Foundational Pillars

The six pillars presented here are foundational to the College of Arts & Sciences and Baylor University. The pillars articulate how we educate students, conduct research, support the global experience, view diversity as a strength, and stand on Christian commitments at the core of all that we do. The pillars are what make us unique in the world of higher education and cannot be negotiated. Yet, these pillars are not static; they must be strategically strengthened and refined to fulfill the aspirations of Baylor in Deeds. Each department and program in Arts & Sciences can and must contribute to this critical task in its own way during the next five years.

Pillar 1: Transformational Education

As Baylor University’s largest academic unit, the College of Arts & Sciences maintains an enduring commitment to educational experiences that transform both our students and our world. We commit deeply to the instruction, mentorship, and formation of our students so they may discover meaning, cultivate character, and devote themselves to lives of purpose. In equal measure, we pledge our efforts to education that transforms the world around us by: coalescing knowledge toward healing and redemption; promoting the common good; offering goodness, truth, wisdom, and beauty to spaces too often starved of them; and attentiveness to care for God’s creation. As its commitment to the mission of Baylor University, the College of Arts & Sciences will:

Goal 1: Continue to implement the five-year Strategic Enrollment Management plan for the purpose of improving recruitment, retention and graduation rates.

Goal 2: Create curricular tracks that supplement existing coursework with practical experiences to enhance value, improve affordability, and equip students for the competitive marketplaces of employment and graduate study. To bridge the classroom to the world beyond will require new infrastructure to support work-immersion learning experiences such as co-ops and internships, as well as other forms of engaged and experiential learning that prepare students for global citizenship, cross-cultural exchange, research immersion, civic leadership, and professional development.

Goal 3: Create more interdisciplinary majors and minors and graduate concentrations in emerging areas such as Ethics and the History of Medicine, and promote the implementation of recently approved minors such as Ethnic Studies.

Goal 4: Expand lifelong learning opportunities and engagement for alumni and community partners. Programming may include enhanced mentorship and professional development partnerships between students and alumni, course enrollment opportunities for non-degree-seeking alumni and community partners, and new degree programs and certifications.

Goal 5: Foregrounding Human-centered Learning and Communication by developing and enhancing curricular opportunities in written communication, oral discourse, artistic expression, and cross-cultural engagement that empower students and faculty to deeply consider human nature and promote the common good.

Pillar 2: Research Excellence

The designation of Baylor as a Carnegie R1 Research University in 2021 was the realization of a decades-long vision, achieved by a concerted effort to promote impactful research. With R1 status, Baylor engages in worldwide scientific and humanistic discussions to which we bring a unique Christian perspective. Maintaining R1 status requires continued growth according to three principal criteria: research expenditures, number of doctoral graduates, and research support and infrastructure. We intend to increase future research through continued hiring of research faculty, ongoing growth of graduate programs, continued implementation of the business transformation model, and expansion of intradisciplinary collaborations among schools.

We envision that with the help of the College of Arts & Sciences, Baylor will be a leader in dynamic, cutting-edge research that addresses questions about what it means to be human in the modern age. Through an ambitious, interdisciplinary, forward-looking vision that emphasizes multiple research areas, the College of Arts & Sciences will lead in scholarly and creative research that confronts some of the most daunting challenges of our time. As part of its commitment to the research excellence of Baylor University, the College of Arts & Sciences will:

Goal 1: Increase external funding from science and humanities researchers by 50% by: hiring research-active faculty; expanding selected graduate programs; identifying research areas of high impact that promote the Baylor mission; and maintaining and improving infrastructure supporting research.

Goal 2: Develop interdisciplinary graduate programs that bridge across academic units by: expanding and supporting a materials science graduate program with the School of Engineering and Computer Science; developing a data sciences graduate program with the School of Engineering and Computer Science and Hankamer School of Business; strengthening relations in cancer research with Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences; reviewing other possible graduate programs; and increasing doctoral production across select disciplines. The humanities and social sciences will build on their current granting and foundational successes to continue to contribute to the R1 enterprise through both doctoral student graduation rates and research.

Pillar 3: Global Engagement

During the past decade, Baylor University has made strides toward becoming a global-facing university, with growth in key areas such as study abroad, international student and faculty recruitment, mission programs, collaborative online international learning (COIL), and global research collaborations. The Center for Global Engagement has led University internationalization efforts, especially those seeking to prepare our students to lead and serve in the diverse and multicultural world of the 21st century.

We seek a robust understanding of our present global context within the entire range of College of Arts & Sciences disciplines. We envision collaborating with Christian colleagues and institutions around the world, working alongside people of goodwill in pursuit of the flourishing of all creation through our teaching, mentoring, programming, performance, and research. As its commitment to global engagement on behalf of Baylor University, the College of Arts & Sciences will:

Goal 1: Build upon our tradition of excellence in undergraduate and graduate education by cultivating a globally engaged student body through teaching, research, and programming that contributes to the internationalization of the College of Arts & Sciences.

Goal 2: Partner with the Center for Global Engagement and the Office of Engaged Learning to increase student participation in intercultural education, such as study abroad, competitive major scholarships like the Fulbright, and global undergraduate research.

Goal 3: Build global connections through faculty exchange programs and speaker series with important global partners and through global research networks in fields especially prioritized within Baylor in Deeds.

Pillar 4: Faculty Development

We recognize that faculty are the cornerstone of the scholarly and curricular work we do in the College of Arts & Sciences. Thus, a strong, vibrant and distinctive faculty who reflect all God's people will continue to make our scholarship, teaching, and mentoring dynamic in the College of Arts & Sciences. The students we serve come from a cross-section of our local, regional, and national communities, as well as international students who remind us how interconnected we are in this global world.

Our Christian mission requires us to foster a Christian community environment where faculty can thrive and where research and teaching are supported and promoted. We pledge to help foster environments where all students' academic success and socio-professional interactions with faculty, staff, and fellow students are aligned with the University's core commitment to educate students in a Christian environment where respect for all of God's people is practiced.

As part of its commitment to be a place where our vibrant and distinctive faculty and students at Baylor University can thrive, the College of Arts & Sciences will:

Goal 1: Help faculty remain on the cutting edge of research in their disciplines with additional infrastructure support. The sciences will require adequate research equipment and space, and technological and staff support, while the humanities will require more technological support and access to new kinds of information to address important problems of the day.

Goal 2: Help faculty access new materials for teaching as we create more programs, certificates, majors, and minors as disciplinary content broadens.

Goal 3: Create opportunities for professional development of faculty for attending conferences, seminars and symposiums, but also by sharing their knowledge on campus and throughout the greater Waco community.

Pillar 5: Faithful Stewardship

As a faithful steward of its resources, the College of Arts & Sciences will develop a financial model to fund and sustain its strategic plan in the coming five years. The goal is to sustain current operations, while building for the future as a highly ranked Christian research university, by judiciously securing the resources needed to fund the new College of Arts & Sciences five-year strategic plan. The allocation of discretionary funds generated from graduate professional programs, annual giving, and the granting enterprise will be prioritized towards initiatives that will fulfill our most pressing strategic needs. The development of a comprehensive philanthropic plan is necessary to target strategic initiatives suitable for fundraising activities. It is only then that accessing University resources is requested for significant interdisciplinary projects, or when facilities are in need of upgrades.

The College of Arts & Sciences budget pro forma will project revenues and expenditures across five years by the A&S financial team with these goals in mind:

Goal 1: Estimate resource needs for each of the key strategic areas sanctioned in the new plan.

Goal 2: Identify allocations to the budget pro forma from existing discretionary accounts, while securing reserves for future contingencies.

Goal 3: The A&S development team recommends which resource needs to target through philanthropy, including input from the A&S Board of Advocates.

Goal 4: Recommend which part of the budget pro forma should be submitted to the Office of the Provost for financial support.

Pillar 6: Christian Commitment

The College of Arts & Sciences is deeply committed to the Christian tradition. This breadth and depth reflects tremendous diversity, an abiding commitment to introspection and exploration, and a shared embracing of humility and empathy as we seek to learn, support, and draw our students into the work God is doing in the world today. In doing so, we seek to model not merely civil discourse, but also love, hospitality, and friendship with people and communities that may have different experiences, traditions, and cultures than our own. Arts & Sciences embodies this treasured environment in its cultivation of a community of Christian scholars, in its commitment to the transformation of students, faculty, and staff, in its focus on scholarship in all fields, including religion, and in its historic rootedness in Baptist principles and praxis.

The College of Arts & Sciences contributes uniquely to Baylor’s Christian identity in several important ways: we provide virtually all Baylor undergraduates with a foundational orientation to Christianity through the Christian Scriptures and Christian Heritage common core courses; we have many departments in the humanities and social sciences with graduate programs that focus specifically on religion, several of which rank among the best in the country; we have faculty that edit academic journals devoted to religion and the intersection of Christianity and society; we have an active ministry guidance program in the Department of Religion that provides students with a range of ministry internships; and we have a robustly ecumenical group of religion scholars with diverse research emphases, including those that attend to the historical and continued relevance of Baylor’s Baptist heritage and those oriented toward aspects of other traditions within Christianity.

In its commitment to be the Baylor University that the world needs, the College of Arts & Sciences will:

Goal 1: Encourage global leadership in the academic study of Baptist life and thought by ensuring that students have diverse opportunities to learn about and critically engage the Baptist tradition as a living and global faith, and by encouraging research that enlivens Baylor’s Baptist heritage in its local, regional, and global context.

Goal 2: Provide students with a rich understanding of the ecumenical Christian tradition’s identity, global presence, and lived conviction to ground their future “worldwide leadership and service” in all disciplines through the core curriculum and a range of curricular and co-curricular programming.

Goal 3: Provide resources for students and faculty to cultivate intercultural and interreligious understanding and skill development so that they are prepared to work alongside people of other faiths constructively as they seek to address society’s greatest challenges.