Wood Named Baylor's First University Professor

April 29, 1998

by Larry D. Brumley

Dr. Ralph C. Wood, currently distinguished professor of religion at Samford University, will become Baylor's first University Professor this fall. A literary and theological scholar, Wood earned his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago and taught for 27 years at Wake Forest University before leaving for Samford last year. He serves as editor-at-large for The Christian Century and has published more than 130 reviews, articles, chapters and books including The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists.
University Professors teach classes across disciplinary boundaries rather than being based in particular departments, and they report directly to the university provost. Wood will teach two classes during the fall 1998 semester, a graduate seminar in the Department of Religion titled "Karl Barth and Flannery O'Connor" and a senior-level class in the Department of English titled "Christian Literary Classics" that will cover writers ranging from St. Augustine to Gerard Manley Hopkins. Both blend the disciplines of religion and literature. In the future, he also will teach classes in Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary.