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Continuity and Connections
The Line has evolved, but its central mission remains the same
By Todd Copeland, editor of the Baylor Line magazine
While putting the finishing touches on this issue of the Line, I was prompted to think about continuity—specifically, the way the magazine has played a consistent, reliable role in telling the story of Baylor. Because of that role, the Line has been a friendly, looked-for presence in the lives of the Baylor family for decades.
 Upon the occasion of the Line’s fiftieth anniversary, in 1996, my predecessor as editor, Paula Price Tanner, compiled a retrospective of the magazine’s first five decades. She organized it into eight categories, filling nineteen pages with excerpts from a wide sample of stories from across the years.
Tanner applied a short descriptive phrase to each of the story categories, indicating the type of function such stories serve: “Brought News of Change,” “Introduced New People,” “Recalled Our Student Days,” “Addressed Controversies,” “Proclaimed Good News,” “Recalled Our Heritage,” “Challenged Us,” and “Let Us Speak.”
Fourteen years later, those categories still apply to the stories and content of the Line, as well as the Baylor Alumni Association’s array of online communications. The magazine has remained unswervingly dedicated to providing a breadth and depth of coverage of our alma mater.
Part of the Line’s mission statement reads, “Since its inception in 1946 as the magazine of the alumni association, the Line has been steadfast in its mission to examine, from a wide range of perspectives, Baylor’s history, culture, institutional practices, aspirations, and identity as a private, Baptist university and to enable alumni to maintain their emotional, intellectual, and social bonds with the university and each other.”
As a result of remaining true to its principles and consistent in its performance, the Line has established a continuity of valuable service and has been a central link between thousands of alumni and Baylor.
In this issue, we certainly introduce new people. That is, one new person in particular—Baylor’s president-elect Ken Starr. As was the case with former presidents W. R. White, Abner McCall, Herbert H. Reynolds, Robert Sloan, and John Lilley, the Line is proud to provide alumni with an introduction to the man who will lead our great university. His image is on the cover of this issue, and inside you can read a news story on his selection (“Hail to the Chief”) and absorb the commentary of those who participated in Starr’s presentation to campus as part of a feature story on Baylor’s fourteenth president (“Judge Starr Takes Center Stage”).
I won’t go through Tanner’s categories one by one, but I will note that our “Look Back” department, which in this issue shines a spotlight on the old bowling lanes in the Bill Daniel Student Center (“Cave Dwellers"), has been sharing fascinating parts of our Baylor heritage and recalling our student days for years.
Additionally, in this issue we are certainly proclaiming good news, including the opening of the Waco Mammoth Site, a business professor winning a lifetime achievement award, a basketball coach being inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and the BAA’s Ring Ceremony.
Of course, the Line’s editorial independence as the publication of a self-governed alumni association affords it the freedom necessary to persuasively challenge alumni and to responsibly address controversies, when such roles become necessary to play. And the BAA is careful to perform such services in a judicious manner.
As part of its stewardship of this trust placed in the BAA by alumni to be a positive yet honest communicator, the BAA last fall commissioned an independent audit of the magazine to assess the Line’s performance. The object was to determine the level of what could be perceived as the magazine’s negative or critical content.
Without going into the results at length, since they are covered by a news story in our “BAA News” department (“Line Self Study”), I will simply say that I’m proud the independent consultant found that “the content of the Baylor Line is overwhelmingly supportive of Baylor University.”
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