move the university forward as a research institution. Now, we've been very deliberate all of my time at Baylor, in hiring both very high powered research people, but those who really want to serve students. So those that are also very student focused. So I think in my group, and in groups since then of hiring, we're really committed to our research. We want to move Baylor in the direction of being a research university, but we keep students in mind as well.

Derek Smith:

Well, Dr. Raines as a research mathematician yourself and someone who works with faculty, who do research, Baylor growing in this area. And I've seen the metrics, they look fantastic, maybe on pace to reach R1 recognition by 2024. And sometimes those numbers can... If people focus on them, how can we kind of dial back and see how research does impact students in the classroom in some of those ways that are additive to that teaching experience?

Brian Raines:

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So in one of my hats, when I first became an associate dean, Dean Lee Nordt, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences asked me to work on enhancing our undergraduate research program in the college. As long as I've been at Baylor, we have had active undergraduate research programs, but Lee Nordt wanted us to focus on it even more intently. So we have, and we've been enhancing it pretty steadily in that time. But your question really is how does research help undergrads? So the most obvious way in my mind is through undergraduate research. We bring students alongside us. Almost every year I've been at Baylor, I've had a couple of undergrads who, as they take courses from me, they get to know me. They'll ask me about my research. I'll explain to them what I work on. And they'll want to work on something similar. So I'll set up a small course first. So I'll set up a one semester special topics course, and they'll dive deep into a special topic of advanced mathematics. And then maybe the next semester, often they'll wind up meeting with me regularly to work on some open problems at mathematics. And occasionally they'll really get the bug for research mathematics and they'll go off and a PhD themselves. So it's taking a student from a little bit of curiosity about a field to digging in deep and seeing the front of the field, and then deciding maybe for a career in academics. Now, not all of them do that. I've had several students who decided, well, really, I want to go and do medical school, but that experience of understanding the forefront of research, will inform them for the rest of their career. Whether they go to law, medicine, business, whatever, having those extra skills, it's the kind of thing a lot of the research institutions have been doing a long time for students. And it's something we've also been doing a long time at Baylor, but it's just growing. So I think it's a huge enhancement to the students, not to mention the fact that when a student sits down to take a class, even if it's a freshman biology, freshman chemistry, freshman religion course, if they're taught by someone who is engaged with the front level research, the top tier research in their field, that's a completely different experience for the student and a really good experience. So, I think it enhances the undergrad education component significantly.

Derek Smith:

Visiting with Dr. Brian Raines here on Baylor Connection. You talk about being a research mathematician, typology, chaotic systems. I know these are in your wheelhouse. How would you describe to most of us who aren't in the math discipline, what it is that you do and the kind of questions you seek to answer.

Brian Raines:

Sure. And it's funny, whenever I get on an airplane, the easiest way to end a conversation is to say, I'm a mathematician.

Derek Smith:

That works right.

Brian Raines:

Pretty much don't have follow up questions after that. Or just say, I teach math that's enough. Most people don't have, well, I shouldn't say most many people don't have fond memories of their time studying math. So when you think about a field like calculus, which is where we kind of start our students in math, that was cutting edge in the late 16 hundreds. Mathematics has developed alongside the sciences steadily in the hundreds of years, since then. My area topology is one of the three areas of pure mathematics, modern pure mathematics. The questions that it asked are mathematical and there's many unsolved questions in my field and research mathematicians are working to address those questions. The basic idea of topology, it's an offshoot really of geometry. It's sort of imagine doing geometry, but on a rubber sheet. So triangles can be bent and deformed. And what about a triangle stays true when you bend it and deform it? That's kind of the most sort of elementary description of what typology is. It's a property of geometric structures that are preserved even if you're allowing defamation. So that's maybe a little technical, but the idea is I also work on chaotic systems. So chaotic systems are maybe even easier to describe. If you think about fluid flowing down a stream and little eddies forming, or air flowing over a wing and turbulent eddies forming behind that, or even things like the inter-relationships between foxes and hares in the Arctic. As the number of hares increases so do the number of foxes, but they eat all the hares. And the hares' population collapses, and so do the foxes. These systems all seem independent. And one viewpoint would just study them completely independently of each other. Mathematicians though, we come along and we say, "Look at what's common among all of these things." The mathematics behind them is common among all of them. So by studying the mathematics behind these different systems, these chaotic systems, we can come up with principles, theorems that hold true for all chaotic systems. And we can come to a deeper understanding of just how chaotic systems work. I use the toolbox from this rubber sheet geometry topology. That's my toolbox when I'm looking at questions related to chaotic systems. Some of the questions me and my postdocs, or my grad students, my collaborators have worked on, we'll work on for years, and then we'll make incremental progress over time.

Derek Smith:

This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Dr. Brian Raines, professor of mathematics, associate Dean for research and strategic planning in Baylor's college of arts and sciences at a faculty Regent on Baylor's Board of Regents. Let's talk now, Dr. Raines about some of these other roles that you've got. Associate Dean for research and strategic planning. Baylor's growing as a research institution. We're seeing a lot of exciting things taking place. Growth at faculty research facilities. What does your role entail in all that?

Brian Raines:

Sure. This is my third year in that role, and I've been very excited to have it. Deeply honored to be asked to do this role. So I got involved in 2017, maybe 2018 and when we started looking at what would it take to move Baylor from what we consider a pretty strong school into being a true R1 university. We looked at the metrics that Carnegie uses. We looked at where Baylor currently was and the kinds of changes that would need to happen. And so I worked with people, and institutional research, office of provost for research as well. And we came up with some strategies to get us there. And I'm really kind of at the lowest admin role, but even in my level, I can really see how these strategies are being implemented and their strategies along the way of really encouraging some of our faculty to pursue more external research funding from the national agencies and the foundations, the state, to support their research. And that's been very successful. Our faculty have been wildly successful in the last few years. But going alongside that, is also a hiring plan. How we hire the next generation, the new assistant professors, or the new distinguished professors. It's been really exciting to see it implemented. You mentioned also the facilities. The College of Arts and Sciences invest heavily in research facilities. You cannot do cutting edge scientific research without very expensive pieces of equipment. I mean were buying a new transmission electron microscope in our center for microscopy. That's a multimillion dollar instrument, but it's state of the art. It's a tier one instrument. And that's just one example of all the instrumentation that exists in the Baylor science building that comes with a heavy investment from the college, from the university. And there's a lot of ongoing money as well because of the necessary staffing. And when you have this instrumentation, you have to have dedicated staff people to maintain it and to run it and to keep it up in good shape for the researchers who need to come in and use it. And it also comes along with kind of mandatory fee as far as just keeping it under a service contract. So it's a heavy investment from the university. The university has invested heavily in moving us to R1. So it's exciting to me to see kind of all the disparate pieces of the strategy, everything from hiring to facilities to adding more support staff is all kind of coming together. And it looks like we'll be R1 in the next few years.

Derek Smith:

What factors have led to it in your mind, just from what you've been able to see coming together so well, and having that success, even amidst a pandemic and the headwinds like that.

Brian Raines:

Yeah, no. The first thing that has moved us is the commitment from our faculty. No question. The faculty have gotten behind this. They have dived in with both feet. The messaging from the leadership, from the president and the provost has been very clear on the direction we're going. And I think they've done an outstanding job on communicating it clearly and repeatedly. And as a result, the faculty have committed to it. The faculty have gone out and pursued far more external funding than they did say eight or nine years ago, and they've been successful. When you get that kind of success and that kind of clear messaging, then it makes the hiring a lot easier. You end up hiring people who want to come and be in that environment. And it's a snowball effect, but the one key thing really is the faculty.

Derek Smith:

Visiting with Dr. Brian Raines. And Dr. Raines, as we headed into the final few minutes of the program, I also want to ask you about another role in which you serve, and that is a faculty Regents on the Board of Regents. What does that role mean exactly? And how do you compliment the service of others on the board through that?

Brian Raines:

Sure. I'm pretty new to the board. I joined the board this summer. We have two faculty members who serve on the board. I serve along site Sarah Dolan, who is a professor her in the psychology department, and she's also an associate dean in the graduate school. So the two faculty Regents are full Regents. We have several Regents on the board who are called Regents Honors [inaudible]. So there's an Alumni Regent, B Foundation Region, I think. And then a couple faculty Regents and some student Regents as well, but we're full Regents. We get to vote on everything. We're present for all the meetings. And I'll tell you, it is a huge honor to be considered for that. There's a multi-step selection process to go through. And then to actually be selected to be the faculty Regent is incredible. It's an incredible honor for me. So when you join a board like the Board of Regents at Baylor, you do commit to acting as a fiduciary for the institution. Meaning when I'm acting as a board member, I take off my faculty hat. I take off my administrator hat like the other members of the board do as well. They take off their individual hats, maybe as alumni, or maybe as students. And we serve as Regents. So we're serving for the financial interests of the university, the long term interest of the university, serving the mission of the university. The board really takes the mission of the university very seriously, as well as the long term strength of the university. So even though I'm a faculty member, I'm not representing faculty as a faculty Regent, that wouldn't be appropriate. I am serving as a Regent with my experience as a faculty member, informing my service as a Regent. So that might sound like I'm splitting hats, but I'm really not. So ...

Derek Smith:

No it makes sense.

Brian Raines:

... when I talk to faculty about this, I make it very clear, I'm not your representative, I just happen to be a faculty member who is a Regent.

Derek Smith:

That's a great way to think about it, for sure. And you mentioned the commitment to the mission, what else has stood out to you about serving on the board and are there aspects of that that impact the way you're able to lead in other areas?

Brian Raines:

Yeah, I think so. I think seeing how the board operates, which like I mentioned earlier, I'm relatively new to the board. But it helps me appreciate the difficult job that our leaders have. The board is so interested in students, which is appropriate, which is in my mind actually really fantastic. They're really interested in students. They're really interested in faculty. And so when you have people on the board who maybe are judges at a very high level, CEOs, presidents of banks, they're coming with a very different perspective than my perspective. But what's exciting to me is I see that the thing that we're all really interested in really is the same. We come together and we meet as a board. There's no question that the motivating key thing for all of us is what can we do to help the students? What can we do to help the university help the students?

Derek Smith:

That's great. Well, Dr. Raines, we are about out of time here on the program, but as we wind down, I wanted to ask you, we're almost to 2022. Now, looking ahead, you've been able to see this research growth and the growth at Baylor in a number of different ways since you got here in 2002. What are you most excited about as we head into a new year? Are there aspects of 2022 that you're most excited to see here on campus, whether in research and the classroom, students or all of the above?

Brian Raines:

I'm really excited because we are embarking on the next five years of alumni next year, I think will be the first year of that. And that comes along with it, a plan for pretty significant growth in the faculty. I don't know if you've seen the press release, but we're planning on hiring another hundred new faculty. That's pretty substantial growth.

Derek Smith:

It is.

Brian Raines:

And we're really hoping in the College of Arts and Sciences to not only... We're behind right now. So we need to close the gap and get back to where we were pre pandemic, and then we need to build out some of our departments more substantially. So that's exciting.

Derek Smith:

No, it is. It's going to be a big deal for the university.

Brian Raines:

It is.

Derek Smith:

Excited to see that come together. Well, Dr. Raines, I appreciate you taking the time to visit with us and share today about these different roles. And I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for coming on the program today.

Brian Raines:

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Derek Smith:

Good. Dr. Brian Raines, professor of mathematics, associate dean for research and strategic planning in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences, and faculty Regent on Baylor's board of Regents, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder, you can hear this and other programs online, baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.