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Balancing Act
How
do administrators and faculty ensure that Baylor's Christian commitment
complements,rather than unsteadies, Baylor's pursuit of academic
excellence?
By Meg Cullar / Photographs by Rod Aydelotte
 Like
many college students, Darin Davis struggled with issues concerning the
meaning of life—life in general, and his life in particular. While he
had been raised as a Christian, he couldn't see any connection between
his faith and what his professors were teaching in the philosophy
classes he was taking at the University of Texas. He was grateful for
what he was learning, but he wasn't sure how it fit into his life.
"I left UT sensing that something essential was missing," he said.
Then he came to Baylor to pursue a master's in philosophy, graduating
in 1995. What students typically feel about their undergraduate
institution, Davis felt about his graduate university. "My time at
Baylor quite simply changed my life," he said.
Baylor's big advantage was a faith-based approach to learning, he said,
or at least an approach that acknowledged the role of faith. "The
essential difference was that teaching and learning were grounded in a
particular tradition—that faith commitments were not simply among the
various options that one could learn, but that the Christian faith
animated the intellectual work of the university," he said. "I learned
at Baylor that working intellectually from and through a faith
perspective requires one to reflect, articulate, and defend one's
views—not simply to assert them—and to be willing to bring one's views
into dialogue with those that might challenge them."
While some might suggest that taking a Christian approach to
intellectual ventures would create limits on inquiry, Davis found just
the opposite. "I found at Baylor a more authentic freedom than I had
experienced before," he said. "I discovered that the freedom I sensed
was an expression of Baylor's Christian identity, not in spite of it."
Years later, in 2006, Davis returned to Baylor with a PhD in philosophy
from St. Louis University, and now he is helping to support Baylor’s
efforts at integrating religious and intellectual pursuits as the
interim director of Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning (IFL).
The institute was founded in 1997 "in response to the widespread
assumption in the modern academy that the life of faith and the life of
the mind are antithetical," according to the institute’s website.
However, a degree of controversy surrounded the IFL at the time of its
creation. A segment of the faculty and alumni expressed concern that
the institute's programming represented an overly aggressive effort to
insert religion across the curricula. They viewed the advent of the
IFL, in combination with other administrative practices during the late
1990s and early 2000s, as threatening to tip Baylor's longstanding
balance of "Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana" (for church and state) toward a
manufactured piety. Why were such programs necessary, they wondered,
when Baylor had long been and continued to be an institution with
strong ties to the Baptist denomination and an undeniably Christian
environment on campus?
Today, while some concerns about the IFL's role on campus linger, the
institute has become a busy hub for activities promoting the
integration of faith and learning with the goal, Davis said, of
supporting the university’s mission: "to educate men and women for
worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and
Christian commitment within a caring community."
Baylor's major constituent groups, including the Baylor Alumni
Association, have supported the university's commitment to these dual
goals of faith and academics. The alumni association recently affirmed
this aspect of Baylor's mission when its board voted on five "core
values," one of which states: "We believe in Baylor University's
distinctive combination of academic excellence and Christian witness as
a Baptist institution."
While there is broad-based agreement about the compatibility of the
Christian faith and the academic life on campus, questions nevertheless
exist about the extent to which the two should be programmatically
integrated by the administration and lived out by the faculty both
inside and outside the classroom.
 Revolutionary Road
According to Baylor’s interim provost Dr. Elizabeth Davis (pictured at
left), there's really only one road that Baylor can take to accomplish
its goal of integrating faith and learning, and that’s a road where the
faculty members are doing the driving. "When you’re talking about the
academic pursuits of the creation and dissemination of knowledge—the
primary realm where faith and learning come together—things are
basically in the hands of the faculty," she said. "And that's where
they should be."
With that basic principle established, Davis agreed that a collegiate
sports metaphor might explain the university's priorities regarding
faculty, with the two essential elements being recruiting and coaching.
Recruiting includes the selection and tenure granting of faculty
members, while coaching encompasses all the university’s efforts and
programs to help those faculty members integrate faith and learning
both in the classroom and in their academic research.
Faculty recruitment, Davis said, is focused in the various departments
and schools that are seeking to hire for an open position, although all
prospective faculty members for a tenure-track position also interview
with the Office of the Provost. Davis does not conduct all of those
interviews, she said, as many are handled by vice provosts, including
Dr. James Bennighof, vice provost for academic affairs and policy, and
Dr. Naymond Keathley, senior vice provost.
"Department attention to faculty recruitment is incredibly important,"
Davis said, "and this applies as well to mentoring and evaluation early
in a new faculty member's time at Baylor. For this reason, it is
crucial that the members of the department become familiar with their
new colleagues' work. And the importance of these processes is all the
more evident when one considers that the new faculty are destined
themselves to recruit, mentor, and evaluate additional colleagues in
the future."
Candidates for faculty positions at Baylor are asked to make a comment
about their faith journey at their initial application, Davis said, but
the answers vary widely, and there is no litmus test for what is an
acceptable response.
"As Baptists, we may be accustomed to the language of Zion—making a
profession of faith, being convicted of my sins," said senior vice
provost Keathley. "But someone from a Catholic tradition may not use
terms such as these. Candidates may say they were raised in a church
and confirmed, or they may say religion was a very important part of
their family life."
Responses by prospective faculty members about their faith journey have
ranged from a listing of church membership to a lengthy history of how
that person became a Christian to a statement of how their faith
influences their academic discipline, Keathley said. A wide range of
perspectives can fall into the arena of what is acceptable, according
to Baylor officials.
Baylor hires both Protestants and Catholics, as well as those of the
Jewish faith, according to the provost's office. Causes for real
hesitation, the provost said, would be a complete lack of involvement
in a local congregation, an inability to articulate a faith commitment,
or an inability to articulate how Baylor's Christian mission differs
from that of a secular university.
"We realize that not everyone is going to be able to articulate a keen
understanding of faith and learning, and I think we are still evolving
in our understanding of integrating faith and learning," Davis said.
"Some of the red flags would be either never being part of a
congregation or not being part of a congregation for the last several
years, so that it's evident they really have no intent to be a part of
a Christian community."
Davis said that most of the time, that is not an issue for the
provost's office because the departments do not typically ask to invite
a candidate to campus if they don’t believe he or she would be a good
"fit" for Baylor in terms of religious commitment. The Office of the
Provost sponsors seminars at the beginning of every hiring season to
reiterate its position on an active faith commitment and to answer
questions faculty have about potential candidates. Any department
approved for a faculty hire must have a representative at the
seminar—usually the department chair and/or the chair of the search
committee will attend.
Davis, who had been a vice provost for financial and academic
administration since 2004 before her appointment as interim provost
last July, said, "When you think of all the separate search committees
and the numerous people who are reviewing files and inviting people to
campus and the fact that very rarely is a candidate coming in who
really isn't a fit, you've got to think that we all are on the same
page—or at least in the same chapter."
As an example, the Hankamer School of Business has guidelines that are
similar to those articulated by the provost's office. Business dean Dr.
Terry Maness said, "Given the nature of the institution that we are, we
hire faculty for whom faith is going to be an important part of their
lives. We don't ask people to wear it on their sleeve or anything, and
we don't have a litmus test, but faith is something we talk about."
And that's nothing new, Maness noted. "A faculty member's faith
commitment has been a part of the hiring process in the business school
since I was hired thirty-one years ago."
Maness said the university doesn't provide written guidelines saying
that prospective faculty members must belong to a church, but if they
don't, "We'll talk about it." And as faculty members go through the
tenure process, he said, faith remains a point of discussion. "It's not
anything we grill somebody over," he said. "It's just part of the
conversation. We really do want people for whom church is an important
part of their lives and fellowship is part of their faith."
Vice provost Bennighof said that each department and school has the
freedom to talk to faculty candidates in a way they think is
appropriate. "Typically, they ask about their Christian faith as it
relates to the mission of Baylor University," he said. "I think the
reason it is important for someone to be part of a congregation is that
we believe it will translate into being a part of the Baylor community,
in the sense that they're able to converse about these things—not that
someone has to be the same as everybody else."
In the hiring process, the faith commitment of a prospective faculty
member is considered along with the records of both teaching and
scholarly research exhibited by the candidate, Bennighof said. The
total lack of evidence of a faith commitment would jeopardize a
candidate's chances, but the same is true of the prospect whose
research is lacking or whose teaching style is lackluster.
"We're serious in an interview about talking about all three of these
things, and the departments are serious about them also," Bennighof
said. "The research is probably the easiest to evaluate from a
distance, and the departments have the expertise to do that." But there
have certainly been faculty prospects who have come to campus for an
interview, given a class presentation, and then been passed over
because of their teaching performance, he noted.
Everyday Ethics
Once faculty members are on campus, Baylor's approach to coaching is
one of encouragement and opportunity. As business dean Maness put it,
it's more about the carrot than the stick. "We're not mandating; we're
not pushing," he said. "We're simply coaching and trying to get people
to talk and think about how to integrate faith and academics."
While encouragement, not requirement, is the watchword, Baylor's
approach in recent years has certainly been organized and intentional,
as evidenced through several new initiatives and programs. While Baylor
has focused some efforts on facilitating faculty research that
intersects with faith issues, officials say that their primary concern
is that a faculty member be able to guide students into thinking of
their profession as a vocation—a calling—rather than just as a job.
The sixth imperative of Baylor 2012—the university’s ten-year vision
adopted by regents in 2001—also addresses that issue: "Guide all Baylor
students through academic and student life programming to understand
life as a stewardship and work as a vocation."
"In any field, a professor could be in a position to advise students
vocationally," Bennighof noted. "You could be a math student at Baylor
and a committed Christian, and you could come to your math professor
and say, 'How can I be a Christian and a mathematician and not be on
the mission field?' So it's important for the professor to have enough
of a sense of what they are doing as a vocation to address that—not
necessarily to convince the student to become a math professor, but to
be able to see what they are doing in the context of their faith."
To what extent a faculty member at Baylor brings his or her faith into
the classroom is an individual matter, according to the provost’s
office. In some cases, it's obviously more pertinent than others, the
provost said, but you might be surprised.
In addition to serving as provost, Davis is also a professor of
accounting in the business school, where she began teaching in 1992.
And there are certainly things about accounting that have nothing to do
with faith. "The debits are always going to be on the left, regardless
of your worldview," Davis noted. "There are a lot of rules to
accounting, but if accounting could be strictly reduced to rules, then
you wouldn't need accountants. A lot of accounting has to do with
judgment, and some of those judgments certainly are based on who you
are and what you believe."
Business school dean Maness said, "We like ethics to be spread across
the curriculum rather than it being expected that it would be covered
in a required course." In fact, the business school does not have a
required course in ethics, although several departments do have a
requirement. "The idea is that if everyone thinks there is a required
course, then they won't take the same responsibility for it," he
explained.
There might be more time dedicated to ethics in a class on leadership
or management than there is in statistics, Maness said, but students
should always be exposed to pertinent ethics information. In addition,
there are upper-level electives in Christian ethics and principled
leadership that are available to business students.
But if the administrators of the School of Business are expecting
ethics curriculum from professors, then who is training the professors?
One person who is facilitating ethics training and faith-and-learning
know-how is Dr. Mitch Neubert, holder of the Chavanne Chair of
Christian Ethics in Business and professor of management development.
"I coordinate all activities related to ethics," Neubert said, "and I
like to talk about ethics not just as the idea of avoiding wrong and
trying to stay out of jail, but it's this idea of also doing good."
Neubert said he is inspired by Scripture. "There's a passage out of
Isaiah that says stop doing wrong and start doing good, and I use that
as kind of a way to broaden this umbrella in what I talk about
regarding ethics."
On an ongoing basis, Neubert—along with Dr. Jeff Tanner, associate dean
for research and faculty development—tries to supply plenty of
opportunities for faculty who feel like they need information about how
to integrate ethics and faith into their curriculum. "No one should
feel like it's someone else's responsibility to talk about ethics," he
said. "Everyone should talk about how ethics affects their particular
discipline."
In cooperation with the dean, Neubert hosts a discussion group each
semester for about fifteen faculty members from a variety of
disciplines within the school. "We’ll primarily talk about ethics, but
also about integrating faith perspectives into that and about how you
do that at Baylor. We've done these for a number of years, and the hope
is that over time, everyone will have a chance to be in those
discussion groups."
Faculty are not required to teach any specific amount of hours of
ethics, Neubert said. "It's really under the control of the faculty;
it's not something that I enforce or monitor."
Neubert said he thinks the business school is doing a good job of
teaching ethics to students and providing student-centered programming.
He believes that his next step is to expand offerings to faculty "to
see if somehow I can be a better resource to people about how they can
integrate faith in their teaching and in their research, too."
Each year, the business school hosts an ethics forum, and Neubert has
expanded it under his watch. "It's become much more than a speaker and
a luncheon," he said. "We now have several competitions for students
that challenge them to experience the process of trying to put their
values and faith into practice in making ethical decisions."
One of them is an ethics "slam" competition for the one thousand
freshmen in the "Introduction to Business" class. The students are
faced with everyday issues such as cheating off someone's test,
plagiarizing, or responding to a friend who asks for a test question.
The students write a response, and then the best responses are advanced
to a live competition. "We don't require or expect that all of our
students provide a faith perspective," Neubert said. "But if that's one
of the reasons for their response, then we encourage them to use their
faith values to explain that."
There's also an internal ethics case competition and a nationwide MBA
ethics competition associated with the yearly ethics conference.
Neubert's office has also sponsored speakers on Christian leadership, such as Ken Blanchett, the author of Lead Like Jesus,
and has held servant leadership seminars. "Those seminars, for both
faculty and students, are pretty explicit in terms of how to integrate
faith in how they are leading," Neubert said.
The ethics forum in the fall of 2008 was combined with the annual
symposium hosted by the Institute for Faith and Learning and was themed
"Bottom-Up Approaches to Global Poverty." Neubert said it was a good
topic for Hankamer students because "business could play a particularly
important role in stimulating economic development in poor countries.
If I have a faith that says I should be kind to my fellow man and have
a special concern for the poor, how can I do that as a business person?"
 The Big Picture
What Neubert has been doing in the business school is similar to what
the Institute for Faith and Learning (IFL) and Darin Davis (pictured at
right), who became interim director of the institute last September
after serving as associate director since his arrival at Baylor in
2006, have been doing for the campus as a whole—helping professors who
have an interest in learning how to better integrate faith and learning
in the classroom and in their research.
Like the student-life programming aimed at developing a sense of
vocation in students, many of the programs of the IFL were started with
the help of grant money from the Lilly Endowment. Now that the grant’s
time frame is complete, the IFL will apply to the university for
program funding. A new entity, the Academy for Teaching and Learning,
which was established last year to provide professional development in
teaching, may also begin providing help to faculty members who want to
integrate faith in the classroom, according to the provost's office.
In addition to the IFL's annual fall symposium, which draws hundreds of
participants, the institute also co-directs a medical ethics conference
each year, sponsors a retreat for new faculty, hosts reading groups
each spring on faith and learning topics, provides "Vocation and
Faculty Formation Grants" for faculty to do research or attend
conferences on faith topics, and has provided one-time grants to
faculty to pay dues in faith-based academic organizations.
The IFL also sponsors the Crane Scholars Program, an initiative for
academically excellent undergraduates interested in the connections
between faith, learning, and vocation. This program recruits faculty to
mentor students who have an interest in academic careers, aiming to
cultivate a new generation of Christian scholars. Students participate
during their sophomore, junior, and senior years and are involved in
academic presentations, discussions of readings that are hosted in the
homes of faculty members, and a yearly retreat. Each year some of the
students travel to an academic conference. This past fall, fourteen
Crane Scholars went to the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture’s
annual conference.
Research grants provided by the IFL recently have included one for
religion professors to lead a seminar on vocation for ministry students
and a grant to send a professor in the Honors College to a workshop on
Bible for Victorians and complete a monograph about Victorian parables.
Another Honors College professor attended two conferences to study
theology and vocation. A teacher of foreign language was sent to a
conference of the North American Christian Foreign Language
Association, where she presented a paper, and a philosophy professor
presented a paper at the conference of the Baptist Association of
Philosophy Teachers.
None of the programs of the IFL are required for faculty or staff, Darin Davis told the Line,
and the approach is simply one of providing enrichment and
encouragement. "All our programs are offered by way of encouragement,"
Davis said. "So many faculty are trained at large research universities
where matters of faith receive little attention as connected to the
academic life. Considering how faith can inform teaching and
scholarship can be quite new for some of them."
While faculty may choose whether they will participate in
university-sponsored faith-and-learning activities, Baylor's provost
said, they can also raise or entertain matters from a faith perspective
in class. "Delicate topics are bound to come up in certain academic
contexts," Davis observed. She said Baylor professors are free to cover
all subject matter relevant to their disciplines, even in dealing with
issues such as abortion, stem cell research, evolution, or
homosexuality.
"When you talk about such issues, there's going to be a scientific
perspective," she said. "But there will also be ethical issues and a
Christian worldview which Baylor faculty are able to raise in the
discussion." Davis added, "If we don't handle these issues here, in an
environment where students are free to ask questions without ridicule,
they will not be armed as they need to be to face these issues in the
world."
Faculty Focus
One need look no further than Baylor's many official publications and
press releases to see numerous examples of faculty members who are
directly combining faith with their academic pursuits. The Baylor Line
has published stories on a poverty initiative in the School of Social
Work, a researcher of gospel music, and the work of Baylor's Institute
for Studies in Religion—just in the past few issues. The university's
publications and press releases detail faculty projects such as
research on volunteerism and faith development, grants for studies at
churches, a nationwide survey on religious practices and opinions,
seminars on Christian music, and nursing initiatives to take health
care to underserved foreign countries. Baylor professors are being
recognized nationwide with religious awards, such as the Christianity Today Book Awards, which honored three Baylor professors’ publications last year.
 But
not all faculty research needs to be explicitly Christian to reflect
Christian values, said Master Teacher and longtime professor of
philosophy Dr. Robert Baird (pictured at right). Faith informing a
faculty member's professional life need not involve doing research on a
religious topic or trying to relate every classroom subject to the
Christian worldview, he said.
Baird, a 1959 Baylor graduate who earned a master's degree in
philosophy at Baylor in 1961, later joined the faculty when Abner
McCall was Baylor president. Baird recalled, "I can't tell you how many
times I heard Abner McCall say it: 'Part of what it means to be a
Christian university is that we treat one another with dignity and
respect. That's our Christian obligation.' That was his repeated
emphasis to those of us on the faculty in his day."
Baird, who served as chair of the philosophy department from 1987 to
2005, added that faculty members have an obligation "in our various
ways to communicate to students our belief that the mind is one of
God's greatest gifts and that we are thus obligated to use our minds in
disciplined and creative ways."
But Baird said that, several years ago, he became concerned that all
prospective faculty members were being led to believe that their
research must focus on some intersection between faith and their
discipline. "To require such a professional integration of faith and
one's discipline of every faculty member would be too restrictive," he
said. "Such a direction was sometimes reflected in the questions put to
potential faculty members." He said he became aware of those questions
in conversations with administrators, departmental chairs, and other
faculty.
"I was concerned that the integration agenda not be expressed in a way
that precluded our hiring individuals who could come here, serve their
disciplines well, serve our students well, and thereby serve Baylor
well, but who were not particularly interested in integrating faith in
their research," Baird said. "Such integration of faith and one's
discipline can be done in ways that are intellectually rigorous and
thus academically admirable, but that is a special calling, which I
don't think should be expected of all Baylor faculty."
He also said that the emphasis on faith and learning should not be
understood as something new at Baylor. "From the time I came to Baylor
as an undergraduate in the 1950s, that has always been a part of Baylor
life," he said.
Baird said he has had a positive response to Baylor's most recent
efforts in the arena of faith and learning. "I think Baylor ought to
provide unique opportunities for faculty who are professionally
interested in integrating their Christian worldview and their
discipline," he said. "That can be valuable for the individual, for
Baylor, and for the Christian community at large. It is also valuable
for the broader academic community by contributing to the diversity and
pluralism of higher education."
A newer faculty member, Dr. Lori Elmore Baker, is a good example of
what Baird is talking about—a faculty member putting faith into
practice but not necessarily putting it into her research per se.
A 1993 Baylor graduate who earned an MA in anthropology in 1994, Baker
was familiar with Baylor's religious affiliation when she came to
interview for a job in 2000. But she was a little bit apprehensive
about whether she would be expected to present religious views about
topics like evolution, which she covers in anthropology classes.
"They said they expected me to cover evolution in anthropology," she
said. "Their primary concern was about how I would help students
understand and reconcile science with their religious beliefs. They
wanted to make sure I would be sensitive and caring to students when
they heard things that would be controversial or contrary to their
religious beliefs."
Baker also said she was sold on Baylor because the university was
willing to support her new research project—collecting DNA samples from
the bodies of illegal immigrants who had died and identifying the
remains through matching them with family DNA. "It was kind of on the
edge for a university to support that kind of research, because it had
a risk of not having any academic output for a long time," Baker said.
But Baker's work has already produced results, with nearly seventy
individuals being identified. Compare that with the country’s missing
persons database, which had identified about a half a dozen people the
last time Baker checked, and you can see the impact.
While her research is not about religion, Baker said that it is very
much directed by her faith. "My primary discipline is ancient DNA and
trying to resurrect ancient societies through research," she said.
"While I find that fascinating—and so do ten other people in the
world—when I do human rights work, I feel like I can make a
contribution to people's lives. It feels like I'm doing something that
is meaningful and that can directly affect someone who is living today."
Baker first became involved in this kind of forensic research when DNA
labs, which were ill equipped for working with old DNA, would call for
help with immigrant remains. "I'm good at getting DNA out of something
that is three thousand years old, so getting DNA out of something that
is three years old was not that challenging," she said. In the
meantime, "I realized that it was fulfilling and that it was something
God wanted me to do. I can't say that I love doing it, because I don't;
it is sad."
But Baker continues because it's an important thing for her to do with her God-given talents, she said.
In addition, she has been exercising her faith by serving as a leader
for the Crane Scholars Program of the Institute for Faith and Learning,
working with students who want to be academicians. "I don't usually
have the opportunity to think about spirituality with students,"” she
said. "In my courses, we don't analyze St. Augustine; we talk about
science. So this has been a different experience to read philosophy and
discuss it with these students. They are so articulate, directed, and
aware. It is amazing that this group has brought them together and
allowed them to meet with others who are leaders in spirituality and
religion."
Dr. Dave Jortner is an even newer faculty member, starting at Baylor
last fall. Jortner holds a tenure-track position in the theater
department, while his wife is a lecturer in English. Like Baker,
Jortner found Baylor's approach to religion to be a healthy one,
offering opportunity but not coercion. And that was especially
important to Jortner, since he is one of Baylor's few Jewish faculty
members.
"If this had been Liberty University, I would not have come," he said,
"because Liberty is doctrinal and not interested in inquiry. And I say
that with knowledge because I grew up close to Liberty."
Yes, Jortner admitted, he had a few "reservations" before interviewing
at Baylor, but they were quickly put to rest. "I was very touched by
their making sure that I was comfortable here," he said. "But I think
that what people don't understand is that, when you grow up Jewish in
this country—anywhere outside of New York—you grow up in a Christian
world. At Baylor, people are just more open about it."
Jortner grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, where his father still teaches
at Virginia Tech. While there are more Jewish faculty members there, he
said, the Jewish life in the community is richer in Waco, where there
are two synagogues, rather than just one. "Any reservations I may have
had are by now almost completely gone," he said.
Jortner was warned that students might try to convert him, but it
hasn't happened yet, he said. "I was drawn here by the department and
the supportive learning environment for students here, and both the
faculty and students here are incredible," he said.
Jortner's academic specialty and research focus is on twentieth-century
Japanese theater, and he said his faith informs his teaching in a
philosophical way.
"In the Jewish faith, there is a real tradition of scholarly inquiry,"
he said. "There is almost as much of a sense of discussion as of a
sermon. We are encouraged to talk about theological issues and to argue
and discuss vigorously. That sense of inquiry certainly spills over
into my professional life."
Secondly, he said, "The Jewish faith has a long history of the
performing arts as celebratory, as a way of celebrating divinity. I see
theater as my way to give back to the world, to create a little bit of
beauty."
While theater may not sound religious to most people, Jortner sees a
connection. "I think theater and religion are close," he said. "In
theater there is the idea of the discipline as a way to explore human
nature and questions of existence."
As a person of faith, Jortner said, he appreciates being at a place
where there is a "real discussion" of faith and faith practices.
Taking Advantage
Providing that kind of open discussion is something that administrators
see as a big advantage for Baylor on the national educational scene.
Davis at the IFL said that he sees the institute’s role as pivotal in
helping Baylor keep that edge. "I think of us as helping Baylor fulfill
its promise. And the promise is two pronged—to be both academically
excellent and to affirm and deepen the university's Christian and
Baptist identity. To help Baylor do those two things at once is our
work."
Although those two goals are an unusual combination in higher
education, Davis said the two should not conflict. "We are called as
Christians to fully exercise our intellectual capacities; we're called
to love God with our whole mind," he said. "So what we want to do is
foster the kind of conversations and initiatives that would enable
faculty and staff and students to see the life of the mind and the life
of faith as united."
Davis said that, as a student at the University of Texas, he was
encouraged to view scholarly inquiry as seeking the ideal of scientific
objectivity. "But we ask questions from our own place in the world;
there is no view from nowhere," he said. "The risk of trying to step
outside ourselves in this way is that faith commitments invariably get
pushed to the side."
Davis said, "Baylor is uniquely situated to transform the lives of
students intellectually, morally, and spiritually. This is the calling
of a lifetime for faculty and staff, and it is the reason that so many
students come here. They're looking for a place where faith truly
matters."
Meg Cullar is news editor of the Baylor Line.
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