Proposed Final Draft
Envisioning Our Future
Department of Educational Administration
School of Education, Baylor University
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Undergraduates
o Priorities and partnerships
 Continue and increase student life and academic affairs partnerships (Ex:
Faculty-in-residence, graduate assistantships)
 Add faculty involvement in student life to the reward structure for
faculty
 Expand undergraduate involvement and engagement through volunteer
activities serving in the local community
 Create a university-wide award/scholarship for voluntary service
(non-paid, not for course credit)
 Revise general education in light of a vision of human flourishing
 Focus on creating good human beings vs. just a sampling of
knowledge
 Opportunities for faculty development with the purpose to better equip
faculty to promote human development and flourishing in their courses
 More venues for faculty to come together to discuss the
improvement of teaching
 Possible role for the Academy for Teaching & Learning
o Servant leaders
 Intentionally connect leadership and service in the community
 Connect identity, calling, mission, and service
 Emphasis on identity development with student engagement in the
community
 Minor (and possibly a major) in leadership, helping undergrads develop a
robust concept of student leadership that is academic in nature and that
incorporates students’ vocations
 Refocusing from a money-making career to a life of contribution
 Faculty encouraged to continue to model servant and relational leadership
o Integration of faith and learning
 Provide capstone courses within majors that promotes integration of faith
and learning
 Or a true, first-year seminar course (3-hours) that promotes
integration of faith and learning in the first year
 Continue to emphasize chapel (and encourage alternative chapel credit
through student-initiated proposals, such as mission trips, campus Bible
studies, etc.)
o Scholarly productivity and the undergraduate experience
 Concern about online courses, dual-credit courses, transfer credits, AP
credits, etc. that do NOT prepare students for college (students are not
perceived to have the competencies one would expect from such credits)
 Limits ability to give students a full Baylor education (a
perspective and purpose that comes from the Baylor experience)
Proposed Final Draft
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Fully support the stated goals of excellent teaching through financial
incentives and in the reward/promotion/tenure structure
 How are we rewarding excellent teaching?
o Controlling costs
 Concern about administrative overloading in the support structure
 Danger of overstaffing with administrators
 Look at administrative cost metrics in comparison to other universities
 Emphasize growing endowment
 Concern about percentage of alumni who give back to Baylor
 Encouraging senior level administrators to teach one course per year
Graduate students
o Expectations
 Each department should create (in writing) expectations for presentations,
publications, internships, and teaching
o Integration and mentorship
 Develop on-campus housing options for graduate students who only attend
in the summer (for special distance learning programs at Baylor)
 Higher Education & Student Affairs as a model…
 HESA Graduate Student Association
 Apprenticeships/assistantships involving work with undergrads
 Encourage professional mentorship for grad students
 Encourage internships with hands-on experience
 Encourage professional development events and conferences cocoordinated by graduate students
 Emphasize integration of faith and learning at the graduate level
o First-rate?
 High faculty-student interaction
 Marketable (prestige and reputation)
 Innovative curriculum
 High relevance in what is offered
 Depends upon audience (academy, church, students)
 All three should be considered
 Emphasis on human flourishing (soul as well as mind)
 Help students see life as a stewardship and vocation as a calling
 High academic standards
 High admission standards
 Pursue both the integration of faith and learning and academic excellence
o Preparation for leadership
 Having Baylor take seriously the notion of leadership at the graduate level
Scholarly productivity
o Global influence
 Having Baylor be a leader among Christian institutions in the world,
developing connections and partnerships with these institutions
o Science, economy, technology
 Produce top scholars who are tackling these issues
 Initiate more symposia and colloquia around these topics
Proposed Final Draft
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Reward work in these areas beyond publications (testifying before
governing bodies, work with think tanks, etc.)
o Academic disciplines with differential advantage
 Integration of faith and learning
 Christian higher education
 There is a lack of academic leadership and scholarship regarding home
schooling and private schooling
 Encourage each academic area to identify a differential advantage
Christian commitment
o Baptist tradition
 Baylor as a place that welcomes many points of perspective within the
Christian faith while also honoring the Baptist tradition and history of the
campus
o Essential components
 Major tenets of the Baptist faith (sufficiency of the scriptures, priesthood
of the believer, separation of church and state, autonomy of the local
church, religious freedom for all)
o Baptist governance
 Christian leadership should be defined by servant leadership and the
example of Christ
 Analyzing whether our policies and practices reflect the promotion of a
just society found in the Christian faith
 Emphasize the importance of regent leadership in promotion and
sustenance of the Christian/Baptist faith
o Scholarship
 Two pieces: critique of our fallen world with a prescription of what God
desires for mankind
 Calling to produce scholarship (creation and redemption of scholars and
scholarship) that promotes social justice
o Faith and learning
 Integration of faith, learning, and the learner
 The Christian perspective should be given a place in academic
conversations
 Two questions:
 Should our faculty have to be Christians?
 If so, how do we discern if they are Christians?
Community
o Distinctive community culture
 To retain distinctive community (culture) that is Baylor, including a
reputation as a university that emphasizes teaching, traditions, ethics,
collegiality, and that maintains a beautiful physical campus
o Diversification of our community
 Awareness of others’ needs
 Orientation to culture of the university
o Extension of culture of caring:
Proposed Final Draft
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Community engagement first of all must be to seek to serve the good of
Waco over the good of Baylor, even if we expect benefits for our students,
etc.
We need to pursue service in a way that creates empathy, moral courage,
and a commitment to service that empowers the community, rather than
creating dependency on Baylor.
Continue partnerships with other colleges & community organizations
(such as Steppin’ Out)
Require service-learning opportunities in all schools and departments
Increase partnership with Mission Waco to serve Waco’s poor and
homeless
Extension of caring nationally and internationally, such as visits, to
Baylor, and in the nation and abroad and hosting
state/national/international symposiums/events on campus