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Welcoming Judge Starr On March 3, Baylor Alumni Association executive vice president and CEO Jeff Kilgore ’90, MSEd ’92, and BAA president Emily George Tinsley ’61 sent the following letter to Baylor president-elect Ken Starr, who will take office on June 1.
On behalf of the Baylor Alumni Association, we congratulate you and the Baylor Board of Regents on your unanimous selection to serve as the next president of Baylor University.
  Your honor is well earned. Not only is it a further validation of past years of achievements in your professional career, your national service to our country, your extraordinary academic leadership at Pepperdine, and your commitment to your Christian faith, but it is also an affirmation of the high regard that is held for you by your professional and personal associates. We are likewise honored and welcome you in anticipation of your future contributions to Baylor University and to our country.
The unique ethos of Texas Baptists founded Baylor, the oldest university in the state, and it has remained Baylor’s lifeblood for 165 formative years. That inimitable spirit has embraced and nurtured hundreds of thousands of students from many religious backgrounds who, in turn, have brought honor to Baylor through lives of accomplishment in their professions and service in their communities and churches. Together we constitute The Baylor Line – an unbroken chain of alumni well known for our love and devotion to our alma mater.
As a self-governed organization created in 1859 to represent and enhance the interests of alumni in support of Baylor, the Baylor Alumni Association steadfastly continues to be at the heart of Baylor, fostering strong relationships among alumni, with the university, and with Baylor’s presidents. History testifies to numerous benefits to the university from this partnership with a loyal, committed, and voluntary body of alumni whose autonomy is in the finest historic tradition of Baptists and of academic freedom.
More than half of alumni donors to the university are members of the Baylor Alumni Association. Alumni relationships augment generations of students, goodwill in Texas Baptist churches and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and foundation funding connections. We look forward to going to work with you to enlarge this traditional Baylor partnership to its greatest potential.
We commend the principles of servant leadership, transparency, shared governance, and collaborative, consensus-building leadership that you declared upon your introduction as Baylor’s next president, and we hereby pledge to join you in celebrating and demonstrating those principles.
Few have been given the opportunity that is now yours, to lead Baylor University to the prominent academic significance for which the past was preparation, to ensure that Baylor’s foundational ideals are preserved for generations to come, and to hold that all truth is open to inquiry. For that vision to become reality, it is imperative that Baylor have a president around whom all branches of the Baylor family can unite with mutual respect and shared purpose, the unique strength of Baylor’s proud heritage.
We hope that you will enjoy a long, happy, and successful tenure as president. We look forward to introducing you to our members and working with you as you reach out to Baylor constituents, the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
Be assured that Baylor alumni are praying for God’s wisdom and blessing on you and your family as you lead the school that all of us love.
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