Board Approves Degree Programs, Elects New Regent
HOUSTON -- Baylor University regents today approved two new degree programs and elected former regent Drayton McLane Jr. to fill an unexpired term on the board.
McLane, a 1958 Baylor graduate, owner of the Houston Astros and chairman of the McLane Group in Temple, fills the seat vacated by Harold R. Cunningham, who resigned the board to become vice president for finance and administration at the university. McLane rotated off the board last year after serving for nine years on the governing body.
Regents approved a new neonatal nurse practitioner track in the M.S. degree in nursing program at Baylor's School of Nursing in Dallas. The new program will provide advanced training for registered nurses in the care of sick newborns and their families.
Also approved by the board is a new B.S. degree in informatics with a major in bioinformatics. The degree, which concentrates on a new field of study that combines computer science with other fields in which there is a need to efficiently process large amounts of information, will be offered by Baylor's School of Engineering and Computer Science. Bioinformatics, which combines molecular biology and computer science, was created to deal with the explosion of data produced by the human genome project.
The board of regents, meeting in Houston for the first time, completed its three-day meeting today.